Westerwälder

I spent a few hours testing lots of combinations, and documented my results in the forum.
Your screenshots show that you did not follow the tutorial exactly, and deviated in many relevant aspects:
tutorial says exactly two layers, pixel on bottom, mask on top. you used a group of vector shapes, and placed a rectangle with channels mixer below. This is not to blame you, just an observation and my conclusions. It is too time consuming for me to reverse engineer your edit steps and guesstimate your intentions. Please try it again on your own, following exactly the steps as described. 

From older discussions i know that many new Affinity users perceive this learning curve as too steep, and i understand this. If your time is worth more than 200 bucks per year for Adobe, make a wise decision.
 
 
 

I get that Affinity is a "photo editor" and not aimed at game developers - but if you really want to take a bite out of Photoshop's market, then you have to take these requests seriously and and start putting in some quality-of-life features for devs. I love that I'm not paying a monthly sub for Adobe anymore - but my god - I do curse a lot using Affinity photo. There are so many things that are great about it - but so many awkward ones as well. It's definitely a love/hate relationship and I'm always on the lookout for something for dev-friendly. 😕

You maybe correct in your view. Maybe there should be a section to show Affinity Apps in collaboration with third party apps to demonstrate how Affinity can fit into a larger creative framework. A sort of Affinity in the wider world thread. However, the rules for such a thread would have to be set out clearly for boundaries sake. 🤔
Thanks for the opinion.
@NotMyFaulto

While i fully understand the (probably) good intentions, i have seen to many apps from other vendors going to total disarray because older versions lost attention and help get totally out of sync. It really helps nobody if online help works reliably only for the bleeding edge release of the app, and provides misleading or completely wrong results for slightly non-current releases.
The help documentation is an dedicate deliverable accompanying the app releases. It s no „optional“ or „if we find time“ low priority thing. As Affinity updates UI and features in every minor update, we need a perfect fitting documentation for every minor release. The offline help can include links to additional online-only resources like videos. This is never a reason to go fully only only.

So jetzt denke ich auch einmal: In Deutschland sagt man: „Abwarten und Tee trinken“. Affinity als Marke gibt es noch, wieso sollte ich mich an negativen Befürchtungen beteiligen!
Zur Vorsorge habe ich mir aber mal das Upgrade von PhotoLine gekauft, damit war Ich bin bevor Affinity zufrieden. Trotzdem kann Affinity einiges besser, aber auch einiges nicht so gut wie PhotoLine!
Adobe ist keine Alternative, zu Alt und zu sehr immer auf neues aufspringen und dann einstellen.
Ich hoffe, dass Afinity niemals auf Künstliche Intelligenz aufspringen wird , Denn die beziehen sich auf ihre Daten nur aus schon lange bekanntem Internet!
Die Probleme die PDF hat, sind immer noch Adobe Probleme! Die Dateiformate von Adobe wie zum Beispiel *.PS sind kaum mit anderen Programmen lesbar
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So now I'm thinking: In Germany they say: "Wait and drink tea." Affinity as a brand still exists, why should I participate in negative fears!
As a precaution, I bought the PhotoLine upgrade, which I was happy with before Affinity. Nevertheless, Affinity can do some things better, but also some things not as well as PhotoLine!
Adobe is not an alternative, too old and always jumping on something new and then discontinuing it.
I hope that Afinity will never jump on artificial intelligence, because it only gets its data from what has been known on the Internet for a long time!
The problems PDF has are still Adobe problems! Adobe file formats such as *.PS are hardly readable with other programs.
Typical American espionage programs.
 

My pleasure. Its pretty much free photoshop online just without fancy-schmancy AI. Becomes handy at times. Good luck!

One of those problems that you cant really solve 100% because different programs handle layers differently, options present in one software might not be present in the other so you might block layer in affinity but if you save it - even if all layers might be present they might not be blocked etc. Its a huge problem, huge mess.
I tell you what I would do - I would use that PSD you dont want to for some reason and told them to open and edit it using photopea.com. Its free, anybody can use it, no installing because its web based, it opens psd. So there will be no issue with compatibility between different people using different software. Easiest way to do it imo.

I think the concern at the moment is more for documentary photography that claims to be a true representation of the world. e.g. in news media.  If a print is sold as a piece of art does it matter if some or all of it is AI generated? I believe there is already a lucrative market for AI art that is expected to grow.

There's several ways AI is used in images. The focus here seems to be on generative AI. But there is also the image quality AI for noise and sharpness that Topaz and DxO use (and Adobe) and AI masking. Personally, I can't see any image editing software surviving long without AI masks. I suspect those of us that want the image quality AI are happy to use plug ins. Topaz are also developing AI lighting and white balance so there's a lot happening in the non-generative AI space.

Serif in a recent company statement shared by another user (see below) has stated they are putting resources into AI, so we may not need a plugin. I also agree with you, it's inevitable that this is where tech will go now as AI is the future. I don't have any particular issues with it being used to "enhance" work. My issue is when whole new pieces are created out of works that were added to a tool without consent.
If someone wants to take one of my color palettes and use it in their own design, that's a legitimate use as a creative tool, I think. That's akin to exploratory use-cases and is a suitable use for AI as a creative tool. It wouldn't be very different if I had input that color palette manually and had the algorithm work it... or used other filters, etc, to adjust. Using AI to "restyle" ones work, for example, provided it's not a total replacement. So the difference for me would be using an image we created as a "prompt" (causing AI to redraw it entirely), versus using AI to "filter" through the piece and add 3d effects, shadows, recoloring, adding objects, etc...
 

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!

Affinity, be cautious with your statements and actions from this point forward. Any deviation, even the smallest from the promises you have made to us in the past, could result in the loss of customers.
We all have had bad experiences with such alliances in the past, and this came to us like a bolt from the blue. We are all tense, nervous and this will be reflected in our work as well as in our everyday life. My personal opinion is that it will never be the same again for any of us.
I ask you once again to be careful what you do or your business may come crashing down like a house of cards and Adobe will win without investing a cent.

And who can guarantee that Adobe will not acquire Canva and, that way, kill two rabbits with one shot?

This isn't the first time I have seen the uneducated dragging standards down to the amateur by (very badly) reinventing the wheel.  What it ends up doing is devaluing their work and their income.  Eventually, people realize then need to re-learn all the things they ignored (as above).   Yes, some things are "period relevant"  but most aren't, and you don't understand which is which.   Also, when you understand the period relevant and know why they are as they are you then know how to move forward.

The problem is the rant above mixes religion with reality.
 

Can you please let this go now

So I hear Patrick could be handing out buttons (of course, they'll be hyperlinked) for us to wear pretty soon... (It's a joke, watch the end of the video)

Another angle for balance. Everything is still speculative, so this is just for side analysis... the above is a more positive take per a current Canva user
Edit: Does anyone know if YT embeds can be resized?

Ok, but, if it’s so, why have Serif struggled to take Affinity Publisher to the iPad in the first place - doesn’t make sence!!
iPad version of Publisher is around 95% of the desktop version - pretty strange priorities from Ashley concerning the planning of resources in the team…

I don't know that it was "funny" per say, but you make a very good point. I don't know that it means that the deal won't work out for the better in the grand scheme of things (for customers)... of course Canva has to protect its own interests first as the buyer forking over hundreds of millions.

Also I hope Adobe tries to buy Canva, so that it can also fail and more money can be wasted at their own expense.
That ship has sailed, because they are already looking into it. You might have missed it because it was buried inside an image.
It's the same reason people freak out when Affinity took so long in-between updates during/after V1. Our memories of an evil corporate betrayal start kicking in. It's practically muscle memory if you spend too much time examining changelogs wondering why your favorite software hasn't become better and faster than Adobe yet.

I suspect a few people just want to get as many other people as possible to jump on the FUD bandwagon about this because for some reason they just enjoy churning the waters with dubious information. Not exactly the same thing as trolling but close.

The forum has not reached any such stage. It is just a few alarmists that apparently think Adobe is so big it can buy whatever it wants without concern for the anti-trust issues that have already been problematic for the company in both the US & UK.

Serif does not exist "exactly as it did", clearly it has changed, you acknowledged that when you stated "It now has different owners".
You also confirmed more changes "The development teams and management teams still exist, with a few exceptions at the top."
Please recognize the reality of a business takeover.
Watch this space, the standard approach in these matters will be that other staff will be gone soon.

This reply from Patrick is really funny…
Why shouldn’t the head of Flourish have nothing than positive things to say about Canva?
He’s not neutral, he’s part of this konglomerat Canva International (soon to be bought by Adobe Inc.)…

More like taking the puppy and killing it in front of the kids...

Don't worry too much about this guys, in a few years the whole planet will speak English anyway.

I really regret having bought the v2 update.
I can't imagine any positive impact on Affinity. I doubt that they get just more development resources.
I don't want cloud integration. When I want to work collaborative I use figma and I couldn't care less about canva.
Do you have any non-web-based, professional alternatives in mind for designer and photo to create screen mock-ups? (vector and pixel based) and simple photo editing?