pixelstuff

It probably wouldn't be feasible to outlaw proprietary file formats. You might be able to demand that they are documented, but there would still be situations where a file contains raw data and depends on a custom module or plugin for decoding. Then you could quickly run into proprietary or copyright issues around knowing how that plugin is supposed to display that data.

If worse comes to worse, Windows Paint has layers now. The competition is ramping up!

What they don't mention there are modern photo editor features like font and vector layers or live filters.

Hopefully better different and worth the upgrade.

I wouldn't bet on that. I would guess it will be like the Stock window with Pixabay and Pexels content, possibly expandable, or as an extra tab in the New Document dialog. Hopefully, unlike what Microsoft is doing recently with Windows Pro, Canva realizes professional apps shouldn't do things which might be distracting if the user isn't requesting it. Out of sight and out of mind, but also easy to access if needed.

Do you have an example of a serious forum from another company?

I think in most scenarios the company website contains mostly questions focused on specific tools in their specific apps or bugs in their software. When people are asking general questions about industry practices they go to general forums that are not tied to a specific company. Because like R C-R suggested, unless you are writing a tutorial or collaborating on a shared project, the actual tool is less important than the final product.

Obviously, high-end professionals use Adobe software, if you don't use Adobe then you are not a high-end professional. The no true Scotsman fallacy.

My guess would be that Canva is wanting to compete more directly with Adobe to some degree, but they didn't want to start from scratch. So they may be planning to beef up the current Affinity apps with connections into their cloud system, like cloud storge or seamless import of Canva templates into the Affinity apps. They may expand the professional apps beyond the three currently in production, like Lightroom or Dreamweaver clones (no telling if they want to get into video). They might even go the Microsoft path of creating desktop apps and a stripped down web based app that looks similar. Basically they are probably hoping to save time from building a professional suite from scratch and the main reason for wanting a professional suite is to go after some of Adobe's monopoly market share.

That makes me wondering if Amazon it doing targeted ads in their Prime Video service. Perhaps you hadn't previously seen Canva ads because you never searched for Canva prior to the acquisition and those new searches were somehow cross referenced to your Amazon account or IP number or whatever.

Really, if I make a suggestion and they implement the feature, the reward for me is that feature becoming a reality without having to spend thousands of dollars to build it myself.

I think the issue is that ideas just aren't worth much on their own. You need enough information about the idea to essentially become patentable. Meaning the real value of an idea is in knowing how to implement the idea. Once you have that much of the idea spelled out, then why not go ahead and patent it then sell the patent. (Because that is what patent law was designed for, protecting valuable ideas.) Saying you'd like to see a car that stays clean without ever needing a wash, isn't worth much if no one knows how to build it. However, if you can tell someone how to build such a car, that might be worth some money. And also worth patenting. Saying you want Affinity Photo to use A.I. to fill in selections with matching scenery isn't worth much. If you can tell them how to build the A.I. logic and integrate it into the U.I. that might be valuable. However there are already examples of that out in the world, so probably not too valuable. If it were really unique it would be patentable, but in this case implementation would be more like a one time labor fee kind of valuable, not a royalty per sale kind of value. Telling Affinity you want to see layer notifications for each missing font instead of a global notification that only lasts five seconds, isn't very valuable. It would be a handy feature, but 99.9% of the effort comes in developing the logic and then writing it into the proper language. Even if Affinity wanted to pay for that idea, how do you measure the value it added to the overall software package? It is one of a few thousand or more features and might not even be something most care about. Nice to have, but no one is buying the software just for that. It just seems like a nearly impossible task to place value on customer ideas that are so simple they wouldn't already qualify for a patent.

What you described is an example where the designer did all the work to make the idea from the sportswear business (a logo that communicates such and such) become a reality. Likewise Affinity is doing all the work to implement a user idea from the forums like the logo designer did. The sportwear business paid the logo designer and forum users are paying Affinity. For your parallel to match up with Affinity paying for ideas, the logo designer should be paying the sportswear business for their idea. That would be silly.

In general, ideas aren't worth much unless they also come with a blueprint on how to build them.

Serif doesn't need to make the operating system, just use the API already built in. Windows Tablets like the Surface Pro and 2-in-1s where the keyboards flip around backwards, have a desktop and tablet mode that can automatically change based on the keyboard or manually in the U.I. to trigger third party apps to adjust their interface to be touch friendly or mouse/keyboard friendly.

Let's hope Canva purchased Serif because they wanted something a lot different than what they've currently built, including the Affinity brand name.

Can you translate what it means in regular language? Aside from a bunch of unrelated idioms strung together, I couldn't figure out what it was trying to say. After reading it twice I decided someone was just playing around with an LLM.

A couple years means two years. Microsoft said they will discontinue support for MS Publisher in October 2026 and no longer include the app in their Microsoft 365 suite. It is possible the users of MS Publisher won't bother looking for something new or they'll try to cram the work into Word, but who knows. Some might be in the market for a low cost replacement.

With any luck Affinity might pick up a few new customers in a couple years when Microsoft discontinues their MS Publisher application.

Photopea is also a web app, a decade old now, but functions like a local app, just running in the browser. So having web app underpinnings won't necessarily mean it can't function like a professional desktop app.

This is basically what Google is doing with ChromeOS. They didn't come out of the gate swinging with a major effort to compete directly with Windows or MacOS, but instead found a niche and then gradually chipped away at the borders to their competitors. They are now on the verge of competing with the big boys.

It seems to me that is exactly what you want. You already have a distorted scan, you are wanting to reverse distort it basically.

That reminds me of some of the comments from the Star Citizen developers talking about how studios in different time zones does have some benefits when one team working on something finds a bug in another system, they can pass the info to the other studio on the other side of the world who works on it while everyone is asleep, then when the first team comes back into work the next day it's fixed.

Those look like they are perpendicular to me. When I drop it into Affinity Photo and pull guides out they follow along perfectly. EDIT: Wait, I zoomed in closer and see what you are talking about. The perspective tool should work fine for fixing it. You can see in the upper right corner how far I shifted the right side down, leaving a transparent area.

Take the Sonic Foundry sellout to Sony and then MAGIX. The original Sonic Foundry studio is basically the same and still developing the same set of apps. So not all mergers and buyouts result in fundamental changes to the products being offered.