Medical Officer Bones

That's what Photoshop did, and look at the state of its 3d "rendering" and 3d functionality: utterly outdated, slow as a snail moving in mud, and the quality is awful. No wonder Adobe teamed up with Maxon to provide 3d capabilities in After Effects: it just takes too much developer time to keep up with dedicated 3d applications and customer's expectations. Install Blender, and enjoy high quality rendering and modeling tools instead. The upcoming 2.8 release will have real-time rendering (which already looks FAR better than Photoshop's "final" rendering). Anyway, I think improvements in interoperability between Affinity and 3d applications would be preferable over half-hearted 3d features that distract the developers from core feature set enhancements.

I am repeating myself here, but...: Really nice DAMs out there already. For example iMatch, DigiKam, Daminion, Photo Supreme, and many more (including open source ones). Some searching led me to this page - which mirrors my opinion. Always plan for contingencies - is there an escape route? Software may be discontinued (or go rental only, in spite of "a certain company's promises"). https://www.bkwinephotography.com/technology/found-best-digital-asset-management-dam-system/ Don't confuse a DAM and a RAW processor/developer, btw.

I am repeating myself here, but...: Really nice DAMs out there already. For example iMatch, DigiKam, Daminion, Photo Supreme, and many more. Some searching led me to this page - which mirrors my opinion. Always plan for contingencies - is there an escape route? Software may be discontinued (or go rental only, in spite of "a certain company's promises"). https://www.bkwinephotography.com/technology/found-best-digital-asset-management-dam-system/ Don't confuse a DAM and a RAW processor/developer. Lightroom is both, but there are a number of excellent professional DAMs available NOW - and it will allow you to choose Affinity Photo and other RAW processors to develop your photos.

I agree. I believe many users confuse DAM software with RAW processing software: Lightroom does both, of course, and (in my opinion) it is more flexible (and safer) to separate the two. Many RAW processors out there, including Affinity. Lightroom is capable, but arguably not the best RAW processor compared to others.

Really nice DAMs out there already. For example iMatch, DigiKam, Daminion, Photo Supreme, and many more. No need to wait, right? Some searching led me to this page - which mirrors my opinion. Always plan for contingencies - is there an escape route? Software may be discontinued (or go rental only, in spite of "a certain company's promises"). https://www.bkwinephotography.com/technology/found-best-digital-asset-management-dam-system/

Green screen software: Nuke, Fusion, Blender, Natron... Industry-standard solutions are available. NLEs: Davinci Resolve, Lightworks, etc. Internet "design" software: Atom, Netbeans, PhpStorm, Eclipse, Sublime, Brackets, ... the list goes on and on. If you need something similar (but MUCH better) to Dreamweaver, Pinegrow + Atom is a quite excellent combination. Much better than DW ever was. Dreamweaver is a 'has-been', and pretty terrible nowadays - a shame, though. Adobe ruined it. Muse... Let's not mention Muse or similar tools: abysmal. DAMs are available, if you look around. Perhaps not at the same level as some available for Mac/Windows, but still. Colour Management: I use DisplayCal on both Windows and Linux. Works well. The only things that are really missing are indeed some drivers, and a good DTP app. I miss InDesign/QuarkXpress level software on Linux. If you are on Linux it is best to shop for printers that are actively supported, and not the other way around. For scanning I use VueScan on both platforms - no need for scan drivers. My old scanner was no longer supported on Windows either, and Vuescan is heavenly in use. But yes, although Linux is quite capable as a designer platform now, the lack of a native high-level image editor is quite conspicuous. Krita is excellent for artistic work (better suited than Photoshop!), and PhotoLine works like a charm in Wine, which make a great combo. But it would be nice to have a native port of either Affinity or PhotoLine. Gimp is okay, but just can't compete at that level. I just don't see it happening, though. Nor for years and years to come.

It's not happening anytime soon, if ever. Just use PhotoLine in WINE (the devs support this even with an alternative Linux-compatible colour management option), Krita, Gravit Designer, InkScape, Gimp, Fusion, ... Lots of options already. Affinity would have to compete in an already quite small market. Another question is (to which Toltec alluded to) what Affinity would be used for by "professionals" on Linux: which, as far as I am aware, predominantly consists of developers (I am one myself). I don't see more visually-inclined graphic designers and photographers using the platform (in my experience). Linux is great as a development platform, not so great for graphic designers, or motion graphic designers. It is used quite a bit in VFX/3D production houses, though, but we are talking about a relatively small group of users in this case. The average developer/UX designer has very different needs compared to a graphic designer and photographer. Great tools already exist on Linux to help front-end devs in this regard, which isn't going to help sell Affinity products. Statistics are a small part of the total equation: other factors must be taken into account as well. In 20 years of teaching in graphics, design, and web development, only a handful of students had Linux installed on their laptops. Linux still isn't part of the "design culture".

Blackmagic Fusion is available for Linux, as is Krita, Gravit Designer, Blackmagic Davinci Resolve... Aside from the obvious ones such as GIMP and Inkscape. Use Fusion for image editing - very powerful. Even Krita is quite a capable image editor now - and as a drawing/painting tool it leaves Affinity in its dust. Or run PhotoLine in WINE (which also supports colour management). Affinity Designer and Photo might not be as popular on Linux as some here are led to believe.

In PhotoLine this is easily fixed by assigning a linear color profile to the gradient/color layer. In Photoshop gradients/colors are correctly blended as well when the "Blend RGB Colors Using Gamma: 1.0" is checked in the Color Settings. Or switch to 32bit mode.

Blender traditional quad view: Press <N> with the mouse cursor in the 3d viewport. This opens the view properties on the right. Locate the DISPLAY sub-panel and open it if required (click the "Display" title to show and hide the properties) Click the button Toggle Quad View. Done. Traditional 3DS quad view. However, 3d applications have evolved a LOT since the old 3DS days. You will have to spend a couple of days (re)learning the basics. This (German) video tutorial may be helpful: And:

+1 Markdown support would be awesome, I agree.

I don't think Serif is in the composter or music business... :P All jokes aside, the Affinity devs have stated multiple times now that they are NOT planning to work on an animation or compositing app that supports animation. Besides, competition is rather fierce - it is rather difficult to compete with Fusion and Natron (and Blender) which are all free, and extremely capable. Many options already out there (depending on the type of animation you need): Compositing Fusion (free) After Effects Motion Nuke Natron (free) 3d animation (including 3d character animation) Blender (free) Maya Max Cinema4d Lightwave Houdini 2d animation (including 2d character animation) Tumult Hype OpenToonz (free) Toonboom Moho Synfig (free) TVPaint ClipStudio Krita (free) Flash/Animate CC Blender Retas Photoshop ...to name just the major ones. Many more online tools are available too. I would like to see basic animation features in Designer and Photo (for animated GUI mockups), although I doubt this will happen anytime soon, if ever.

Found it: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/2308-3d-extrude-and-3d-paths/?p=129209 Looks pretty good, in particular the first example - very smooth.

I remember Dimensions: at the time it was already very limited compared to applications such as Lightwave and Max. Its saving grace was indeed the unique vector output that looked alright. Sketchup Pro exports vector files of 3d scenes and objects. Unfortunately, it costs $600, because the free "Make" version does not support this. But if you need a simple to use 3d editor with vector output that is very easy to learn (easier than Illustrator!): Sketchup is it. And it is far more capable than Dimensions ever was (well, excepting the smooth gradient output). I saw a post here a while ago mentioning Blender with SVG output. But that takes it to a whole different level, I suppose.

1-bit mode would be very welcomed. The only image editor that I am aware of that supports 1bit layers with high PPI resolutions and allows these to be combined with 300ppi colour ones in the same layer stack is PhotoLine. Crossing my fingers for Photo's next version that will hopefully support 1bit properly.

I suggest leaving Dreamweaver for a combination of Pinegrow and Atom - and the upcoming Pinegrow 3 update is going to be even more impressive. Dreamweaver is a train wreck in its latest incarnation(s), and CS3 misses support for modern frameworks and WordPress. And if you miss Golive, you'd feel quite at home in Pinegrow as well. https://pinegrow.com/ https://atom.io/ Atom and Pinegrow allow for a live connection: type code in Atom, and Pinegrow's visual view(s) update with the code changes, and vice versa. No saving required!

The new version of Resolve (14 - they skipped "unlucky" 13!) is rewritten from scratch, and performance is supposed to be a ten-fold improvement. However, it is still in beta, and although the new version 14 can be downloaded now, it is still quite buggy. The new audio features sound very intriguing. Definitely going to be a force to be reckoned with now - the price of the pro version is decreased to $299 as well.

While I agree that more export options would be welcome -- in particular webp export -- I don't think it would outperform dedicated tools. In my experience with Photoshop's newer export options these always result in lossless images that are bigger in file size. My current workflow is exporting PNG files at full quality, and then run them through Color Quantizer one by one, choosing custom settings for each (or a group of files) file. The beautiful thing in CQ is that a quality mask brush allows for very controlled optimization. Nothing else (automated) comes close. I am 100% certain Affinity would not be able to match the quality and small file size compared to CQ even if automated lossless file optimization would be integrated. Besides, Affinity lacks proper scale-down resampling algorithms (Catmull-Rom, Mitchel-netravali to name but a few) that result in smaller file sizes compared to Lanczos (which introduces more data than needed in scaled-down resampled images). That ought to be resolved as well. I do this in CQ as well (which offers 16(!) different resampling algorithms). These two shortcomings in most (if not all) image editors will always result in larger-than-needed image file sizes.

I wasn't advertising it: only mentioning an alternative that DOES work on Linux (and Chromebooks, for that matter). People here mention Photoshop, Illustrator, Inkscape, Gimp, and other tools all the time as well when it makes sense to compare to Affinity, right? This thread is about porting Affinity to Linux, which is (most probably) never going to happen, and since I also work on Linux machines, I am always on the lookout for promising alternative Linux graphics software. If Affinity Designer would be available for Linux, I wouldn't think twice of using THAT. But Affinity does not work on Linux, so any even remotely promising professional alternative for illustration work is very welcome on Linux in my book. Look, this thread is already nine pages long, so that means there is some interest in the Linux community for good professional level illustration software. I was only "the bearer of good news" in that there is some positive development in that area. I agree that Gravit isn't on the same level (yet) compared to Designer - the roadmap looks quite promising, though. I hope to be using it alongside Designer on my Windows machine.

Soon Linux users may no longer have a reason to pine for a native Affinity Designer: Gravit is quickly becoming a serious contender. Version 3 is released with page and page template support, text styles, anchors for responsive design work, and improved FX and FX styles. On Gravit's roadmap: a webGL renderer to speed up the viewport, symbols, advanced open type formatting, interactive(!) prototyping tools, animation(!), transitions(!), and states(!), advanced DTP layout features(!), a vector brush, and a bitmap brush mode. The interesting thing is that basic DTP functionality, interactive prototyping and animation tools have been requested many times by Affinity Designer users, but will not be added according to the developers (DTP will be handled by Affinity Publisher). Perhaps Gravit might change their minds a bit? Runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, ChromeOS, any modern browser, and is soon available for both iOS and Android! In it current state it is already quite good, although Designer still leaves Gravit in its dust. Still, the potential it had is now coming to fruition. In short: Gravit seems likely to grow into real competition for Affinity Designer and other commercial illustration tools. And all for... FREE! In their own words: Interesting times.

1) export each element as a SVG from Designer 2) import each SVG element into Flash. You will have to convert the elements to graphic symbols and/or movieclips in Flash. 3) if animated elements are required, use the moviclips/graphic symbols to animate things. You may have to create additional nested movieclips to animate sub-elements, if needed. 4) hand final Flash file with animations to developer. Don't forget to organize the assets nicely in Flash's library, of course. Confer with the developer whether he/she must have movieclips, graphic symbols, etc. to work with during development. Most artists who I know work in a separate illustration tool, and import the static assets into Flash for animation, then hand over the file(s) to the developer.

@whsbb: Just out of curiosity - why would you need the old web safe colours? Any particular reason? Are you preparing graphics for old 256colour screens?

???? What would be the point of those 4096 'smart' colours? The page doesn't explain why anyone would bother with either limited colour palette. The referred site is interesting from a historical point of view only.

Web safe colours are defunct, and no longer needed. The time that we had only access to 256 colour screens lies far, far behind us.

I prefer the Catmull-Rom resampling for all my down-sampling, since it: will not add additional noise will not add fringes/halos along the edges (looking at you, Lanczos! keeps photographic details remarkably intact keeps sharp highlights keeps the fidelity of vector artwork and results in crisp and clean edges The main issue with Lanczos and down-sampling are the edge halos that Lanczos introduces - almost as if a sharpening method is applied. Lanczos is good for up-scaling, though. Because Photoshop and Affinity Photo are very limited in their choice of resampling options, I used ColorQuantizer to scale the photo with the road sign to 800px width. No additional processing performed. (download ColorQuantizer here: http://x128.ho.ua/color-quantizer.html) Download the results for comparison: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B03AC_RA8Ch1VmpXeE1jdnd0Um8 Notice that Lanczos results in a larger file size caused by the extra information (edge halos) that was introduced while downsampling. This continues down in the pipeline: the down-sampled Catmull-Rom version is "cleaner" and results in smaller JPG files at the identical compression settings compared to the Lanczos down-sampled version. Those extra halos may also become more problematic to process in jpg, resulting in increased artifacting (slightly increased noise). For example, the exact same image processed with Catmull-Rom and saved as a jpg results in a 123,449 bytes jpg. Compare this with the Lanczos version that produces a 127,808bytes large file. And the Catmull-Rom has less noise around the edges (RIOT jpg settings: 85%, Progressive, Chroma sub-sampling set to Low (4:2:2). All this is somewhat academic, of course. For most people Lanczos will suffice, but Catmull-Rom is the better choice for down-sampling images nonetheless - both in quality and final file size. It has been proven in other tests online as well.