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Adobe Photoshop 2021 beta.....bloody hell!!!


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Pains me to say but Photoshop 2021 beta is amazing, I hope the  Serif team that develop Affinity Photo take notice.......they need to.
And is there ever going to be an image trace action for Affinity Designer? I keep having to use Corel or Illustrator which is annoying lol

Regards 

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Gotta agree, just been watching Utube video’s over the last few days of the Adobe Photoshop update. It’s obvious to me Adobe have been rattled by Affinity and decided to fight back by this substantial update..and what an update it is. I have been a backer of Affinity and have all three in the suite and I will continue to back them but it certainly has left Affinity in the dust and, to be honest, Affinity Photo is beginning to look quite basic. Adobe seem to have jumped into their Ferrari while Affinity are chugging along in the slow lane in their little fiat 500. 
 

Like AITCH above I do hope Serif sit up and take notice that they are going to have to up their anti if they are going to draw professionals away from Adobe. Bug fix after bug fix is all very well and of course necessary to stabilise the software but we are not seeing much progress elsewhere. I have said before that it’s appreciated that Affinity are much smaller than Adobe but if you’re going to jump into a lake, you need to make sure you can swim.

Sorry Serif, despite my comments, I am on your side...really! I just wish you would find a way to quicken the pace of development. There must be plenty of developers out there..or maybe there isn’t. 

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14 hours ago, Raymondo said:

Adobe seem to have jumped into their Ferrari while Affinity are chugging along in the slow lane in their little fiat 500. 

Not many people can afford a ferrari and neither can it go any faster than a fiat 500 on major roads.  My point being that if you give a project to a whizz kid on adobe and the same project to a whizz kid on Affinity, they could both Achieve EXACTLY the same product in EXACTLY the same quality albeit the adobe guy might finnish FIRST, but who cares when both the ferrari and the fiat 500 can take you to EXACTLY the same destination.🙂

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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Yes that’s very true but if I cast my mind back to 2014 when Serif launched AP and AD, the software was aimed fairly and squarely at the “Professional market”. That said, the software was launched into an already established professional market which is always a hard task. Because of this fact, in order to attract professionals in creative agencies/creative design houses away from their favoured workplace structure, you have to offer something which will equal or better what they are using to entice them away. At the moment, AP after 6 years still hasn’t progressed enough to catch up with Photoshop. 

I have always said Serif set their price structure too low and I think this has had a unintended negative effect in attracting professionals. If something is too cheap to be true etc etc is something that has possibly retarded uptake of the software by the professional market. At least that is how it looks to me as I don’t know many agencies/design houses or printers that have adopted AP. If I’m completely wrong I would be happy to eat humble pie. If sales are increasing healthily then so should the workforce in order to cope with development which I’m not convinced is the case. Maybe there is a shortage of talented developers, I don’t know.

I’m not saying no professionals are switching, that would be untrue but I think it will be a harder task with Adobe having forged ahead by a big margin. This all sounds so negative but that’s because I genuinely want Serif to do well in the professional marketplace but it’s a bit like standing in a football ground watching your team being out played..very frustrating.

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Chris26, in the professional market time is money. I’m not sure I would totally agree that the same quality would be achieved in both AP and Photoshop which has a more creative arsenal at it’s disposal and depends on what you are trying to achieve. As a creative designer and compositor of images for a good many years, there are effects and options etc in Photoshop which AP simply cannot match at the moment. Weather both could achieve the same result would entirely depend on what you are trying to achieve as an end product. 

I think if I said to clients or agencies when I’m freelancing, “I don’t care how long it will take me to give you your artwork”, I’ll finish when I finish, I think I would be shown the door as most artwork commissions I’ve ever worked on has had a deadline. Anyway, I’m sure we could disagree all day but there it is.

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Adobe = 37 years  Huge stocks and shares and multinational links.

Affinity = 6 years  An office smewhere in Engand

Adobe partnered with the big players of the day, Aldus steve Jobs, and others to become huge multi billion euro business.

Affinity = Congratulations to them for offering almost the same technology and functions at a great price to those who can not afford hundreds of euros and many specs that loads of do not ever need anyway.  I still have the complete adobe CS3 on my mac, but find myself using Affinity more and more on windows.   I can do the same photography and the same publishing work on affinity as I do on Adobe CS3, When I was a student I wished affinity was around then, even my student price for the adobe package was a steep one.  You can not compare the two companies, ever.  They fill different needs.

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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1 hour ago, Chris26 said:

I still have the complete adobe CS3 on my mac, but find myself using Affinity more and more on windows.

Though that would only be a valid comparison, if you'd still work with the very first, even better with the beta release of an Affinity app. Because CS3 was released in 2007. Since you said, you'd use Affinity "more and more": the latest version of Affinity apps still can't completely replace 13+ years old programs for your? Or why do you still keep CS3 on one of your systems? Anyways, I agree with @Raymondo. In almost all sectors of the creative business, there are deadlines. Most of the time very tight ones, too. "Time is money" as they say—and this couldn't me more true in this case.

Yes, you can do a lot of things and daily works with Affinity's apps in almost the same time as with other products. But there are still a plethora of things which take multiple times longer to finish on Affinity apps with all its missing established basics and standards in UI/UX and in the design industry. Just search for "workarounds" in these fora and you might see the whole picture. And as said, "Time is money."—at least in a professional environment.

I agree with you, Chris, because I also think, most have the wrong idea about Affinity's apps. I personally still don't see Affinity's apps as direct competitors to Adobe's. Affinity's market isn't the same, it's just covering a fraction of Adobe's market. Affinity's apps are great for private use, for small businesses and freelance work, which isn't too time-sensitive. As soon as you have to work in a bigger professional design workflow, you can't bypass Adobe. And I highly doubt that this will change within the next years, if ever. Affinity apps have their market, their price makes it possible. They are not meant to me a 100% replacement for Adobe's Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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16 hours ago, BofG said:

But then Affinity is Fiat money and Adobe is Ferrari money.

I am getting more done with the "Fiat 500" than the crappy Adobe Ferrari !!! So Well done to Affinity for producing something that average users can pickup and use!!! Something Adobe will NEVER master...

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For me the only real major thing that Affinity has over Adobe right now is the editing capabilities (not having to come out of each program every time, that's superb)
I wish there was a trace to vector action, I asked about this over a year ago, relying on another company's program to do this is something I definitely feel could put off future customers buying Affinity Designer.
I'm not an Affinity hater for the record (I bought the full suite), I just think they need to up their game right now

I'll probably flit between Adobe and Affinity I guess

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2 hours ago, Andy05 said:

Or why do you still keep CS3 on one of your systems? 

Simply because I am so familiar with photoshop and have not been able to muster the resilience and the resistence to this impatient nature of mine of having to re-learn a piece of photographic software  after having used Photoshop for over 13 years.  I fear my own stress levels at wanting to do something I am so familiar with on Adobe.  HOWEVER, I am actually tired of having to edit in adobe on my mac, take it to windows, see a change, take it back into apple, re-save and re-do, take it back into windows, etc.  So yes, I am very close to getting the full suite of affinity but need a push., lots of coffee,  a soft sponge brick to throw at affinity photo for the first two weeks (an apology will always follow), and a room with sound proofing so that my wife doesn't hear the naughty words ..........😀

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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28 minutes ago, Chris26 said:

Simply because I am so familiar with photoshop and have not been able to muster the resilience and the resistence to this impatient nature of mine of having to re-learn a piece of photographic software  after having used Photoshop for over 13 years.  I fear my own stress levels at wanting to do something I am so familiar with on Adobe.  HOWEVER, I am actually tired of having to edit in adobe on my mac, take it to windows, see a change, take it back into apple, re-save and re-do, take it back into windows, etc.  So yes, I am very close to getting the full suite of affinity but need a push., lots of coffee,  a soft sponge brick to throw at affinity photo for the first two weeks (an apology will always follow), and a room with sound proofing so that my wife doesn't hear the naughty words ..........😀

I clung onto Photoshop 7 like my life depended on it, “they" - whoever “they” may be, had to pry it from my vice-like hands. After the funeral, I was in therapy for weeks, even now I have flashbacks to the lean mean glory days of old’obe… cue the song… "when I was young, never needed anyone, when photoshopping was for fun, those days are gone” {funky drums solo} “All by myself, don’t wanna be, all by myself anymore…"

R.I.P little buddy.
image.png.b41ed928adc627a158fe6f6f2f115d7c.png

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

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1 minute ago, firstdefence said:

I clung onto Photoshop 7 like my life depended on it, “they" - whoever “they” may be, had to pry it from my vice-like hands. After the funeral, I was in therapy for weeks, even now I have flashbacks to the lean mean glory days of old’obe… cue the song… "when I was young, never needed anyone, when photoshopping was for fun, those days are gone” {funky drums solo} “All by myself, don’t wanna be, all by myself anymore…"

R.I.P little buddy.
image.png.b41ed928adc627a158fe6f6f2f115d7c.png

I remember those days. . .that program started me off into photo editing. I still have it installed but never really use it anymore.

A new love lights the way!

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

These are not my own words but I sure like this quote.

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6 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I clung onto Photoshop 7 like my life depended on it

Capture01.JPG.697b569c0d644f384f87e1820fa4806d.JPG

 

Speaking to all those who believe Affinity should up their game, Mmm.....Do you remember  Mr Bell and Mr Edison, that no one needed a telephone until they were born.  I wonder if you compared a colour magazine from 1983 and one from 2020, would anyone be able to tell the difference and say "Ah yes, that was created with the latest technological innovations from adobe, but that one was created with a Fiat 500"?  Yep, track and trace and channel mixers, layers and curves and LAB mode, how did we ever live without them.  And no I am not an old fuddy duddy, but we never never need what we do not know exists and yet we manage to create.    Bring back the Cave Painters I say!

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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The Affinity Suite is astonishingly good for a 1.8 version, and does most of what the Adobe trio (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign) does for graphic designers.

Thus far, the opportunity that Serif have been able to exploit is the distasteful subscription policy imposed by Adobe, and the fact that Adobe is rather late in coming to iPad (though Adobe now has versions of Photoshop and Illustrator for iPad).

If it weren't for the subscription only business model from Adobe, Serif wouldn't be in business. The Adobe Suite is more polished and mature, and is more extensive. It also has the advantage of being an "industry standard" and benefiting from a kind of network effect.

Serif need to maintain feature parity with AI, PSD, and INDD, or (even better) exceed the features of AI, PSD, and INDD, and maintain an attractive one-time perpetual license fee.

If either Adobe were to offer their suite for a fixed fee, or Serif were to convert to a subscription model, Adobe would win hands down.

Still rooting for Serif and the Affinity Suite, but they are really facing an uphill battle.

 

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I'm an amateur/enthusiast/hobbyist who has used APhoto exclusively for the past 3 years. Previously I used Photoshop Elements through several versions since the early 1990s. I restore old photos for family and friends, make collages and other photo gifts, make large format prints for fun. APhoto has been a great learning experience. I chose APhoto because I liked its emphasis on non-destructive editing. That being said, I have the following observations:

1.) When catching up to a superior competitor, you must innovate twice as rapidly as that competitor just to stay the same distance behind. That's what some of this discussion is about. The competition was not standing still while Serif was playing catch up and claiming it is the future of photo editing.

2.) APhoto today is no better than it was three years ago, worse actually since .aphoto files are now 4 to 10 times larger than three years ago with no benefit to photo editors such as myself.

3.) APhoto seems to be positioned as a utility to supplement Serif's main focus, which is desktop publishing on the Mac platform. APhoto is not catering to photography enthusiasts. Indeed, I think many of us photography enthusiasts feel neglected by Serif.

4.) APhoto should be judged against Photoshop Elements, which is sold outright rather than as a subscription. Photoshop Elements includes many of the artificial intelligence features in Photoshop, features that are appearing also in other competitors to APhoto. Look at the Photoshop Elements 2021 web pages and you also might say WTBH.

5.) Given that a Photoshop subscription costs no more than a couple of pizzas per month, I do not understand why professionals in a production environment would consider this an inordinate expense. I agree subscription software is annoying in principle, just as copy protected software was annoying in the 1980s. I didn't use copy protected software then (Lotus 123, e.g.), and I don't use subscription software today. Certainly a Photoshop subscription is prohibitive for someone such as myself who may go for weeks without editing a photo. But for a business professional, so what?

 

 

Affinity Photo 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6; Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6. Windows 10 Home x64 version 22H2.
Dell XPS 8940, 16 GB Ram, Intel Core i7-11700K @ 3.60 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

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I checked out a video preview by PiXimperfect. For once I can say that Adobe has done a good job with producing a significant content update. Pattern Preview I think is the best feature of that update and I think Affinity would greatly benefit from having this as well. The AI stuff really doesn't interest me much since I primarily am an artist more than a photo manipulator, but it's still cool nonetheless. I can see why some photographers and image editors would want AI aware features inside Affinity as well to speed up lengthy selection processes.

That said, I did notice that they have taken some ideas from Affinity. I.e. search bars for assets, swatches, and more, the improved primitive shapes with booleans, and Version History which is pretty much a mixture of Snapshots and the branching history states. Some of them I still think Affinity does better (more specifically primitive shapes, branched history states, and Snapshots), but it's nice that Adobe are acknowledging good ideas as being just that, good ideas. As long as Serif also take the good ideas from Adobe, it's all fair game.

As for the discussion in regards to Serif needing to up their game even more, I think people should have realistic expectations on what Serif are able to accomplish compared to Adobe. I don't think that Serif should be chasing Adobe's tail constantly, since that is a chase that is never going to end. They don't have the same resources or the manpower to push out all these features in one major update. Yes, they should absolutely take Adobe products into account when adding new features and improvements to Affinity, but they should also chart their own course so that they can carve out their own place on the market. It's more important that the devs add the right sort of features that will satisfy their customer base and benefit all three programs as a whole rather than trying to push out Adobe sized content patches. The one main strength Affinity has over Adobe products is how well connected all three softwares are with each other, so the devs will need to be resourceful when making changes that add to the overall value of the entire Suite. Affinity should not strive to be just like Adobe, but being Affinity.

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@Frozen Death Knight

It's very tough to knock off an incumbent in a space where network effects create virtual monopolies. Adobe is the 800 pound gorilla in that regard. Regarded as the industry standard, where it's assumed that everyone will be exchanging files in native Adobe file formats, and dependent upon proprietary effects and features.

I think it's pretty clear that Serif are targeting small professional graphic design firms, who are unhappy with and uncomfortable with Adobe's subscription model. Large agencies and corporate in-house teams are not really troubled by the subscription based licenses.

For small creative firms, the three biggest worries about Adobe's subscription model are a) the never ending expense of renting one's tools; b) the risk of seeing the rental cost of the tools arbitrarily and dramatically increased; and c) the idea that if one were to stop paying the rental price for the tools, that one would lose access to one's own work product.

The single most powerful aspect of the Affinity Suite value proposition is the availability of professional alternatives to AI, PSD, and INDD for a fixed, perpetual license fee. That's augmented by the availability of those tools on the iPad as well.

The biggest worries for Affinity users is whether they can build a closed workflow independent of having to exchange native Adobe files with clients and collaborators. Helping Serif customers overcome or mitigate the problem of workflows that demand the exchange of Adobe file formats is a major strategic challenge.

 

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16 hours ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

The Affinity Suite is astonishingly good for a 1.8 version

Erm. That's kinda related to their policy of how they number their versions, probably due to their pricing/upgrade model. As most other developers wouldn't increase their version number by a fraction of 1 over a path of 6 years of development, major changes and improvements of their program. Compare 1.0 vs. 1.8 of the Affinity apps and do the same with most other apps. You'll see that Affinity apps had more changes than most others which version numbers increased by 7 or 8 instead of 0.8.

The version number is yet another thing which you can't compare the Affinity apps to others' with.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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4 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

Erm. That's kinda related to their policy of how they number their versions, probably due to their pricing/upgrade model.

Does how they number the versions really matter? Publisher hasn't been around for six years and the version numbers have to be the same for all three apps for Studio Link to work. It would be really confusing if each app had a different version number and you had to keep track of which version of each was compatible.

I think Serif's pricing policy is very fair. There have been a lot of advances in the apps, without having to pay for new versions. Yes, it does get frustrating to have to wait so long for some bug fixes and new features, but, on balance,  I'd rather that than having to pay out to Adobe every month. Basically all three Affinity apps cost less to buy than the Adobe suite costs for three months use. Take your pick. If you need the features that Adobe offers, and you're happy pouring money down the Adobe drain, go for it. Personally I find the Affinity apps do virtually everything I need.

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

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I suppose that Serif ought to be proud that people are debating about if their products are equal or would be surpassed in the near future by Adobe’s products. Is almost everybody saying then that no matter in which position, the Serif combo is among the two best and more professional programs of the kind?

Regarding photo editing (because I am now much more into it than designing or drawing or making reports as I used to be), there are as well lots of other programs that cost more than Affinity Photo but are not as good (and some of them are even kind of too amateurish for what they cost). There are also some free programs (which I have tried for curiosity) that are not as good either, for which reason I wonder why somebody would prefer to use them instead of buying AP, being it affordable as it is. My point being that maybe Serif is not only competing with Adobe (not that they aren’t) and that probably they are not necessarily targeting at the same spectrum of users. I suppose that how well is Serif doing with sales would be the rod to measure if they are in the right track.

Regarding myself, I don’t know how does Photoshop compare with Affinity Photo, but no mater what, I would never go for the former. I don’t like and it does not suit me to pay a rent to be able to use a program, and I don’t trust Adobe’s commercial policies and their loyalty to their customers (maybe just a prejudice of mine).

Nevertheless, as somebody said, a Ferrari might be a nice car, but I have a Nissan, and I am very happy with it, and if in some future I decide to change it for a different car, it won’t be for a Ferrari (which I feel I don’t need and is not the car for me, even if I could afford it, .....that I can’t).

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 All new features of Photoshop 2021 are not needed in the professional segment, because the professional is not paid for the movement of sliders. They are paid for precise work. All these new features for junior designer... Many professionals are still working in Photoshop CS6 2014
 

P.S. Algorithms work terrible, I never used them because after them you still need to fix everything

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7 hours ago, AlejandroJ said:

Nevertheless, as somebody said, a Ferrari might be a nice car, but I have a Nissan, and I am very happy with it, and if in some future I decide to change it for a different car, it won’t be for a Ferrari

@AlejandroJ

The problem for Serif and their customers, however, is that they are confronting the unique problem of the network effect, a problem that mostly tyrannizes the computer software industry.

The fact that your neighbor chooses to buy a Ferrari puts no real pressure on you to also buy a Ferrari, or to prevent you from selling your Ferrari and switching to another model of car. BUT, consider the problem of Facebook, or Twitter, for example. One could elect to avoid or drop Facebook, or Twitter, but 90% of the rest of the world including one's friends and family members are using those channels to communicate and share. The large network of captured users reinforces the dominance and monopoly-like position of Facebook and Twitter.

Adobe benefits from a similar network effect insofar as other professional creatives and corporate clients expect and demand the exchange of native Adobe files, not just for final deliverables, but also for collaborative work in development.

That's a bloody tough nut to crack.

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Even the funniest thing is, the people who are promoting Photoshop 2021 and the new algorithmic functionality. You will notice that they do everything on a white background to hide all the shortcomings of these very algorithms, it looks ridiculous, trying to sell shit. In the market either professionals this raw shit will not use.
The most important thing is that Serif adds functions that will really be useful and not raw.
I'm hoping for Serif

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