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What tools are missing from AF Designer Compared to ADB illustrator


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Welcome to the forums.
There probably isn’t a list comparing functionality in Designer and Illustrator as the different applications achieve things in different ways.
There are certainly some functions in Illustrator that don’t yet exist in Designer – see Feature Requests section of this website – but there are probably lots of things that Designer allows you to do easily which Illustrator doesn’t. (I don’t use Illustrator so I couldn’t say for sure.)
If you want all of the functionality of Illustrator, working how Illustrator works, then you probably need to use Illustrator.
However, if you need some software to do some specific things then Designer could very well be up to the job.
Is there some specific functionality that you need, or are you just wondering which software to buy/use?

P.S. As for “experience”, you won’t get the same from both applications. They are different things which work differently.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi @Ouabrou

From my perspective, this is a list of top 10 things that are missing in AD compared to AI:

  1. Envelope distortion
  2. Mesh gradients
  3. Mesh warp
  4. Select by same...
  5. Offset path
  6. Vector blending
  7. Ability to export file to PDF "as is" without embedding colour profiles/converting colours
  8. Possibility to see the contents the bleed area in multi-artboard mode (you can setup bleed, work with it, but you don't see its content)
  9. Possiblity to drag multiple colours in colours panel, rearrange them and work with multiple colour swatches at the same time
  10. Possibility to convert any colour to a spot colour (you must create a new swatch to do that)
  11. Bitmap tracing
  12. Saving/Restoring workspaces

Edit: I had to add #11 and #12 since they're major things missing in this comparison.

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6 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I don’t think we need yet another thread which contains people’s wish lists; there are enough of them already in my opinion.

Is any of the mentioned features present in AD compared to AI?
Is my list somewhat incorrect?
Is my reply somewhat unrelated to op's question?
Or should I compile a complete list of those features to be more precise? Tbh, the complete list would have over 700 items.

You might've missed op's question entirely I guess?

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I find the best way to learn the limitations is either try the demo and do what you would normally do in Illustrator. If you can accomplish it then you have a great cheap alternative to the monthly subscription from Adobe. Another way is be active in the forums, at least in reading threads. I have learned a lot about what Affinity can and cannot do by reading different threads. 

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Live paint, too. I think it was the name, because I don't use Illustrator any more.
Gradient following the curve.
Envelopes...

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
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Also missing: a subscription model. :72_imp:

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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If you start the race with trying to find out what is missing in the alternative solution (AD), the maximum you can get out of it is a draw. Let's not forget there's also stuff in AD that's not available in Illustrator.

Affinity Photo - Affinity Designer - Affinity Publisher | macOS Sonoma (14.2) on 16GB MBP14 2021 with 2.4 versions

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  • 11 months later...
  • 2 months later...
On 5/29/2020 at 2:16 AM, CLC said:

Hi @Ouabrou

From my perspective, this is a list of top 10 things that are missing in AD compared to AI:

  1. Envelope distortion
  2. Mesh gradients
  3. Mesh warp
  4. Select by same...
  5. Offset path
  6. Vector blending
  7. Ability to export file to PDF "as is" without embedding colour profiles/converting colours
  8. Possibility to see the contents the bleed area in multi-artboard mode (you can setup bleed, work with it, but you don't see its content)
  9. Possiblity to drag multiple colours in colours panel, rearrange them and work with multiple colour swatches at the same time
  10. Possibility to convert any colour to a spot colour (you must create a new swatch to do that)
  11. Bitmap tracing
  12. Saving/Restoring workspaces

Edit: I had to add #11 and #12 since they're major things missing in this comparison.

Thank you. Several of your listed items (1,2,3,5,6, etc.), I would group into a single category, namely the lack in AF of a suite of Vector Effects Filters of the sort one sees in AI and in Canvas. I have been informed here in this forum that people at times make use of composite groups of multiple instances of graphics converted to symbols to in rare situations accomplish something similar to a vector effects filter. There is also a means within AF of expanding and contracting a vector graphic, a bloat and pinch mechanism. But both AI and Canvas offer a whole suite of vector effects filters that are similar to what you might find in a raster editor like photoshop (add noise, simplify, jitter, wind, bloat, pinch, sphereize, twist, sheer, lens distort, mirror, mosaic, smooth, sharpen, make pattern, 3D, perspective, warp, mesh warp, exaggerate, average, blend, etc.) offered to any object or layer via an effects chooser (studio). What few vector effects tools Affinity Designer offers seem randomly presented in odd locations like the tool palette or from menu items. What I was originally looking for, a way to bloat or pinch a graphic (expand or contract its surrounding lines (not the points themselves), is a function offered by Affinity Designer, but it is hidden as a tool, not a filter or effect where anyone with experience in vector editors would naturally look (I was told how to do this two days ago, but it is hidden so well that today I am having no luck finding it). My hope is that Affinity chooses eventually to integrate a well organized, and intuitively presented, suite of vector effects filters. That and a raster-to-vector trace function would bring Affinity Designer very close in functionality to Adobe Illustrator and Canvas (now "Canvas Draw"?). PS, I am not a fan of the way in which Adobe tends to present tools and functions as feature bloat, but there is a huge difference between the frustration a user feels when they can't find a function, and the frustration a user feels when they discover the absence of said function.

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