PaulEC

Pretty basic question (but it's a bit difficult to tell exactly what you're doing from your screen shot) is "Protect Alpha" unticked?

A couple of thoughts. Firstly, Photo is probably more comparable with Photoshop than is Designer. Personally I would recommend using both if you are comparing with Photoshop. Secondly, Serif's own videos, although not a "complete course", are a very good place to start. (They can be accessed via the "Affinity" tab at the top of this forum page, then click on "Learn".)

Copy one of the files and try changing the extension to.jpg and see if that will open.

What file type(s) were they?

Maybe a bit OT, but at the moment I'm trying to learn how to use a bit of software called Scrivener. I know someone who uses it regularly and they think it is really useful. I spent half an hour or so playing around with it and couldn't get the hang of it. It does look like it could be useful for me, if I could just get my head around it. Now my problem is, should I just give up, should I put some effort into trying to learn how to use it, or should I find a user forum for it and tell people who are already using it what a load of rubbish it is, because I don't understand it?

I must admit I've fallen foul of this several times, but I don't think it's a bug, it's "by design"! It's one of several settings in the Affinity apps that I really wish Serif would either make sticky, or have an option for the user to set the default behaviour.

I think Ray S. probably has the best solution, but here is a way using Blend Ranges, in case you want to try it. I'm assuming all the stamps are the same, or at least single colours, if not it may be a bit trickier. My_project_1_2021-02-27_12-56-54.mp4

By the way, this is a destructive process, so work on copies, not on the original files! - Best of luck.

One way: Use the Flood Select tool. Untick the Contiguous box. Click on the white part, then delete, Click on the blue parts, then delete. You may have to go in close to see any bits left over, click on them until you only have the black part left. You may need to try adjusting the Tolerance setting to get the cleanest removal of unwanted areas. To get rid of the black borders you can use the Erase brush.

If you don't have the fonts installed then you either need to install them {from Google Fonts) or use different ones that you do have.

You select the brush tool, choose which brush you want, pick a colour and paint with it. The best thing is probably to start with a blank page and just try out the various brushes. Use the [ and ] keys to make them smaller or larger.

Yes - if it works for you and does all you need! Sometimes using an all singing, all dancing app to do something simple is just overkill. Going back to -- If all you want to do are a few simple drawings and paintings, there's not much point buying the most expensive software on the market, of which you will probably never use more than10% of what it is capable of doing. 😉 It isn't! -- Most drawing/painting apps will have similar tools, functions etc, but, although, once you get the hang of basic concepts, it becomes easier to transition from one app to another, they all need a certain amount to work to learn how to use them.

FireAlpaca is a pretty basic painting program. IMHO Affinity Photo/Designer can certainly do anything that FireAlpaca can, and way more, but not necessarily in the same way. The same can be said for the Adobe products. From what you say, your daughter was quite happy with FireAlpaca until there was some sort of "glitch". There are plenty of other cheap/free basic painting apps around, just do a "Google" and try a few. If she wants something more advanced, I would strongly suggest that she sticks with the Affinity apps you have already bought and learns how to use them. (There are lots of tutorials available.) There's really no point in spending lots more money on an Adobe subscription, as, if anything, it will be a steeper learning curve than Affinity. Bluntly I suspect that this is a case of assuming that the most expensive software will be the best, but that is not always the case, it really depends on what you actually want to do with it. There are certain functions which are common to all "professional" drawing and painting apps, so if you learn one, it is easier to transition to another. If she does decide that she really needs to use Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator for some reason in the future, it will be much easier to start using it after learning the basics with Affinity Photo/Designer. But, whether she goes with Affinity or Adobe, there will be quite a difference from using one of the very basic apps like FireAlpaca.

If I understand correctly, you want two PDF files, one with all the odd numbered pages (front) and one with all the even numbered pages (back). If this is the case, you can specify which page numbers you want to export (the box labelled "Pages" in the dialogue box. i.e. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 etc.

Dunno why they decided to change the Cat Tool, IMHO the original was much better than the new one. It almost makes me want to stop using Affinity apps and go back to Adobe (Assuming they still have Merlin!)

A couple of things to keep in mind. The Opacity setting on the Blur Brush doesn't seem to do anything, you need to use the Flow setting to alter the strength of the effect. Also, apart from the type of brush you're using, the resolution of the image will affect how obvious the effect is, as will the magnification you are viewing it at. An alternative to using the Blur Brush, especially if you want a strong effect, is to create a blur layer, invert the mask and paint in the areas you want blurred. (You can then use the opacity setting for the blur layer to fine tune it.)

Could you use a one row, three column table, with the text in the centre and the crosses each side?

Something I've never had to do before: add multiple Master Pages to a range of pages in a document. The problem is that, if I want to change the page range, I have to keep putting in the same information in the "Apply Master Page to pages" dialogue. It would make much more sense (at least to me) if, when I select a Master Page, the settings that I previously entered were still there, so that I could just modify them, rather than having to enter them all again.

No. Looking at a few posts, it does look like enabling OpenCL can cause a few display problems.

There are already Recent, Used and Favourite lists of fonts.

FWIW– I'm also using Windows 10 and Photo1.9.0.932. The Blur Tool seems to be working the same as it always has for me. The opacity setting still doesn't do anything (it never has!), but, apart from that, it's OK.

https://community.serif.com/tutorials/details/114502/how-to-export-movieplus-unlock-codes-for-use-on-a-new-computer

I always get the feeling that people who make tutorials are very careful to pick images that are easy to work with for what they are demonstrating! 😉

Don't forget that you can get a 90 day free trial at the moment, so you can still use the apps while waiting for your bank(s) to sort it out.

In Windows, if you open a file explorer window, go to "View", and tick "File Name Extensions" the extension will be shown as "Affinity Files (jpg jpeg)" etc. I don't know if there's a similar option on MACs.