Dazmondo77

Totally agree - Just imagine working on a warp group, on a selection of warp nodes and having the ability to use transform mode to grow, shrink, skew and rotate within a warp group, all snapping ------ next level

Works great - once handles can snap it will be KILLER

Great improvement with guides - Alt clicking to delete GREAT - Shift to snap ACE 🤩
I have a couple of suggestions (I'm guessing someone here must have already thought of): When clicking on a guides measurements in guide manager, it would be really helpful if guides where nudge-able with the arrow keys. also if the guide on the page would be highlighted when clicking on a measurement so you can get a clearer idea which guide you want to edit, rather than the current behaviour of having to move a guide on the page and try to spot which measurement moves in guide manager 

As I see it ... i've got almost the same problem. I'd like to have a flexible color system: for high-end users the export has to be consistent ... spot colors do have to be exported as spot colors. Otherwise/now I've got to return to Adobe to fix that problem. I'm not amused. 

When I open the attached PDF in Designer again there is a confusing new CMYK layer. After deleting it the blue is a spot color again. But am I able to export it?
Idea: let's define colors as CMYK/RGB/Spot color in 1 palette ... during export you decide what you need the product for.  
Beniamino: thank you for your post.
Test_Briefschaft_01-03-23.pdf

Hi, I am an advertising graphic designer with 25 years of experience. I have been using the Affinity Suite for 3 years (starting with Photo and Designer and then adding Publisher as soon as it was in beta). In Italy, I have created a course dedicated to Affinity Publisher and numerous Live sessions to help other users understand the differences between Adobe and Affinity workflows. I have helped some graphic studios to make the transition. Unfortunately, I have repeatedly highlighted the significant technical limitations present in both the V1 and V2 Suites, which, from my point of view as a Senior professional, are extremely frustrating and cause significant workflow time losses for graphic agencies. This text will be a bit longer, unfortunately, but I hope effective and understandable.
These are essentially the points you will find below, primarily related to Affinity Publisher:

    •    PDF export is not currently reliable. Depending on the values entered, there is a risk of obtaining terrible unintended effects without realizing it. This includes text rasterizations (which automatically transform a Black K-100 into a Rich Black in part of a text), knockout black instead of overprints, and unwanted effects when certain types of FX are applied at the layer. Not to mention what happens if I work with a text with an FX shadow on a Pantone color (the Pantone becomes a CMYK where the shadow is present, instead of remaining a Pantone and accepting the shadow in overprint).

    •    Color management is terrible. If I assign Fogra39 to a file and then I have to print it at a printing company that uses a different color profile when I load the new color profile, all the colors in the file will have to be reassigned because they will completely lose their real composition (the K100 black will become a rich black again and so on, as if the entire color flow passes through RGB and then returns to CMYK).    

    •    There is no internal control system in the Suite that allows the user to understand in advance when these problems occur. Nor is there a tool to understand it after creating the PDF. An Export Persona is necessary for Affinity Publisher that gives the possibility to see exactly what happens in Color Separation when a certain combination of values is chosen from the PDF export menu.

    •    Swatches management is too slow. On the palette, I have to build my Global Colors, otherwise, I won't be able to modify them intelligently later on. But what happens when I copy an object from one document and bring it to another document? Its color palette is not added to the existing palette (each color has to be manually added one by one), and this creates a considerable loss of time.

    •    Why is there no way to transform a Global Color to which I have given the Spot value into a normal four-color process? It doesn't make sense. Often, in the workflow, the same color is changed several times, from Spot to Non-Spot, and only in the end is it decided what to do based on the printing. Here you cannot. The color must be remade and reassigned to each object.

    •    Why is there no way to replace one color with another? A "replace color" function would be excellent. As well as a function that asks me if I want to replace it with another color when I delete a Global Color from the palette. 

These are the most important and limiting things for me. Although one could list a whole series of minor bugs that have existed for years and have not been resolved.

After accepting that none of this was done in V2, my idea is that I am not part of Affinity's true target audience. I am a professional with extensive experience. I worked with Quark before, and then with Adobe for decades. Why should someone like me switch to an "economic" system like the Affinity Suite? My answer is that I appreciated the great effort made by Affinity to invent a new workflow that is non-destructive by default, more modern, and suitable for the hardware available today. I was bored of using Adobe.
However, after this first step, made years ago, it seems to me that there has been a change of direction. Not surprisingly, most of the Affinity users I talk to are students, enthusiasts, or even mid-level freelancers, but not high-level professionals. This makes sense. It would be a bit absurd to go to war against one of the largest software houses on the planet, we would come out of it with broken bones. Yet I still hope. I hope I am wrong and believe that Affinity can make it.
I have 3 copies purchased of V2 in the drawer. I don't use them because I don't need them, and my workflow now works well on V1, while on V2 I immediately ran into bugs that weren't present in V1. It also happened in Adobe, I'm not scandalized.

But the question to Affinity is: do you plan to address the points mentioned above? Are you aware of them? Do you have any ideas on how to remedy them? Or is it not in your plans?

The answer to these questions would certainly help thousands of professionals like me understand how to orient themselves.
Thank you and sorry for the length.
Sincerely, Beniamino (PS: translated from Italian with ChatGPT)

Works great 
 

Correct Walt
For me the whole pack installs as expected in Retail but I noticed when I installed the whole pack to Beta 2.1.0.1709 the vector brushes weren't installed and clicking on the download buttons just locks up both Designer and Publisher.
It looks as though it could be a bug with vector brushes as I alto tried installing another vector brush pack to the beta which also locks up the app
I've also tried exporting a brush pack from retail 2.0.4 but this locks up the app

I have fully editable halftone screens and hatching fill patterns set up this way which has always worked great for me, as whatever you place inside your data merge layout box, effectively acts as a symbol.
For halftone screens, I've found the quickest way is to place a data merge layout box inside a data merge layout box (see grab) as it seems more repeats start to slow things down but you still have the benefit of only one nested graphic to edit
Screen Grab 2.mov

I'd recommend using this cheeky workaround which works great as a substitute for vector fills for me, but can only be done in publisher using the data merge layout tool - super quick and simple, but does the job until we get proper vector fills.
Screen Grab 1.mov    

I'd recommend using this cheeky workaround which works great as a substitute for vector fills for me, but can only be done in publisher using the data merge layout tool - super quick and simple, but does the job until we get proper vector fills.
Screen Grab 1.mov    

I'd recommend using this cheeky workaround which works great as a substitute for vector fills for me, but can only be done in publisher using the data merge layout tool - super quick and simple, but does the job until we get proper vector fills.
Screen Grab 1.mov    

I have fully editable halftone screens and hatching fill patterns set up this way which has always worked great for me, as whatever you place inside your data merge layout box, effectively acts as a symbol.
For halftone screens, I've found the quickest way is to place a data merge layout box inside a data merge layout box (see grab) as it seems more repeats start to slow things down but you still have the benefit of only one nested graphic to edit
Screen Grab 2.mov

Hello out there!

I do want to re-post a request, done by an other customer, Posted November 24, 2017:
Please add the ability to right click the file title at the top of the Affinity window to see the finder path of the file. This is a very useful feature and pretty much standard on current Mac OS apps.
In Mac OS there is not only shown the path in one single line, but every step on the way to the nestes folder on the storage medium. This is a *very* useful feature, because one is working with several files and versions. And every day, you are searching the place or the file, you are just working with...

Best wishes to you all
I'm really happy with my Affinity Suite
Johannes
 

Just two days ago I finally (!) watched the tutorial videos about Data Merge which I've never used yet, and I had exactly the same thought.  
I've already done similar things using Symbols, but this is even easier.

I'd recommend using this cheeky workaround which works great as a substitute for vector fills for me, but can only be done in publisher using the data merge layout tool - super quick and simple, but does the job until we get proper vector fills.
Screen Grab 1.mov    

I'd recommend using this cheeky workaround which works great as a substitute for vector fills for me, but can only be done in publisher using the data merge layout tool - super quick and simple, but does the job until we get proper vector fills.
Screen Grab 1.mov    

I'd recommend using this cheeky workaround which works great as a substitute for vector fills for me, but can only be done in publisher using the data merge layout tool - super quick and simple, but does the job until we get proper vector fills.
Screen Grab 1.mov    

If we do it, it will just be an option to whether you want to convert the measurement to an object or something along those lines. And should say to set expectations this will not be what could be considered a full dynamic dimension tool or anything, but clearly the convenience of just leaving the measurement on document would be welcomed.
Out of interest one use case we are aware of are some universities using Photo to edit / enhance imagery taken by microscopes. The measure tool is going to be very useful for them, as once scale is set then can us to take measurements - which might be parts of an insect, or down to distance between individual cells in some tissue. But yes use cases are less in photo which is why we are not including the tool in the toolbar by default.

We're looking at it

The "measurement tool" is a big tease. It seems like it's most of the way toward a far more useful dimensioning ability, one that remains in place.

We'll have a chat here - perhaps we should just never drop the original using either key, would be more consistent. We are also looking at adding alt-click a guide to delete it (possibly next week's build) so if you create a copy and actually don't want the original it will be a lot easier to delete it than having to drag the guide off the page.

Totally agree - Just imagine working on a warp group, on a selection of warp nodes and having the ability to use transform mode to grow, shrink, skew and rotate within a warp group, all snapping ------ next level

Works great - once handles can snap it will be KILLER

I'd ask your printer to send you the profile they use and load into your systems profile folder which should then be available to Affinity.
Affinity's way of working with colour profiles is not great, unlike most other graphic design apps, you can't just set it and forget it - any colour profile changes either in app or export to PDF will mess your colours up and wreck your blacks - my approach is to start all jobs destined for print with a palette of global colours which I have set up as the default palette for CMYK jobs then set up your relevant text styles to use the single pass black set up in the global palette, which just saves a ton of grief at the export stage - say you've taken this approach using a global black, and you're Affinity job is set up  ISO Coated v2 300% but your print service provider sends you their press profile to use at the export to PDF stage, this will convert all your single pass blacks to rich blacks - my way around this is to convert the documents profile to the required profile, which if viewed in the info panel in photo persona, will show the conversion from single to rich blacks, but all you have to do to get the blacks back to single pass is to double click on the global black which should still show just 100% black in the CMYK sliders, then click on the percentage of the black, you don't even have to move it, just click which will change all your blacks back to single pass, document wide, then one way I would check for rogue rich blacks would be to double click on the global black and convert it to maybe green, then go through your whole document to check that everything that should be single pass black is green, if ok change the global back to just 100% black the export to PDF/X and you should get no come back from the printers.
This approach has saved me tons of grief over the years and is now second nature. 
Heres a screen grab to illustrate:
Screen Grab.mov    
Also process globals which can be saved as the default swatches palette via the burger menu Process globals.afpalette
Hope this helps

Hi, my name is Ivan and I am the creator of Photopea. I have fixed it (if you save a PSD with smart objects in Photopea, Affinity Photo will detect these smart objects).
Adobe Photoshop used to store the smart object data in a PlLd record. In Photoshop CS3, they started to use a new SoLd record (which supports smart filters, advanced warp, etc). So from Photoshop CS3 onward, Photoshop stores both SoLd and a PlLd record in a PSD file. Thanks to PlLd, you can open a modern PSD file in Photoshop CS2 or older, and you will see smart objects (no smart filters, but better than nothing).
Photopea used to store only the SoLd record. Now, it stores both SoLd and PlLd.
It seems like Affinity detects only PlLd. It would be nice to switch to SoLd.