Bartek

Hi @Bartek,
To me this looks like a bug, particularly as setting the left node K100 only and the other to 4C black does show a colour gradient on the gradient map dialog, and there is a somewhat similar issue logged with the CMYK sliders failing to convert to RGB correctly. I'll log this with the developers for further investigation and confirmation.

K=100 means that the black channel has 100% coverage, but for printing purposes, to get a deeper black colour, other channels can also be used. (Here's where the catch comes in because depending on the paper and ink, printers have different limits on the total ink in all channels). Affinity has no control over ink coverage, so I just want to reduce the overall amount of ink on the blacks using a gradient map. That's when I realised something was wrong with the filter.
And what you can see: the gradient has 100% coverage on every channel, while the picker shows 0 on CMY and only 100% on K. Thats mean Gradient Map does not affect object.

Hypothetically, if it were humans who wanted to train themselves to create better work & they did so by studying the work of other artists, should the studied artists get compensated for that, & if so, how?
I think this is just one of the several issues that complicate if or how AI generated content can be regulated.

Think about all those unemployed chimney sweepers who lost their jobs because you chose electric heating instead of using a fireplace.  

Once upon a time, there were attempts to destroy mechanical looms because they took away the work of weavers.
Signs of the times. The question is whether you want to fight it.

I use stock photography very often in my work (DTP, social media). From my clients' perspective, it makes no difference whether I use a purchased photo or AI-generated graphics in a designed flyer or banner. For me, it is a convenience because I gain control over the materials I use in the project.
In both cases I have to make a lot of adjustments to the images anyway, but the AI-generated images are at least more thematically in line with what I expect.
Long Live AI!

And anyway, I think it would be crucial (and perhaps offer some hope) to know how many Canva users are simultaneously using the Adobe suite. 
Because that's who Canva might be trying to fight for and that would mean it wants to continue to portray Affinity as an Adobe competitor worth switching to.
Which would mean growth and the need to keep the current buying model as an added value for those wanting to move to the Affinity environment.

Cuz our reaction was predictable.

The pledge to offer Affinity free to schools and non-profits is amazing. It will enable so many kids to learn with Affinity, and they will go on to use Affinity in their professional careers. This is something that would have been hard for a small company to offer but which the acquisition enabled. Bravo.

To followup on some of my comments yesterday, we are today enshrining our commitment to the Affinity community in 4 pledges made by the Affinity and Canva teams.
You can read about them here.

We do truly believe the coming together of Affinity and Canva is only going to be a good thing for our customers, staff and the development of our apps. We very much hope you will all continue to be with us on this journey.
All the best,
Ash

"Nobody wants to wake up to the news I woke up to this morning, nobody."
Anyway, like many of you, I'm feeling very uncertain about the future of Affinity's viability. But I'd like to avoid catastrophizing by saying that Affintiy will go full-subscription in the future. We cannot possibly know that. Even Microsoft still offers a one-time purchase for its core Office apps, and there's no reason that Canva/Serif couldn't offer something similar. Maybe a subscription add-on for cloud-based storage and AI functionality.
EDIT: What did I say? 👏
The thing that gives me the greatest pause here is that selling to Canva is antithetical to what this community stands for and why we use Affinity, a bit like a taxi service being purchased by Uber. Serif was always able to offer a professional suite of apps for start-ups, independent artists, hobbyists, and professionals in a way that Adobe could not. It filled a major gap in the market, as Adobe is willfully anti-customer because they know they were the only game in town and they know that the sales of CS are not what keeps their company afloat. Serif put the customer in the driver's seat and earned its small-but-mighty community through word of mouth, transparency, and good faith.
You cannot bottle that.
Canva's goal, on the other hand, is to make the market even tougher for these same groups of people by essentially cutting the designer out, even going so far as to entirely replace us with machine learning. These two communities are oil and water, and I don't see how this merger can be beneficial to us, in this comparison, the "little guy."
It feels a bit like our divorced dad is taking our puppy and giving it to his new family.
I wish people were being kinder to Ash, as this community has been pretty nasty to him since V2 came out, and it's never sat right with me.

No.   When they push out a subscription model to the millions of Canva users, it will have two effects,
1 They will gain more Canva users than affinity users they loose. So Canva won't care about the original Affinity users.
2 Affinity/Serif will become Canva/amateur programs and move out of the pro/semi-pro market they were gaining ground in to stay firmly in the highly unprofessional market home user market.  
(and 3 Adobe will breathe a sigh of relief. )
It will be interesting to read the history of Serif /Affinity on Wikipedia in a year or two.
 
As suggested by others, I have now adopted the Angry Cat Avatar as a protest about all this.
That is why there are more angry cat avatars in this thread, I recommend others follow suite.
 

Ouch... 
Today morning i had mixed feelings. Now, in the evening, after reading your comments, I am certainly already feeling severely depressed. And I think after I'm about to pour my thoughts into this commentary it may be even worse.
Yes, the scenario I have in my mind does not offer great prospects of a bright future for us and the hopes we had for Affinity. For one simple reason: we don't represent any value to Canva. Canva doesn't need aspiring designers, it needs the gray masses (since they themselves declare that they are democratizing design) and Affinity probably will serve them at most as a substructure to perform specific tasks for their own platform (e.g., modifying existing templates for corporate clients intrinsic needs). 
No one will cry for us, we'll be able to go back to Adobe (since you'll have to pay every month anyway), or wherever anyone wants. 
In conclusion, I would like to quote my text, which was supposed to appear as a response to the recent "affinitystories" campaign. I didn't send it for some reasons, but here and now I can paste it as a sad summary of today:
Tonight, all this seems to be a thing of the past. 
Or will there be another morning for us?
Greetings and goodnight to old friends from England and "g'day" to our new friends from Australia (it's probably already the right time for "good morning" for them)?

Canva itself makes a distinction on their page, saying:
"While our last decade at Canva has focused heavily on the 99% of knowledge workers without design training, truly empowering the world to design includes empowering professional designers too."
Thats why they bought Affinity in a first place. To have something for professionals.
Well, absolutely. Just like not everybody makes Citizen Kane - many more just make idiotic videos for TikTok. Its up to you what work you would rather do. Youre into making garbage - certainly there are tools for it too.
 
It doesnt have to be belittled. It is what it is. Its simply stating a fact. Fact that Canva recognizes as well. I know now in fashion is not to hurt anybodys feelings but reality is - you are either professional or you are not. I am riding a bike occasionally but I am not arguing with professional cyclists that my ride to shop is just as valid as Tour de France because... many more people is riding to shops.. Or something. 🤣

Ouch... 
Today morning i had mixed feelings. Now, in the evening, after reading your comments, I am certainly already feeling severely depressed. And I think after I'm about to pour my thoughts into this commentary it may be even worse.
Yes, the scenario I have in my mind does not offer great prospects of a bright future for us and the hopes we had for Affinity. For one simple reason: we don't represent any value to Canva. Canva doesn't need aspiring designers, it needs the gray masses (since they themselves declare that they are democratizing design) and Affinity probably will serve them at most as a substructure to perform specific tasks for their own platform (e.g., modifying existing templates for corporate clients intrinsic needs). 
No one will cry for us, we'll be able to go back to Adobe (since you'll have to pay every month anyway), or wherever anyone wants. 
In conclusion, I would like to quote my text, which was supposed to appear as a response to the recent "affinitystories" campaign. I didn't send it for some reasons, but here and now I can paste it as a sad summary of today:
Tonight, all this seems to be a thing of the past. 
Or will there be another morning for us?
Greetings and goodnight to old friends from England and "g'day" to our new friends from Australia (it's probably already the right time for "good morning" for them)?

What dark and depressing news to start the day.
As one who *still* uses CS6 professionally, I added the Affinity line to my arsenal two and half years ago, and now confident with using it, just made my first purchase of an add-on last week, now this WTF "announcement" feels like a stab in the back, just like Adobe back in '13.
When Cinema 4D went sub only, I went all in on Blender and haven't looked back, and don't regret it. (still smarting from the loss of both Allegorithmic and Pixologic, both their "announcements" mirror this one.)
Looks like it's time to leverage my perpetual licensed version of Clip Studio Paint EX and finally go all in on Krita.
So thankful for my DaVinci Resolve and Fusion perpetual licenses. Too bad this "announcement" wasn't for Serif being acquired by Blackmagic Design (another Australian company), *that* would have really felt like a slap in the face to Adobe!
So the countdown to being locked behind a subscription only wall begins today, such sad, troubling and extremely aggravating news. Will continue to shout at the "cloud" -- "I am not a number, I am a free man!"
C'est la vie, RIP Affinity, you finally got your payday...

Adobe will be delighted. When Affinity goes to a subscription model, as it surely will, the biggest threat to Adobe is eliminated.

Congrats on finally getting that payday for all your hard work.
However, it's painfully obvious from your overall letter, your vague praise for Canva's "cloud" expertise & understated, terse comment on how current users were safe through V2 & will receive updates to it (for a while, anyway), that all future true affinity will be lost as Affinity programs shift to a subscription model asap. We will assume that if there were to be a stand-alone V3, you'd have clearly mentioned it. You didn't, so there won't be.
Sadly & clearly, V2 is the end of the line. From here on, any V3+ will clearly consist of locked-chain accts, which if they were only more expensive would be hard enough, but dealable. But that insidious model also impacts our control over our creative work going forward. When we later lose our subscription, as with any subscription model, we lose our access to all our files on that platform henceforth. All of our work is then held hostage.
This also starts the process of Affinity being tossed from corporate hand to corporate hand as yet another asset, down along the M&A rabbit hole, which is intolerable for a high-quality, formerly user-focused product. I've worked for a number of such firms w/ world-class products, and seen the name (unattached now from its former quality product) tossed from entity to entity, slapped on any half-hearted product, and it is heartbreaking. Large firms may feel comfortable with all that, as they're not focusing on changing anything they do with their files anytime soon. However, this fully dismisses independent users & dumps us all off by the side of the road, as you move on, financially set.
Again, I believe none of us would begrudge you your well-earned payday. But a simple "Hey, everyone, guess what?" msg, as we're told our purchases of your product will now/soon be obsolete & we all need to begin looking elsewhere, hurts. Alas, you cannot hide that or assuage or undo that with clever marketing & decent intentions.
The one request we'd make is this: please outline exactly how long you plan to support V1 & V2, w/ updates & customer support, before it's discontinued in the full shift over to the subscription-only model. We'll assume this shift will not be entirely in your hands, so those who've believed in you over the years will need your best-faith assistance here so we can plan our workflows. We'll need some type of heads up to be able to begin the process of looking for an Affinity alternative once we lose our beloved Adobe alternative.

Well Ash, if you are going to move services within a subscription plan only, not available to a perpetual license, you cripple your software and make the perpetual version a second citizen. You're basically moving to a subscription model then and will guaranteed cease the perpetual version once enough users have given in and give you their monthly dollars.
 
 
 
As an owner of the company I'd be pleased as well. You've done well and congrats, sincerely. You built the business to what it is and worth today. But to me as a user, nah, when something like Canva buys you, I've lost all trust, it'll purely be about the shareholders and gaining users. 
I'm pretty sure all of this has been discussed when the takeover was discussed, unless you were just happy to take the money and leave the rest to them (Canva) for which of course I couldn't blame you. For whatever we all think or say, most of us would be happy to be bought out like that.
But yeah, I don't take much positive out of this and I hope you prove me wrong.
 

There are genuinely no plans for us to remove the availability of our apps to purchase as a perpetual licence. I will say it is possible in the future there may be an optional way to have them via a Canva subscription plan (which could also include other integrations with Canva / cloud services which you would not get with the perpetual version). But it’s very early days and there isn't a firm plan on that.
I honestly think you'll all be pleased with the outcome of this. With the additional financial backing we have no pressure at all to release a V3 anytime soon, so can be 100% focused on ploughing all our efforts into free V2 updates for the foreseeable future - and we've got some great updates in the works. 
Realise this announcement has come as a surprise and I understand the feeling of uncertainty which is brings, but I do think it's all very positive for the company and our customers. 

Guys? A little bit of faith in the management of Canva and Serif? Let's put it straight: at this moment Affinity is still growing and has a long path ahead of it before it reaches the goal of ACCORDING to Adobe's level. Right now the HUGE benefit to users is the purchase model and they would have to be out of their minds to change anything about it at this point.
In other words: Affinity purchase model gives too much advantage to their target users (and this is a different part of the market than Canva users) than to be so easily lost.

What I mean is that they probably understand that they didn't buy their competition, which they have to slaughter, and they didn't buy a finished product from which they will be able to profit right away only acquired a promising, growing plant, which in a while will grow to the size of a tree on which to hang a swing and only then fall from it.

Interestingly (and a bit depressing at the moment) - just as here (and on other forums) Affinity users are feeling anxious and maybe even angry, the main Canva Facebook profile shows great bursts of joy and huge streams of happy smiles and hearts! 
Yeeee...
(BTW: I wonder how we would be talking now if the situation was reversed and it was Affinity that bought Canva?)

It's all about the "retro" vibe. I grew up in the 80's, I was raised by 80's style items and by the designers of those items. So I'm just filled with that vibe and sometimes I need to express it. 
I have always admired the keyboards of the first personal computers - their texture, their shape, the way characters were applied to them. Also the tube displays and their magical glow, which no LCD screen can render, bring back good memories of distant times. Here I tried to reflect the style of those machines.
The inspiration for this drawing came from a modern calculator with round buttons, whose designer apparently took advantage of the sentiment with which people sometimes refer to objects from the past. 
#affinitydesigner #calculator #nixietube #80s

It's all about the "retro" vibe. I grew up in the 80's, I was raised by 80's style items and by the designers of those items. So I'm just filled with that vibe and sometimes I need to express it. 
I have always admired the keyboards of the first personal computers - their texture, their shape, the way characters were applied to them. Also the tube displays and their magical glow, which no LCD screen can render, bring back good memories of distant times. Here I tried to reflect the style of those machines.
The inspiration for this drawing came from a modern calculator with round buttons, whose designer apparently took advantage of the sentiment with which people sometimes refer to objects from the past. 
#affinitydesigner #calculator #nixietube #80s

This is my friend's cat Clarence. The art adorns my friend's coffee mug, T-shirt and probably several other things now too.