Gary9450

"The writing is on the wall" as they say. I used to use Ulead's Photo Impact Pro. Eventually, it was sold to Corel Corp., who cannibalized it and got rid of it. Now, even Corel is owned by a different corporation. Subscription services like Adobe's is a rip-off, and once Affinity apps become that, I will find a replacement.
Serif's announcement & FAQs are Extremely carefully worded, but much of the truth can still be deciphered because most of us users are accustomed to the smart phrases they used, and will continue to use. I hope they prove me wrong, but in the long run, I doubt it. Canva cannot be compared to Serif's quality (just look at the Canva examples online). I enjoyed the idea of Affinity being real competition for Adobe, but that pleasure will be totally gone once Canva starts pressuring the Affinity division. Affinity apps will become Canva apps in time. You'll see ... we'll All see.

Canva is a subscription model, as Serif inform us themselves. So much for the 'No Subscriptions' tagline. We'll be 'allowed' to keep our current version, then from the next 0.1 revision we'll be offered a discount. 

The writing is on the wall. Serif have sold out.

Not the news I wanted to read in The Times this morning:
“Australian billionaire has global designs with Affinity deal”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f6540177-9337-4782-91dd-4b0a84ffb83d?shareToken=7013a846cca64688ba3515ce5ef702ab
Congratulations to those who’ve had a successful exit. But like others, the FAQa aren’t reassuring and given Canva’s model is subscriptions I fear it’s only a matter of time the pricing model for Affinity changes.

I'm sorry, but I don't have a good feeling either. May my doubts be allayed.

I like the "Current" weasel word snuck in - NOT.
Whatever you do don't slime in some kind of "Subscription".  Serious, I've been promoting Affinity/Serif for years for that;  One time purchase, then occasional upgrade but dirt cheap compared to Photoshop and does 99% of what most people would do in the big 3 from Adobe. As a bonus I reff'd you to technophobe luddites screaming about AiArt since by luck of never getting to it Serif never got into it, too busy trying the toe in Adobe's door.
 
For a very simple statement - Look into Zbrush (Pixologic) and Unity game engine.
Both got bought out/into by some 3rd party.
Zbrush went subscription leading to a massive exodus to other software.  Also more piracy since it's pretty easily hacked - I see full working copies while in India for US $30 but had bought mine at full professional price.  Nice having the license randomly go out or get lost with a computer crash/reinstall and wait...  Come Maxon they moved to other software including Blender (FREE) where once you climb the learning curve it's most of the critical.
Unity (Game engine) got bought into by someone too greedy for Microsoft.  So they were forcing in a license that make everyone have to spam with ads or face potentially unthinkable fees they'd have to pay.  (Installation fee?)  The backlash permanently lost them a chunk of the market and are still recovering from it.
 
This isn't 1990s - computers are in Gigahertz and Gigabytes and there are tons of full professional programmers.  There's tons of competition now for graphics programs of all sorts, game DIY engines, 3D software.
 
Serif/Affinity had a good thing - keep it up.
IF you offer any subscription let it be for niche things like an "AiARt" engine like Adobe.  Make it absolutely clear it's OPT-IN and there will be NO data-scraping by contract EULA from users.  IF the latter 100% opt in with warnings.  That's a strong "Edge" you now have over Adobe that was just given to you.  Got a lot of business from luddites worried their sub-highschool "Furry" art would be taken... So I mentioned Affinity when Photoshop's data scraping thing came out.

Considering how many “funds” Canva has “raised” in the past few years and how many venture capital campanies are involved, I have a VERY bad feeling about this.
The forced marketing speech (“joining the family”, yeah, sure) in the announcement doesn’t halp.
I guess that it’s probably a good way for all Serif employees to get a nice retirement in 3 to 5 years, but it’s a buckshot in the face for me as a happy user and supporter of an independent company that makes professional software I use every day.

We were sold version 2 on the understanding that all point releases would be free. If 2.5 turns out to be a paid upgrade, huge swathes of users will abandon ship.

I can’t see much good coming from this.
Personally, I’ve never really cared about the lack of subscription, and I’ve always thought Affinity products were priced too cheap. I moved some of my illustrator work to Affinity in the early days for performance reasons and before I knew it, I had moved over entirely. Not saying I like Adobe, I don’t like their business practices* but it was not my motivation for investing in Affinity and being an early advocate. Selling to a company with a similar lack of financial scruples isn’t much different, enshittification comes to all of their services eventually. Capitalism comes for all of us and something like this was kind of inevitable. Still a bit sad though.
 
*Adobe are a dream compared to Autodesk.

First red flag I saw was 'To our amazing Affinity community,'
The second was 'I am thrilled to announce that ... ".
Which usually means 'We have been made an offer we can't refuse.'
A quick google brings "Canva has made its largest acquisition to date, likely spending more than $1 billion to buy professional design software company Serif to compete directly with Adobe as its prepares a long run at going public."
https://www.afr.com/technology/canva-s-billion-dollar-bet-on-a-37-year-old-nottingham-company-20240321-p5fea0
I'd certainly be thrilled to announce that (jingle jingle).
From the FAQ's ' Canva’s business model is subscription, are there any plans to change how Affinity is sold?'
Answer: 'There are no changes to our current pricing model planned at this time, ... ', which likely means, after 'this time', uhmmm (whispers) 'yes.'
Affinity marks Canva’s latest Europe-based acquisition, joining Flourish (2022), Kaleido (2021), Smartmockups (2021), Pexels (2019) and Pixabay (2019). Canva opened their first European HQ in 2023, based in London.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240325965656/en/Canva-Acquires-Design-Platform-Affinity-to-Bring-Professional-Design-Tools-to-Every-Organization
Oh well, good bye and thanks for all the fish, it was great while it lasted.

🙁 I hope nothing changes as you say but have a bad feeling about this too. So far my experience with these takeovers has not been good.  I really hope you don't introduce subscriptions at any point because at that time I will have to cease my relationship with Affinity.  I will keep my fingers crossed.

Does this mean Affinity going forward will be SUBSCRIPTION ONLY the very thing that separated Affinity from Adobe that attracted MOST of your customer base to invest in Affinity products? I had a look at CANVA and the first thing that jumps out of the screen is that they are SUBSCRIPTION ONLY....  *sigh*

I've never used GIMP or Photoshop, so I don't know how common this feature is, but how about an option in the Edit drop-down (and also the right-click context menu) for Paste To Pointer. This would be useful in both Photo and Designer. The software I've always used it in was Corel PhotoImpact X3, and it has become a great convenience to me. Having the copied object attached to the pointer helps me when I'm zoomed in to an area where the original copied object is not located (saves having to zoom out to pick up object, move to the needed location, and then zoom in to paste precisely). It's also convenient having the object already attached to the pointer and, therefore, faster.

ferrell,
Ever try to duplicate a problem you're having and now, suddenly, the problem has gone away? Anyhow, I just tried doing exactly what I explained in my original post, and nothing went wrong!! I did the entire process three times and every time it came out with No problems! I apologize for wasting your time, and I am extremely grateful for your help. Now, all I can do is hope the problem doesn't return.
I'd like to mention that ever since I began using Affinity Photo and Designer in 2017, this problem has been consistently happening every time until today. But if it comes back, I'm not going to post about it. Thank you ferrell.

I up-vote a "recently used brushes" panel! That would be really helpful.

stokerg,
I did what you suggested, and so far Designer has not recreated the problem (and I tried numerous times). However, because the immediate closing of files was seemingly a random thing, I cannot yet be sure it won't happen again. I'll continue working with the program as usual for a time and then post the results here. Many thanks for your quick help!!
 

I up-vote a "recently used brushes" panel! That would be really helpful.

I up-vote a "recently used brushes" panel! That would be really helpful.

3 things that would save me a lot of time would be:
1. A "recently used brushes" panel.
2. When I select a brush and then adjust its size, the brush I'm using is no longer highlighted in the brushes panel. Sometimes I forget which brush I'm using, so keeping the brush highlighted would be very helpful.
3. Organization options in the brushes panel.  When duplicating a brush, I would love to have all of the duplicates located directly below the original brush but slightly indented.