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I just bought Affinity Designer and created my first project for a client. I have chosen this project because it is very simple and allows me to try the software in a professional matter. Because I refuse to have my work held hostage by Adobe, I writing these comments with the best intentions to make Affinity Designer the number one software. I know Serif is working on adding Pantone Colors and other things, So I hope I just adding a new list of things that has not being mention before. Here are some problems I encountered with Affinity Designer: Guide Lines: Pulling a guideline from top sometimes works and sometimes does not. Ruler in inches very difficult to read specially when zoom very close. Need better hierarchy display. Opening a New Document: When setting a new artwork, “Include Margins” does not allow “0.125” (1/8”). It changes to “0.13” which is unacceptable for pre-press production. Default “Colour Format” is “RGB/8” when should be CMYK, specially for printing production. Should be a preference to set this very important key factor for professional artwork. Character Format: This floating window takes a lot of space, when it can be a lot smaller. “Typography” window is not available on Toolbar which is extremely important for Graphic Design. Should be shown inside Character Format window or at least available on Toolbar. Changing to different tool with “Hot Key” or “Keyboard Shortcut” after using Text Tool is not available. Swatches should be avail to show Gray Scale, Gradient and Colors on the same window. I personally feel that does not makes sense to have 3 different sections when we, the artist, use from gray scale, gradient, colors and everything in between in one artwork. ************** Suggestion: Should be an option to save my “Studio” windows settings (more than one setting depending on the type of project at hand). You may want to have an option to set different preferences when opening a new document: For Web Design: RGB Colors, Pixels Units for ruler, 72 PPI, Hex Color Swatches, etc. For Graphic Design: CMYK Colors, Inches Units for ruler, Pantone Color Swatches (Solid, Pastels, Metallic, etc.), 300 DPI etc. ************** Objects do not show if they are outside Document Dimensions. This could represent a problem and limits the design aspect. Sometimes we have different objects outside the document dimensions to be use inside the document dimensions. If we cannot see other objects to be use inside the document limits the creativity. Not to mention that some objects may remind hidden and can cause pre-press production problems. For Example a CMYK Object on a Spot color project (or vise-versa) ************** Suggestion: Should be an easier way to duplicate and move the text or objects in one action without using copy and paste and then moving the text or objects. ************** Text Tool sometimes does not select text, it tries to create a new text. Which makes you to first go to the Tool Box, select “Move Tool” (V), select text, change to Text Tool and then you can edit text. But I can always mentions the thing that are amazing about Affinity Designer, like realtime adjustment of Text Point size, or Font. I think that not only it cuts a lot of design process time, but it also increase the creativity and expand options or concepts in a very spectacular way. Ok, this is for now, because I have work to do and I have not get the chance to play with each tool. I hope Serif finds these comments useful.

See the image attached. I think it would be awesome if there was a color preview to show how dragging the curves handles will affect your photo. For example I would know that dragging the highs in the red channel down would tint the photo cyan, or dragging the lows in green to the right will tint the photo magenta. This could work for RGB and CMYK as well. Thanks!

Note: Please excusemy poor english. There might be some errors but I hope you do understand me :ph34r: Colors: Please provide the hexcode in every (!) color-dialog and all color-spaces to simplify copy of a special color Please offer a hover-info for exact color value in the "last used" color-fields Stroke: Please let the mouse focus on the width-slider of the stroke and let arrow-keys change the values (left/right = -/+1, up/down = +/-5). At this point a direct input of a value could lead to focus the cursor into the value-input field Guides: I´m not sure how to do it the best way but the guides-dialog is not smart. It is not possible to select a guide neither by clicking it in the layout nor to identify it in the dialog by selecting it with the selection-tool. So the user has to guess or estimate which guide-value could be the right one. GUI: I´m not sure if it is useful to separate dialogs into (studio-) dialogs and windows (like guides, typografy etc.). I am working with 2 monitors and like to dock all possible and useful dialogs on my 2. screen to have a proper working-bench on my prime-screen (which shows only tools and documents). To be continued… B)

Not sure if this is a bug, or if I'm misunderstanding something here, but I'm having an issue with blend modes and I was hoping someone could help me out. I have a gradient map nested in a photo (basically turning it black and white). The photo has a Multiply blend mode. Underneath, there is a blue solid layer. For some reason, this is turning out much darker than doing the same thing, just rasterizing the image and gradient map together (see attached images). The lighter version is how I expected it to turn out, but I'd rather not destruct my layers if I don't have to. Any idea why I'd be getting different outcomes here? Shouldn't the gradient map only be affecting the image since it's nested? Thanks!

Hi, Has anyone noticed a difference in color of the raw file in AP and that same file in PS? How can i be sure i'm getting the correct color from the adjustments I'm making? Just curious because when i try to process in AP the images don't come out as great as i believe they are in PS. Thanks!

If I open a scanned image in Photoshop, it opens as a single "Background" layer. And whenever you use the Eraser tool on such a "Background" layer, it Erases to White because White is the default chosen background color. Of course, if I click the little Lock icon to unlock the Background layer in Photoshop, it changes to "Layer 0" and any use of the Eraser tool in that case will erase to transparent. In Affinity Designer, everything erases to transparent from what I see, even the Background layer. In Affinity, how do I ERASE TO WHITE? Thanks.

Why does the gradient change the color? see screenie. the color of the sphere should have the same color as the bg.

Hi, I'm laying out a website in Affinity Designer. I'm using a lot of black and so would like to lighten up the dark gray canvas around my layout to a lighter gray. I've looked around and can't figure out how to do this. Can I change the canvas color and how? Thanks

I have notice when I open my raw files in Affinity Photo, they are much darker than they are in Adobe Bridge and in Photoshop. They also appear much darker than they appear on my camera view. I'm wondering if I have a setting or preference set wrong. I have attached two screen shots. Nothing has been done to either photo except to open them in Affinity and Photoshop. You can see the difference in the brightness and color. The Photoshop clip better represents what was captured in the camera. Can anyone make suggestions or have you noticed this and what did you do? Thanks, Joe

Hi Can't find out how to copy sample color from canvas wile using brush or Fill tool. In PS it can be done by pressing Alt and copy or with eyedropper tool. p.s. in color pallet is eyedropper icon can't figure out what this for? http://monosnap.com/image/AQwgqrzL65B9iE5CNO9wzMObWTrf6Y ---------------------- Best regards Aleksander Tymchenko

Hi, I begin in affinity designer, i use it like photoshop and like Illusatrator, very very usefull app, thanks ! :) I start a drawing in vector mode, and i like to pick up color in my image with alt + clic but the color goes near the pickup tool and i need to double clic on the color to make it active... It is possible when i pick up a color to make it active without double clicking ? Thank you :) Have a good day

Hello! The possibility to change the color space/format at export without needs to change documents setup. Every time I'm working for impression(CMYK) when I need to send a preview to my clients, I have to change the document setup to RGB and then export to jpg or png and then go back to document setup and re-set the color format to CMYK......... Regards!

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-computers-have-trouble-with-blending-colors I read this article, and think Affinity (all of them) need a more accurate blur, square brightness, average (or whatever else), then square root brightness. Simple compared to the other things, like photo's inpainting tool. (If you are really curious, the other layer in the screenshot is a picture of a pine marten)

There's a new Minute Physics video about computer color that raises interesting questions in my head. The basic premise is that colors blend in strange ways on a computer because engineers are lazy and they do the math wrong. Take the attached screen shot as an example. Why don't the colors in my image match the palate? Can someone someone point in me the right direction to learn about why this happens, and why software wound up working this way? Is it actually doing the right thing, is it wrong but grandfathered in, or is there a good reason to leave it as it is? Thanks!

Hey Affinity Team, I just started trying this program after 15-20 years with Illustrator. And the first thing that I noticed is wow - pretty awesome! 2nd was that when hitting i to select the eye dropper - to give a shape some color - nothing happened. I think this is an important feature - as when I went to click on the eye dropper my shape just turned black. (not the intended result) Hope that makes sense. Also scaling while holding alt - would be nice if it scaled on the spot (where it was in relation to that position) In kindness, nenuphar :)

I know of the shortcut to "Fill" and then chose a color from there, I think there should be one for filling with foreground and background to work faster with masking

I miss a Color Info Window like its in Photoshop:

I've read that you have list mode in the pipeline, which is great, but i'm missing the option to make my own arrangements of colors inside the palette. Actually adding new swatches uses a photoshop like approach: to fill the available space in the grid color after color, fixed way. In illustrator you can change the order of swatches at any moment and arrange color in folders, making rows of color sets inside the swatch palette, which is very useful for interface design or comic design. I noted that in Affinity designer you can easily create multiple custom sets and change them fast from the drop down list, but is not as practical and fast as organizing them in one palette. Also, option to make swatches bigger will be very welcome. I've attached a comparison of one custom color set as I use on illustrator and how i get it on Affinity. It is clear that actually in illustrator is much more useful and practical at this moment.

I can't manage to rearrange, reorder my swatches in a palette. I mean if I add a color to a palette, it comes in the first position and I can't move it from there (to have brown together, yellow together …) Is there something I missed or is it not possible ?

So I was directed to post here from someone at the official Facebook page... So, I went ahead and downloaded and 'unboxed' the program last night and I had a ton of issues with the imported color profiles. When I checked the preferences all of the color profiles look right and it imported it with a sRGB color profile and it looks horrible. Is there a way to fix the color profiles and have the correct one import when I open up a raw file? I think once I get past this issue I'd like to do another video showing the program a little better and test all of the other features. It's just hard to get past the color profiles looking wonky. I've tested them all and they look really bad, even CMYK looks off. Who knows maybe I'm doing something wrong? Obviously people are going to need tutorials once this goes to the full version. I'm in no way an expert in Photoshop, but it's obvious to me that there are issues with the imported settings. A few people are also complaining that it's doing crazy things to the color calibrations on their monitors, as well. The files are from a Canon 5D MkIII Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHjwZakRaJc

I recently downloaded a new font which has a great outline but the middle is all white how do I color the white part without painting the border? I've tried using the the selection brush and then adding color that way but it seems for some reason my selection brush stopped working so how should I go about getting color in there.

A lot of apps have a custom way of dealing with colors, just like Affinity Designer. But most of those app also support the native OS X color picker, c.f. by giving a simple shortcut in the menu like "Show Colors" to open it. The color picker is an app that's been around for years. Many of us have vast collections of palettes for our projects in this app. With apps like Hues and Colors Pro plus the huge amount of plugins which is available for it, it's still happen to be one of the best ways to manage colors and get in them in our designs. In short: In my eyes this is a mandatory addition.

Hi, nice offer for - 20% but without a Demo its a Risk of 80% ... ((-; So here are a few Questions, that are very important for me: Color: - can AD save and load individuel Color-Sets and save them with the Project-File? - is there support for HKS/Pantone Colors? - handle different Spot/CMYK colors in one Document? - any support of Preview ICC-Profiles? Export: - support for Adobe Acrobat Profiles or Distiller? - otherwise: can AD handle different Output-Profiles for EPS/PDF with export-Details like Cropmarks etc.? - export Selection only? Fonts: - Fonts on Paths or Objects over more than one Line? - Fonts convert to Paths? Paste: - Paste Vector-Objects inside another Object? Trace: - is a Trace-Tool included? (That was a very helpful Function at FreeHand, where you can do a selection on several Objects and they will be traced as a new Objects. You might remember? Know what i mean?) Ok, thats it. Looking forword for your answers and sorry for my unperfect english .. ((-; Cheers from Hamburg/Germany! Jan

Good Morning, I'm just finishing my first piece of artwork produced with Affinity, and really enjoyed the process so far. However I would like to experiment with some different colours schemes, Is there a way to select and edit colours rather than replacing individually? or can I set up colour pallets with global settings?

How do I import swatches? kat