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Hi CT-Scott, Welcome to Affinity Forums Sketch is a more specialised tool, geared towards web/user interface design although nothing stops you from using it for illustration too. Designer covers a little more ground and also lets you use raster based tools (including raster based brushes as well as vector based ones - it includes two engines) along with vectors and mix both to create hybrid illustrations and graphic (non-heavy text based) design projects (for print). It doesn't provide prototyping/plugins as Sketch at this point so it depends a little on what you want to do with the program. If you are more inclined to graphic design, Illustrator still offers tools/features missing from Affinity Designer (mesh gradients, perspective and warp distortions, fitting text to frames/objects, some 3d extrusions/functions etc). We hope to add some of them in upcoming updates but as you noted it's quite more expensive then Designer in the long them. From your post above seems you want to create some illustrations/designs for fun. If that's the case Affinity is a good option for these purposes. The advantage of having both the iPad and desktop versions is that you can exchange files between them using our own native format which supports all functionalities/features our programs offer, keeping everything editable. You can also take advantage of the integration between the programs of the Affinity Suite if later you decide to acquire Affinity Photo for example to use its live filters in Affinity Designer (which can then be edited in Designer without the need to switch back to Photo).

Well, I checked with Nezumi demo, doesn't solve it. So... I don't know, I feel is some sort of averaging needed to be done by internal code, or something. This (the jittery-grid line when drawing very zoomed out) is by far my biggest issue with the application. Yet though, am ready to use it only as an image editor. Yep, but krita (which is my fav painting tool) is focused quite a lot in painting, obviously they focused on that the most, while A. Photo totally seems to be willing to be a general image editor, with professional attention to details that set it apart from a mountain of editors that wont solve a pro individual issues when needing to deliver with certain specs. MyPaint, Krita, Art Rage Lite(is free), Sai, Open Canvas (the old free never ending beta still floats somewhere) are amazing for painting. So much that, specially in the case of krita, hardly are going to be surpassed (other than by MAYBE Corel Painter). BUT...fully professional (my latest check of Photoline revealed I was missing several important features and specs, plus having quite some crashes) , there are very few. Even if Photoline were one, the competition in the other side is huge, and dominant. So, the more jewels in the image editing field, the better. But so far, IMO this one is/could be the real deal... I agree that those are my first preference, too... But in many companies I have needed to adapt, and even used pre-alpha internal tools to make artwork... IMO, anything can do, with some adapting. They are just brushes. But if i am going to paint with worse brushes, there must be some advantage that compensates it. It depends, in my case, if the other advantages of the package are or not critical for an specific project. So, while I have my regular tools (Krita is obviously among the first choices) I go in a per case way. My heading now is clear: Krita for painting, Photo for everything else could be a good future combination. Fully agree. Is my main issue here. I can't stand drawing with the trembling/pixelating while moving the cursor, the ugly aliasing, well, I'm ok with increasing the softness, but yep, far from ideal, and the delay/starting lag, actually reduces accuracy. I do also work at print resolution and need to work zoomed out. Any artist has to, is the "get far from the picture" they teach you in every art school.. ;) Working in zoomed only is why an iPad pro, at 12,9 inches is not yet ready for being a professional tool, despite having -by far- the best tracking and pen technology invented to date.(this I know very well, not a random statement...). Well, that and being on iOS (instead of Mac OS, Windows or Linux), but I could deal very well with just procreate and sketchbook pro, with a 15" -17" size. Wow, they still work with 1200dpi 1bit for lineart in comics? I have done some comic related gigs now and then -as my field is different, though in illustration, mostly- but haven't been required to deliver so, maybe since the 90s... I have handled in some occasions manga Studio/Clip Paint, and tested demos (quite a bit, as to know it's absolutely great). Does it allow that mix of modes, being so comic focused ? Yep, PS does not allow it, makes you think.... In your very case, you seem to have Photoline as the only option.... I agree they are great. But many painting folks do look PS under a very negative light, (curiously, also happens with old skool pixel artists, and they're wrong there, too, I've done full games (as a job, with a nice salary) with PS, pure pixel art) and have checked in detail how most of them don't know it really deeply. I have handled it at companies since 95, and I can tell you it can do digital art just as well as any of those, if know how to configure it and use it well... Still, I do agree that out of the box, Krita does feel better than anything I've tried. Except in some aspects(some painting effects), Artrage. I have not used Corel Painter so long and deeply as to reach to a conclusion, but am inclined to think that Painter could easily be the best thing for artistic painting. (but if in the painting side, I don't miss anything in Krita, that must mean something...) Very good support - about on par with Photoshop. Fully colour managed, and even on a per-layer basis if needed. Linear colour workflow supported in 32bpc. ICC profiles can be set, and conversions are also possible. Tools work directly with CMYK channels if required. Spot colours are supported as well. Also works on Linux with WINE - an alternative CMS (Little CMS) is available that is compatible on Linux. Sounds like it deserves a second glance, then... hoping is not a world of crashes (with the demo they had for trial, back then) like the last time, though...And I tried hard, as worked years as a support guy, am not scared by the first two crashes....

Status: Beta Release. Purpose: Fixes, improvements, features. Requirements: TestFlight Acceptance. Mac App Store: Not Submitted Hi Guys, The fifth beta of 1.6.4 has been deployed on TestFlight. The changes are detailed below. You can download the App Store version at any time to stop using the beta - and download the TestFlight build at any time to go back to the beta. Thanks, Affinity Photo Team Changes this version - Implemented “on-screen modifiers” (enable in preferences - adds an extra context bar group to many tool, simulating modifier keys). - Increased the maximum size of the liquify brush tools. - Switch between button menus (document, command menus for example) now only requires one press. - Allow “Place Image” to place original images from Photos. - Fixed blend mode issues introduced in last beta. - Fixed issue where photo library appeared empty after initially giving permission to use it. - Font size chooser dismisses on pressing return. - Missing fonts are consistently shown with a “?” prefix. - Some radial sliders were showing numbers as ellipsis. - Fixed black screen when opening documents in OCIO colour spaces. - Fixed mixer brush introducing too much black. - Improved adjustment previews. - Fixed vignette artefacts. - Numerous other small fixes. - Improved localisation. Changes since last App Store release - Selection refinement performance improvements. - Show progress when committing a refined selection. - Fixed rendering of adjustment layers with blend modes. - Further efforts to reduce the size of the application binary. - Handle layers with 0 width / height more correctly. - Improved PDF / vector export. - Further efforts to reduce the size of the application binary. - Improved TIFF loading correctness. - Fixed some “Effects” brushes looking wrong on masks / adjustments. - The “Undo” brush should do nothing on masks / adjustments. - Support malformed 8bit grayscale TIFFs (which were loading as sRGB). - Swap the liquify pinch / punch icons. - When creating a document from the camera, metadata is now available. - Fixed UI for macros with many arguments. - Fixed tiny memory leaks. - Numerous other small fixes. - Localisation improvements. - Added "Export LUT" to document menu. - Added "Convert to Curves" to command menu. - HEIF/HEIC import support for iOS11. - Wet edges can now have a custom interpolation spline. - New pinch gesture support for grouping / ungrouping layers in the layers studio. - Passthrough blending is now supported for groups. - Fixed some invalidation issues when moving layers. - Fixed clone / heal brush tool origin marker issues. - Fixed aperture / FNumber metadata parsing. - Fixed pasteboard issues. - Improved interactive macro playback when the macro has many arguments. - Selection refinement stability / performance improvements. - Fixed HDR merge of portrait images. - Improved HDR merge of RAW images. - Icon improvements, especially in text studio. - Fixed numerous small memory leaks. - Move tool transform nodes can now be hit more reliably. - Fixed some Live Filter drawing artefacts. - Fixed some LUT R/B channel swap issues. - Styles page will remember list mode state correctly. - Localisation improvements. - Numerous other bug fixes. - Macro studio (import / playback for now, recording coming soon. Supports interactive playback.). - Significant improvements in performance for large / complex documents. - Selection marquee tools support extra-finger-constrain. - Improved reading of DPI from files. - Exposure adjustment now operates in stops, not % and has wider range. - Arrow tool has more options. - Fixed B&C adjustment in CMYK, LAB. - Lighting tool tweaks. - Paragraph leading UI improvements. - Improved loading of images from photo library. - Fixed a couple of UI memory leaks. - Fixed issue where a document failing to load would prevent subsequent loads (again). - Fixed painting onto masks / adjustments. - Numerous other small tweaks. - Photo library now shows all user albums / folders. - New option to dither gradients in preferences - defaults to “on”. - Significant pan / zoom smoothness improvements. - Directional lights in the lighting filter can now be directed using on-canvas handles. - Further fixes for the inpainting tool occasionally leaving red marks. - Fixes for liquify (and other tools) cancelling if you drag off the edge of the screen. - Smart selection brush improvements. - Selection refinement improvements. - Fixed welcome screen not reloading sometimes. - Avoided a (rare) deadlock case. - Fixed crashes when a font has no traits. - Adjustments / filters preview react to changes in canvas size. - Avoid crashes on app exit (which nobody will ever have noticed!) - Fixed issue where if a document fails to load it can prevent other documents from being opened in this session. - Further memory management improvements. - Localisation improvements. - Numerous small stability improvements.