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Hi marsofearth,

Usually applications that tend to do all at once never manage to do anything particularly well. Affinity Photo and Designer serve very different goals. This should become more evident as we move forward. Neither of them are feature complete yet. There will be more Personas / new features / tools, not to mention a third application for desktop publishing. If all this were included in a single app it would become much more complex and heavy, harder to test and maintain and also harder to learn. Keeping them separate allow us to broaden the scope of each one in their particular area while still offering great flexibility since all Affinity apps share the same file format. This allows you to switch from one to another seamlessly without any type of conversions. We believe this is the best compromise between having a limited all-in-on app or a suite of powerful but disconnected/unrelated apps.

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Hi marsofearth,

Usually applications that tend to do all at once never manage to do anything particularly well.

Maybe you are right, maybe not.

Most Behemoth software is based on legacy though, not a spritely development with freshly baked code. 

 

Your personas are a nice UI trick to keeping things tidy, works very well too, much better than Adobe's implementation, although Adobe is battling legacy.

 

I suppose it is always the designers wish to have all his or her tools in one place, simplify workflow, and make the journey to end product as smooth as possible.

 

It is a balance between having a cluttered workshop with every tool under the sun that you never use vs a tidy workshop with fewer easy to use tools you want to use.

Sometimes the solution is too simple to see, and is growing right before your eyes.

 

I truly hope Design and Photo do not go down the path of divergence,  when the goal is all the same, a great image for digital or for print.

 

I respect the path Serif is taking and it is the best path right now by the feel of Designer/Photo 

Just don't pass off convergence as a bad thing too quickly, the lines between Vector/Raster are continually blurring. he he...

 

cheers.

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It makes zero business sense to merge them. Buying both Designer and Photo is still a lot cheaper than buying ONE of Photoshop or Illustrator.

 

But to make matters worse:

* If they merge Designer and Photo then they will have to raise the price from $49 to something like $79, but that means a *lot* less of the casual users buy it. And it's still less than they would have made from 2 separate sales. So less income means they may have to fire employees and cripple product development.

* If the products merge, the GUIs become more cluttered and confusing.

* If the products merge, they will have to delete one of them from the app store, and only half of their users would get the merged upgrade - the ones from the deleted product would have to re-purchase the other one. The app store does not support license migration.

* If they had released the product "merged from day one", then they would have given a free "Photo" upgrade to every Designer user and would not have received any reward for their 5 years of hard work creating Affinity Photo. Alternatively, they could have made it a paid "Designer 2.0" update and piss off all the designer users who have been promised that their purchase includes free updates for 1-2 years to come.

* An alternative solution would have been to sell Designer and then have a $49 in-app purchases to unlock Photo, but that makes no sense either. People who only want pixel work would have to buy Designer which they don't even want. And Designers may feel cheated paying $49 for extended pixel editing power. So that option would just piss off both userbases.

* A merge would constrain all features and keyboard shortcuts in a way that makes sense for both vectors and pixels, instead of allowing each app to develop its own workflows.

 

It's horrible for business in 100% of the areas that matter. And it's not even an issue; people have happily worked with Adobe's separate software suite for decades.

 

A merge will not happen until *all* users are willing to pay $100, and to buy the software in the exact same sales volume as today.

 

The lack of a merge is not Affinity's fault. It's your fault. It's my fault. It's all of the users who would not pay a fair price if they're merged. So let's never talk about this again, and let's instead celebrate that we're getting awesome Adobe-killing software at $49 each for *perpetual* licenses and none of Adobe's monthly subscription fee bullshit. We're already getting a mindblowing deal, and we're used to working with individually specialized apps. Everything is perfect.

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I see your point marsofearth, mainly the convergence between different computer graphic technics.

 

But I have to say Serif's choice suits me better.

About mixing vector and raster technics, I didn't have time to use AD enough but it seems that you have some nice pixel mode tools.

 

And aitte is right about different things like having different cheaper apps to let people choose one or two (and three in the near future) apps depending on their needs.

 

For me, the essential in that choice is to keep those applications as light and powerful as possible in their respective domains but still, having an efficient bridge between the two if you need it. I don't want an app doing 3 millions different things if the price to pay (beside $/€) is to have a 5Go application taking ages to load and do something.

And of course being competitive with Adobe equivalent but without the subscription.

OS X 10.12 - AP 1.6.6 - AD 1.6

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If it keeps Affinity trucking along smoothly, I would happily pay $100 or more for the individual apps as they are! :D

Please send me your extra money you seem to have. Thanks

Mac MacBook Pro 15 in.  OS X 10.9.5, Mid 2012 456.77 GB Affinity Design and Photo.

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So let's never talk about this again...

 

A dreamer has to dream though, and I don't see that talking hurts anyone here.

 

I don't think it has to be an all or nothing, a black and white, this or that situation.

 

If you ask Adobe why file formats can not be more tightly integrated between Illustrator and Photoshop they will give you a million reasons why it will never happen, and why it is better for the designer. I personally never felt it has given me any advantage to my workflow.

 

Lets put it this way;

 

Designer and Photo are separate apps. 

 

1. You are using Designer and need to quickly touch up a raster image in designer, clicking a persona or some UI trick quickly opens the Layer/Image in Photo for retouch/effects/stuff, clicking persona/UI trick sends it back to Designer, for layout.

 

2. You are using Photo, and need some vector work done, you click a persona/UI Trick and start working on your Vector Designs, finish and Persona/UI trick back to Photo with your new vectors.

 

 

It would mean not having to duplicate tools in Photo, or duplicating tools in Designer, using the best tool for the situation while feeling like you are working in one "Workshop" not running between Workshops.

 

Having File Formats integrated really opens this possibility up.

 

It makes zero business sense to merge them. Buying both Designer and Photo is still a lot cheaper than buying ONE of Photoshop or Illustrator.

 

But to make matters worse:

* If they merge Designer and Photo then they will have to raise the price from $49 to something like $79, but that means a *lot* less of the casual users buy it. And it's still less than they would have made from 2 separate sales. So less income means they may have to fire employees and cripple product development.

 

I don't see this as a black and white situation, A user would still be able to Purchase one or the other, or both.  The difference is that when purchasing both, Designer and Photo are tightly integrated into one Workshop instead of separate Workshops... The use of same file format makes this very possible, and does not mean that when working with Vector you see all the Photo tools or vice versa, in fact it would reduce the need for replication of tools in either program.

 

Serif has already created a brilliant "persona" interface which illiminates clutter smartly. 

 

I am not saying Serif needs to only make one application fits all, only that when purchasing another Serif application that the integration is so tight the designer feels like he is still working in the same "Workshop".

 

I don't care if there is one Icon or 5 icons in the dock, I just love the idea that Serif is building here a tightly integrated system of design tools.

 

Don't fuss over what can not be done, fuss over what can! 

 

Love what Serif is building, just hope they stay on this present track, or even more convergent track and not a divergent one.

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@marsofearth: It's a bit confusing that you're now acting as if you never suggested a total merge into 1 single application. In your first post, and all posts after that, you said: "Why not simply merge Designer and Photo. Or perhaps have Designer having Photo integrated while Photo is stand-alone."

 

Now in your latest post you say: "I never said Serif should merge the applications. I am saying why not make the apps able to send data quickly between each other with a simple button press".

 

 

Merging? Never going to happen until every user is willing to pay $100 for a 2-in-1 app. And that will never happen. Casual users will just pick up the cheaper (and poorer) Pixelmator if Affinity merges the apps and is forced to raise their price.

 

But even better integration via "send current layer to Designer/Photo for modifying" and "return the modifications to the other app" buttons? Yep, it's on their feature roadmap. ;)

 

 

PS: Some of you mentioned what you'd be willing to pay. I'd happily pay up to $1,000 for each individual Affinity app. As a musician using only legal software, I am used to prices in that range (almost all music plugins are something like $200-800 each). I'm sure Affinity wishes every customer thought like this, hehe.

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@marsofearth: It's a bit confusing that you're now acting as if you never suggested a total merge into 1 single application. In your first post, and all posts after that, you said: "Why not simply merge Designer and Photo. Or perhaps have Designer having Photo integrated while Photo is stand-alone."

 

Now in your latest post you say: "Why not make the apps able to send data quickly between each other with a simple button press".

 

I am not acting, just discussing.  Forums are a wonderful place to brainstorm, bounce ideas off like minded peoples.  

 

I have no ideas set in stone, and the arguments against having Designer and Photo as one single application are valid as some people do not wish to learn vector/layout design and others do not wish to work with raster.

 

 

 

Now in your latest post you say: "Why not make the apps able to send data quickly between each other with a simple button press".

 

 

But even better integration via "send current layer to Designer/Photo for modifying" and "return the modifications to the other app" buttons? Yep, it's on their feature roadmap.  ;)

 

 

Fantastic, Thanks for this tidbitperhaps I am not as Mad as I make myself out to be *smile*

 

A lot of times the best ideas merge from those way out in Left Field with the ideas way out in Right Field...

 

Personally I would love to have Vector and Raster living in the same "workshop"  If it means that the apps remain separate I am fine with that, I just hope the convergence goal is to where working between the apps becomes so transparent the designer hardly notices which app they are using, focussing on the end product goal.

 

People want separate apps I am cool with that, and It sounds like Serif is looking at ways to still maintain tight integrations, which is great!

 

I like the persona idea UI design trick, just suggested that something similar may work to play layers back and forth, or perhaps it is contextual?  or something like when you edit a smart object in Photoshop?

I am just tossing this stuff out there, because I am excited about these Apps and their potential, not because I want to troll.

 

I don't care if 90% of my ideas don't stick or work, I'll just focus on the 10% that do work born out of my beautiful failures.

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@marsofearth: It's a bit confusing that you're now acting as if you never suggested a total merge into 1 single application. In your first post, and all posts after that, you said: "Why not simply merge Designer and Photo. Or perhaps have Designer having Photo integrated while Photo is stand-alone."

 

Now in your latest post you say: "Why not make the apps able to send data quickly between each other with a simple button press".

 

 

Merging? Never going to happen until every user is willing to pay $100 for a 2-in-1 app. And that will never happen. Casual users will just pick up the cheaper (and poorer) Pixelmator if Affinity merges the apps and is forced to raise their price.

 

But even better integration via "send current layer to Designer/Photo for modifying" and "return the modifications to the other app" buttons? Yep, it's on their feature roadmap.  ;)

 

 

PS: Some of you mentioned what you'd be willing to pay. I'd happily pay up to $1,000 for each individual Affinity app. As a musician using only legal software, I am used to prices in that range (almost all music plugins are something like $200-800 each). I'm sure Affinity wishes every customer thought like this, hehe.

I bought photo, and maybe could go for designer later (i really wouldn't use it much) but it would be nice if there was some incentive / loyalty bonus to buy the second program. Also other parts as the suite develops. . .  

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Hi blackest,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

We would do it if we could. Unfortunately The Mac App Store doesn't provide ways/controls for that.

Sometimes we do offer a discount for both apps in particular situations to work around this. For example when we launched Affinity Photo on the Mac App Store (with 20% off), Designer got a discount too.

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Hi blackest,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

We would do it if we could. Unfortunately The Mac App Store doesn't provide ways/controls to do it.

To workaround this sometimes we offer a discount to both apps in particular situations. For example when we launched Affinity Photo on the Mac App Store (with 20% off), Designer got a discount too.

Are you forced to supply only through the app store?  Generally it seems that most software seems to have a full price and an upgrade price not sure how it works with apples app store if an affinity product or module could  be a qualifier for an upgrade price.

 

There are a few issues with the app store for one there is the 30% that apple take from each sale, ok its counterbalanced by exposure and greater sales. Then there are the ipc rules apparently topaz has to cripple their plugins to comply with apples rules. 

Once I had Affinity Photo i have no need for apple to introduce me to her sister Designer.  

 

One thing i really dislike about apple is the scorched earth approach to applications my old macbook maxes out at 10.7.5 and apple replace an app that works with lion with one that requires yosemite although i have no upgrade path to yosemite. Adobes as bad the trouble i had to  buy version 5 of lightroom they wouldnt sell me a serial number at all. 

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  • 8 months later...

I agree with marsofearth that you are sometimes allowed to dream, think about the unthinkable and take decisions that nobody in the industry has taken.

 

The end goal in both programs is to end with a great image and I think there is nothing worse to have tools that are not in one application but are in the other and you permanently have to switch between one and the other.

 

I completely agree with @aitte, to merge all of it makes zero sense, but you can still work on having the same effects in both and not having to switch between apps.

 

I have used pixelmator for years and am still happy with it. (although there are some stuff that could be better and the guys are not that active on the forums…) I’ve purchased AFdesigner 2 months ago and maybe I’ll get photo later if I like the trial.. Maybe not.

 

I know that merging both would make a too complex program, and make it heavy (asking for too much processing power) but I have maybe a solution for that which makes maybe zero sense but here we are: In Designer, there are options, effects ect that I do not need at all and that are making stuff too complicated (maybe because I am not a professional designer) but like in the exporting persona, exporting at 1 res or 2 res or 3 res… then number of profiles… and then why is there an export persona and there is also in the file menu an export menu with some options that are also in the export persona… Too me, this is duplicating content and I don’t need that,… Maybe there could be a checkbox in the preference pane with “show advanced features” and so that could save  disk performances so we can work on merging some aspects of the 2 apps. I’me just throwing out an idea, a thought.

 

I do not use APhoto but is there like @Aitte mentions “ integration via "send current layer to Designer/Photo for modifying" and "return the modifications to the other app" buttons?” To me, that is crucial.

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Merging? Never going to happen until every user is willing to pay $100 for a 2-in-1 app.

 

Why not. I would be happy to pay 150 USD/EUR for 3-in1.

 

Imagine you are a painter and you paint your masterpiece with some (pastel?) colors. And then you decided to continue with some other kind of colors (aquarel). But, what is happening? They are not here but on the other table where you work strickly with aquarel. So, you take your paper and go there. And after that you decide to change... Oh, my God. Do I have to work or to go for a walk?

You need ALL 3 tools to design and the best way is to merge ALL 3 into 1. Like Xara, Canvas, PhotoLine... What's wrong with them?

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
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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Whether one can well imagine having Vector Pixel and Page Layout combined in one app or finds that a plain terrible idea: It's at least peculiar how one opted for strict separation in 2D graphics applications and how the exact opposite total integration took place in many 3D graphics apps. A 3D program like say Autodesk Maya by the sheer volume of content, its offerings for different professional specializations and its overall complexity is so deep...

One could combine any raster/vector/dtp tool together, add the most comprehensive font creator, a serious textile pattern creation tool and any other industry specific plugin and still wouldn't have reached half the extend and complexity of the mentioned 3D app: A program which still proved learnable for large numbers of users around the world...

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  • Staff

Not all users take advantage of the functionality of all three apps. A photographer will find no use for Publisher tools. So why to pay for them?

Having them as separate apps will help to spread app use, keep prices accessible, fill users specific needs, reduce app complexity/development and learning curve. It also allows widen/deepen the scope of the tools for each area. For example Designer can be used in graphic design, illustration, web design, UI design, typography each of these requiring specific tools/functionality. Publisher also cover several uses/workflows from print to digital publishing which also require a wide spectrum of functionality. Keeping them separate allows to develop advanced tools without bloating the apps too much.

 

Changing between them - if you need to use more than one - is also relatively easy if you use the menu command File ▸ Edit in... to switch between apps. There's no need to save/open the file first to swap the document between them. All edits/history are kept when you do it. We believe this is the best compromise between having the advantage of using all functionality from the three apps without sacrificing price, performance, learning curve, complexity that one integrated app would imply.

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  • Staff

Deja vu...   I'm sure this conversation has been had already.... many times.  And I think Petar made exactly the same point last time... and the time before... and the time before...

 

I don't think we are going to change our strategy.  Get Adobe to give you a single all purpose app, and then come ask us again.

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
  • Software engineer  -  Photographer  -  Guitarist  -  Philosopher
  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
  • MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300
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What/Who is Adobe?

1. A building material made of clay or sand, water, & straw or sticks; typically in the form of sun-dried bricks.

2. A house or other building made of adobe bricks.

3. A creek that runs through Palo Alto CA.

4. A software company whose founders once lived near Adobe Creek.

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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Hi blackest,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

We would do it if we could. Unfortunately The Mac App Store doesn't provide ways/controls for that.

Sometimes we do offer a discount for both apps in particular situations to work around this. For example when we launched Affinity Photo on the Mac App Store (with 20% off), Designer got a discount too.

 

I've had designer for a while now and more to the spirit of this thread I like having designer and photo seperate, for one some tools are for bitmaps some are for vectors its better to have working tools where you need them. not grayed out because they don't apply to the object you are working on. Keep things in context and it gets a lot simpler.  What are you going to use a node tool for on a bitmap for instance.

 

Kind of surprised i've ended up in desgner most of the time. Only wish I could see the bleed lines

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Kind of surprised i've ended up in designer most of the time. Only wish I could see the bleed lines

Yes! I like to see the bleed as well :) 

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I've had designer for a while now and more to the spirit of this thread I like having designer and photo seperate, for one some tools are for bitmaps some are for vectors its better to have working tools where you need them. not grayed out because they don't apply to the object you are working on. Keep things in context and it gets a lot simpler.  What are you going to use a node tool for on a bitmap for instance.

 

Kind of surprised i've ended up in desgner most of the time. Only wish I could see the bleed lines

 

So, maybe it is not a bad idea to remove bitmap tools out of Designer, vectors tools out of Photo, and text tools from both of them?

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
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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