Scungio

KipV, I can answer that question. The reason why I am not on the latest version of Mac OS, High Sierra is because I have a Mac Pro 2008. Yes, Apple gives us free Mac OS updates but they also leave behind hardware with every new release of the OS. So, even though I have an 8 core 3.0 GHz Xeon, with 32 GB of RAM, a PCI-e SSD card and replaced the original graphics card with something way better, Apple says my system is not compatible with High Sierra.
 
Now, I didn't let that stop me with my older 2006 Mac Pro, I have hacked that to install Mac OS updates on it through the years, and I tried that with my 2008, but it just was not that stable and so I went back to El Capitan. It is stable and fast for me and I am able to run all of my software on it, Affinity, Toon Boom, etc.
 
I am not interested in buying a Mac Book Pro or an iMac, I want another Mac Pro, a refreshed Mac Pro, that is hopefully coming in 2018. I want and need options that a tower provides. With my Mac Pros I was able to replace the CPUs, the hard drives, install faster graphics cards, put in newer bluetooth cards, etc. When you think about it, it is amazing that I have been able to use these two older towers for the past 10 years, I guess I can understand why Apple is reluctant to give us new Mac Pros, better to not produce them and force people to buy laptops or iMacs more frequently.

KipV, I can answer that question. The reason why I am not on the latest version of Mac OS, High Sierra is because I have a Mac Pro 2008. Yes, Apple gives us free Mac OS updates but they also leave behind hardware with every new release of the OS. So, even though I have an 8 core 3.0 GHz Xeon, with 32 GB of RAM, a PCI-e SSD card and replaced the original graphics card with something way better, Apple says my system is not compatible with High Sierra.
 
Now, I didn't let that stop me with my older 2006 Mac Pro, I have hacked that to install Mac OS updates on it through the years, and I tried that with my 2008, but it just was not that stable and so I went back to El Capitan. It is stable and fast for me and I am able to run all of my software on it, Affinity, Toon Boom, etc.
 
I am not interested in buying a Mac Book Pro or an iMac, I want another Mac Pro, a refreshed Mac Pro, that is hopefully coming in 2018. I want and need options that a tower provides. With my Mac Pros I was able to replace the CPUs, the hard drives, install faster graphics cards, put in newer bluetooth cards, etc. When you think about it, it is amazing that I have been able to use these two older towers for the past 10 years, I guess I can understand why Apple is reluctant to give us new Mac Pros, better to not produce them and force people to buy laptops or iMacs more frequently.

KipV, I can answer that question. The reason why I am not on the latest version of Mac OS, High Sierra is because I have a Mac Pro 2008. Yes, Apple gives us free Mac OS updates but they also leave behind hardware with every new release of the OS. So, even though I have an 8 core 3.0 GHz Xeon, with 32 GB of RAM, a PCI-e SSD card and replaced the original graphics card with something way better, Apple says my system is not compatible with High Sierra.
 
Now, I didn't let that stop me with my older 2006 Mac Pro, I have hacked that to install Mac OS updates on it through the years, and I tried that with my 2008, but it just was not that stable and so I went back to El Capitan. It is stable and fast for me and I am able to run all of my software on it, Affinity, Toon Boom, etc.
 
I am not interested in buying a Mac Book Pro or an iMac, I want another Mac Pro, a refreshed Mac Pro, that is hopefully coming in 2018. I want and need options that a tower provides. With my Mac Pros I was able to replace the CPUs, the hard drives, install faster graphics cards, put in newer bluetooth cards, etc. When you think about it, it is amazing that I have been able to use these two older towers for the past 10 years, I guess I can understand why Apple is reluctant to give us new Mac Pros, better to not produce them and force people to buy laptops or iMacs more frequently.

KipV, I can answer that question. The reason why I am not on the latest version of Mac OS, High Sierra is because I have a Mac Pro 2008. Yes, Apple gives us free Mac OS updates but they also leave behind hardware with every new release of the OS. So, even though I have an 8 core 3.0 GHz Xeon, with 32 GB of RAM, a PCI-e SSD card and replaced the original graphics card with something way better, Apple says my system is not compatible with High Sierra.
 
Now, I didn't let that stop me with my older 2006 Mac Pro, I have hacked that to install Mac OS updates on it through the years, and I tried that with my 2008, but it just was not that stable and so I went back to El Capitan. It is stable and fast for me and I am able to run all of my software on it, Affinity, Toon Boom, etc.
 
I am not interested in buying a Mac Book Pro or an iMac, I want another Mac Pro, a refreshed Mac Pro, that is hopefully coming in 2018. I want and need options that a tower provides. With my Mac Pros I was able to replace the CPUs, the hard drives, install faster graphics cards, put in newer bluetooth cards, etc. When you think about it, it is amazing that I have been able to use these two older towers for the past 10 years, I guess I can understand why Apple is reluctant to give us new Mac Pros, better to not produce them and force people to buy laptops or iMacs more frequently.

KipV, I can answer that question. The reason why I am not on the latest version of Mac OS, High Sierra is because I have a Mac Pro 2008. Yes, Apple gives us free Mac OS updates but they also leave behind hardware with every new release of the OS. So, even though I have an 8 core 3.0 GHz Xeon, with 32 GB of RAM, a PCI-e SSD card and replaced the original graphics card with something way better, Apple says my system is not compatible with High Sierra.
 
Now, I didn't let that stop me with my older 2006 Mac Pro, I have hacked that to install Mac OS updates on it through the years, and I tried that with my 2008, but it just was not that stable and so I went back to El Capitan. It is stable and fast for me and I am able to run all of my software on it, Affinity, Toon Boom, etc.
 
I am not interested in buying a Mac Book Pro or an iMac, I want another Mac Pro, a refreshed Mac Pro, that is hopefully coming in 2018. I want and need options that a tower provides. With my Mac Pros I was able to replace the CPUs, the hard drives, install faster graphics cards, put in newer bluetooth cards, etc. When you think about it, it is amazing that I have been able to use these two older towers for the past 10 years, I guess I can understand why Apple is reluctant to give us new Mac Pros, better to not produce them and force people to buy laptops or iMacs more frequently.

Hey Joe,
I did a 10+ minute video showing how to color your art using Flats. If you go to YouTube and search for K Michael Russell he has a ton of video tutorials on this subject. He is a professional comic book colorist. He uses Photoshop and also Procreate on his iPad Pro but I have translated some of the techniques to show how to do it in Affinity Photo.
 
 
In the process of using ScreenFlow to record this video I forgot to save my progress while using Photo, and then I ended up having a crash (probably due to ScreenFlow) and lost a good bit of the work I did in the Affinity Photo file. Sorry about that, I will include the Flats file but it shows the work in a much earlier state. Enough to see what I was doing anyway, hope it all helps, if you have any questions just ask.
Flats.afphoto

Howdy,
Here is an 8 minute video showing how to use the Pencil tool with Stabilizer to carve into a Donut shape using Booleans to get the stain. Just one way of doing it.
 
 

Howdy,
Here is an 8 minute video showing how to use the Pencil tool with Stabilizer to carve into a Donut shape using Booleans to get the stain. Just one way of doing it.
 
 

This request comes up a lot, but I hope Serif does not bother with an NLE video editor or motion graphics app.
 
On the Mac side you have Apple's Motion which goes for $50 to do motion graphics. For an NLE, Blackmagic Design offers a free version of DaVinci Resolve. The DaVinci Resolve Studio version is $300 and has more high end features but the free version is very capable.
 
How can Serif compete with a free version of Resolve? Or even compete with Motion and its $50 price tag? They really can't and I would rather them concentrate and finish implementing features for Designer, Photo and finally get Publisher in our hands. They are a small company and I fear trying to develop too many programs would be a bad thing, they might stretch themselves too thin, lose focus, etc.
 
Just my 2 cents.

This request comes up a lot, but I hope Serif does not bother with an NLE video editor or motion graphics app.
 
On the Mac side you have Apple's Motion which goes for $50 to do motion graphics. For an NLE, Blackmagic Design offers a free version of DaVinci Resolve. The DaVinci Resolve Studio version is $300 and has more high end features but the free version is very capable.
 
How can Serif compete with a free version of Resolve? Or even compete with Motion and its $50 price tag? They really can't and I would rather them concentrate and finish implementing features for Designer, Photo and finally get Publisher in our hands. They are a small company and I fear trying to develop too many programs would be a bad thing, they might stretch themselves too thin, lose focus, etc.
 
Just my 2 cents.

I have many of the Astute Plugins for Illustrator and it would really allow Serif to catch up and fill in glaring problems with Designer if they were able to license some of that tech. You look at the various forums and users pleading for offset path, better point reduction, improvements to the expand stroke, better more consistent booleans, users wanting something like the shape builder tool from Illustrator, the list goes on and on.
 
Yes, Illustrator is some 30 years old but Designer doesn't need to go 30 years to catch up to some of their features. Please, please make this happen. I would gladly pay more for Designer if it had these missing features, especially if it was powered with some of this AG tech.
 
Also, this is a smart move on Astute's part. There are so many vector apps popping up now, not just Affinity Designer, but other apps like Sketch, Gravit, Figma. I wonder too if their tech could be incorporated in some vector animation apps as well, like Harmony or Moho? Before they had just one revenue stream which was Adobe Illustrator users, but now, it could increase significantly.

I have many of the Astute Plugins for Illustrator and it would really allow Serif to catch up and fill in glaring problems with Designer if they were able to license some of that tech. You look at the various forums and users pleading for offset path, better point reduction, improvements to the expand stroke, better more consistent booleans, users wanting something like the shape builder tool from Illustrator, the list goes on and on.
 
Yes, Illustrator is some 30 years old but Designer doesn't need to go 30 years to catch up to some of their features. Please, please make this happen. I would gladly pay more for Designer if it had these missing features, especially if it was powered with some of this AG tech.
 
Also, this is a smart move on Astute's part. There are so many vector apps popping up now, not just Affinity Designer, but other apps like Sketch, Gravit, Figma. I wonder too if their tech could be incorporated in some vector animation apps as well, like Harmony or Moho? Before they had just one revenue stream which was Adobe Illustrator users, but now, it could increase significantly.

When you look around and you see Blackmagic Design is offering DaVinci Resolve Studio for $300, and offering a free version that has some high end features taken out but still has Fairlight for audio, the world class color grading and has beefed up the NLE video editing, I hope Serif does not bother with a video editing app. Just too many free apps out there, and I would rather they concentrate on Designer, Photo, Publisher and a DAM.
 
I just started to learn Resolve this past month and I am using the free version on Mac. It is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. I am impressed with how fast it is on even my old hardware.

When you look around and you see Blackmagic Design is offering DaVinci Resolve Studio for $300, and offering a free version that has some high end features taken out but still has Fairlight for audio, the world class color grading and has beefed up the NLE video editing, I hope Serif does not bother with a video editing app. Just too many free apps out there, and I would rather they concentrate on Designer, Photo, Publisher and a DAM.
 
I just started to learn Resolve this past month and I am using the free version on Mac. It is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. I am impressed with how fast it is on even my old hardware.

When you look around and you see Blackmagic Design is offering DaVinci Resolve Studio for $300, and offering a free version that has some high end features taken out but still has Fairlight for audio, the world class color grading and has beefed up the NLE video editing, I hope Serif does not bother with a video editing app. Just too many free apps out there, and I would rather they concentrate on Designer, Photo, Publisher and a DAM.
 
I just started to learn Resolve this past month and I am using the free version on Mac. It is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. I am impressed with how fast it is on even my old hardware.

You could go in and reassign shortcut keys for the brush resizing. Instead of the bracket keys [ and ], why not change them to S and D?
 
Go to Preferences then Keyboard Shortcuts. Then choose Photo from the first drop down menu, and Tools from the second menu. Look for the Clone Brush Tool it has the S for its shortcut, just click the X to remove that shortcut. Now go back to the second drop down menu and change from Tools to Paint Brush Tool. You will see Decrease and Increase Brush Size, click on the X to remove those shortcuts. Now type in S for Decrease and D for increase. 
 
So, now you can have those two keys S and D near your left hand and can resize the brush  more comfortably via shortcuts. Of course you don't have to use those specific keys, just a suggestion of one way to do it.
 
If you run into any snags or want to start over you can always reset the keyboard shortcuts. With that one Apply to all checkbox it appears that setting the new keys of S and D for resizing will apply that to the other tools like the Eraser, Dodge, Burn, Sponge, etc. Give it a shot and see if it helps any.

I think that is a very tall order, almost expecting the impossible from Serif that they can have Affinity Publisher just open InDesign files with no issues. Adobe has proprietary stuff in their apps and Serif can't be expected to just magically somehow figure out how to make it all work when they import those files. 
 
I get that people don't want to lose the ability to open up files, years of work that they did with Adobe apps but Serif shouldn't be held responsible for decisions that we made. We chose to use Adobe's products, but if we don't use their products anymore then, yeah, we won't be able to open those files anymore. If you want to still open those files then you are going to have to keep paying for those Adobe CC apps.
 
To me moving over to Affinity means that I am only interested in the here and now and the future (using the Affinity line of apps) with no concern of past work (Adobe). To me that is the only way it makes any sense to move from Adobe to the Affinity line. Others may have issues with that viewpoint, but it seems to me that people want to have their cake and eat it too. They don't want to pay for Adobe CC, want to save money by moving over to the Affinity apps, but then also expect to be able to open all of their past work in various Adobe apps, and also be able to continue to work seamlessly with people that use Adobe apps. As I said earlier, that is a very tall order, nearly impossible in my opinion.

I have used Illustrator and fortunately (or unfortunately) there are third party companies available that help address Illustrator's shortcomings. Quite often I would have to resort to Astute Graphics and VectorScribe, and their Smart Removal Brush tool to fix or do first aid on the poor result that Illustrator left me with after using their 'Expand Stroke'. So, it isn't like Adobe has this nut completely cracked either. And VectorScribe is not cheap, it currently sells for $93. I would usually buy their plugins when they had sales, but still, it always rankled me that I would have to pay monthly for Illustrator and then spend additional money for the Astute Graphics plugins.
 
Even in Illustrator I would have to edit and fine tune results after expanding an object, Designer is no different. For me though, I do find the Expand Stroke improved and I hope Serif continues to work on it.
 
 

The thing that I always like to bring up about Adobe and their auto tracing functionality is that really, it was folded into Illustrator after having been a separate app. I had Adobe Streamline back in the day and it had years of development and 4 versions. The 3D features that Illustrator has? To be able to extrude, revolve, lathe a shape? That was Adobe Dimensions that had years of development and was a separate app that had 3 versions. Adobe can take these apps and merge them into Illustrator because they have deep pockets and plenty of coders to go around. Those two features just did not appear over night, they had years of development and were able to be polished and refined before they were included into the early CS versions of Illustrator.
 
I can lean on Vector Magic, or an old copy of Illustrator CS3 that I have on a Mac Pro 2006 (Snow Leopard) for tracing. But honestly? I really want Serif to work on much more crucial things like an Offset Path function, a Blend tool, Mesh Distortions, better node editing, improved ability to cut lines with a knife,etc. Those are the 4 big things for me that are truly essential, that are way more important than auto tracing. It will differ from person to person of course.

I think that is a very tall order, almost expecting the impossible from Serif that they can have Affinity Publisher just open InDesign files with no issues. Adobe has proprietary stuff in their apps and Serif can't be expected to just magically somehow figure out how to make it all work when they import those files. 
 
I get that people don't want to lose the ability to open up files, years of work that they did with Adobe apps but Serif shouldn't be held responsible for decisions that we made. We chose to use Adobe's products, but if we don't use their products anymore then, yeah, we won't be able to open those files anymore. If you want to still open those files then you are going to have to keep paying for those Adobe CC apps.
 
To me moving over to Affinity means that I am only interested in the here and now and the future (using the Affinity line of apps) with no concern of past work (Adobe). To me that is the only way it makes any sense to move from Adobe to the Affinity line. Others may have issues with that viewpoint, but it seems to me that people want to have their cake and eat it too. They don't want to pay for Adobe CC, want to save money by moving over to the Affinity apps, but then also expect to be able to open all of their past work in various Adobe apps, and also be able to continue to work seamlessly with people that use Adobe apps. As I said earlier, that is a very tall order, nearly impossible in my opinion.

Everyone's mileage will vary so to speak, but for me the expand stroke is greatly improved in my use case. I wanted to export out some line work from Designer to bring into Modo, a 3D app. EPS works fine, comes into Modo with no problem. 
 
In Designer I love to use the pressure curve to get thick and thin strokes and but I have to use the Expand Stroke command to get the node count down, otherwise this happens:
 

 
That is way too many nodes, obviously. So use the Expand Stroke command right? How good does it work in AD 1.5.5? Let us find out:
 

 
Okay, to go from 7,168 nodes to 471 is good but still way too many nodes for me. I wonder how the latest Beta, AD 1.6 b10 will fare with the Expand Stroke?
 

 
Cool, all the way down to 105 with the latest Beta. I can use the Smooth Curve command in Designer and about 1 minute of editing to eliminate some points and get that down to 60 nodes. With the latest Beta the Expand Stroke command does do a better job of eliminating nodes in my use case anyway. This example I used could be a complicated logo and could have much more than the 7,000 nodes in this simple example. I see progress being made and I hope the screenshots prove that.
 
In terms of the examples that others like Oval are showing, yes, I can see that happening but for me it is only when working with smaller point sizes and when it does happen it is relatively easy to fix. Lining up the tangent handles, selecting a point or two and making sure they are set to smooth instead of corner, maybe adding a point, all of that I have been able to do in less than 15 seconds to make the shape look right. I don't mean to make light of people who are struggling with the Expand Stroke, but I have faced the same issues with Illustrator and had to fine tune objects after expanding.

Everyone's mileage will vary so to speak, but for me the expand stroke is greatly improved in my use case. I wanted to export out some line work from Designer to bring into Modo, a 3D app. EPS works fine, comes into Modo with no problem. 
 
In Designer I love to use the pressure curve to get thick and thin strokes and but I have to use the Expand Stroke command to get the node count down, otherwise this happens:
 

 
That is way too many nodes, obviously. So use the Expand Stroke command right? How good does it work in AD 1.5.5? Let us find out:
 

 
Okay, to go from 7,168 nodes to 471 is good but still way too many nodes for me. I wonder how the latest Beta, AD 1.6 b10 will fare with the Expand Stroke?
 

 
Cool, all the way down to 105 with the latest Beta. I can use the Smooth Curve command in Designer and about 1 minute of editing to eliminate some points and get that down to 60 nodes. With the latest Beta the Expand Stroke command does do a better job of eliminating nodes in my use case anyway. This example I used could be a complicated logo and could have much more than the 7,000 nodes in this simple example. I see progress being made and I hope the screenshots prove that.
 
In terms of the examples that others like Oval are showing, yes, I can see that happening but for me it is only when working with smaller point sizes and when it does happen it is relatively easy to fix. Lining up the tangent handles, selecting a point or two and making sure they are set to smooth instead of corner, maybe adding a point, all of that I have been able to do in less than 15 seconds to make the shape look right. I don't mean to make light of people who are struggling with the Expand Stroke, but I have faced the same issues with Illustrator and had to fine tune objects after expanding.

Everyone's mileage will vary so to speak, but for me the expand stroke is greatly improved in my use case. I wanted to export out some line work from Designer to bring into Modo, a 3D app. EPS works fine, comes into Modo with no problem. 
 
In Designer I love to use the pressure curve to get thick and thin strokes and but I have to use the Expand Stroke command to get the node count down, otherwise this happens:
 

 
That is way too many nodes, obviously. So use the Expand Stroke command right? How good does it work in AD 1.5.5? Let us find out:
 

 
Okay, to go from 7,168 nodes to 471 is good but still way too many nodes for me. I wonder how the latest Beta, AD 1.6 b10 will fare with the Expand Stroke?
 

 
Cool, all the way down to 105 with the latest Beta. I can use the Smooth Curve command in Designer and about 1 minute of editing to eliminate some points and get that down to 60 nodes. With the latest Beta the Expand Stroke command does do a better job of eliminating nodes in my use case anyway. This example I used could be a complicated logo and could have much more than the 7,000 nodes in this simple example. I see progress being made and I hope the screenshots prove that.
 
In terms of the examples that others like Oval are showing, yes, I can see that happening but for me it is only when working with smaller point sizes and when it does happen it is relatively easy to fix. Lining up the tangent handles, selecting a point or two and making sure they are set to smooth instead of corner, maybe adding a point, all of that I have been able to do in less than 15 seconds to make the shape look right. I don't mean to make light of people who are struggling with the Expand Stroke, but I have faced the same issues with Illustrator and had to fine tune objects after expanding.

I have used Illustrator and fortunately (or unfortunately) there are third party companies available that help address Illustrator's shortcomings. Quite often I would have to resort to Astute Graphics and VectorScribe, and their Smart Removal Brush tool to fix or do first aid on the poor result that Illustrator left me with after using their 'Expand Stroke'. So, it isn't like Adobe has this nut completely cracked either. And VectorScribe is not cheap, it currently sells for $93. I would usually buy their plugins when they had sales, but still, it always rankled me that I would have to pay monthly for Illustrator and then spend additional money for the Astute Graphics plugins.
 
Even in Illustrator I would have to edit and fine tune results after expanding an object, Designer is no different. For me though, I do find the Expand Stroke improved and I hope Serif continues to work on it.
 
 

The thing that I always like to bring up about Adobe and their auto tracing functionality is that really, it was folded into Illustrator after having been a separate app. I had Adobe Streamline back in the day and it had years of development and 4 versions. The 3D features that Illustrator has? To be able to extrude, revolve, lathe a shape? That was Adobe Dimensions that had years of development and was a separate app that had 3 versions. Adobe can take these apps and merge them into Illustrator because they have deep pockets and plenty of coders to go around. Those two features just did not appear over night, they had years of development and were able to be polished and refined before they were included into the early CS versions of Illustrator.
 
I can lean on Vector Magic, or an old copy of Illustrator CS3 that I have on a Mac Pro 2006 (Snow Leopard) for tracing. But honestly? I really want Serif to work on much more crucial things like an Offset Path function, a Blend tool, Mesh Distortions, better node editing, improved ability to cut lines with a knife,etc. Those are the 4 big things for me that are truly essential, that are way more important than auto tracing. It will differ from person to person of course.