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Has V2 fixed Affinity's biggest issues?


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6 minutes ago, Twolane said:

complaining about what isn't there, what should be there

I think it is fair to create a post saying I would like such and such feature or features to be added to future releases. I have added my voice to one or two threads like that (e.g. RTL text). But I bought the software (licences) for what is there, not for what is not there.

10 minutes ago, Twolane said:

what doesn't work

If it is included and actually doesn't work properly or reliably, it should be reported as a bug. If it has missing features that somebody wants, see the point above.

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This conversation was quite productive until it turned into a meeting of the members of the Feedback HOA. I do not approve this surprise inspection or my appraisal. Where do I submit my protest?

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14 minutes ago, debraspicher said:

This conversation was quite productive until it turned into a meeting of the members of the Feedback HOA.

I had to look up what possible definition for HOA might be useful in this thread. Personally, I'm going for 'High Order Aberration' or 'Horse of the Americas'—but I have to admit, 'High On ASCII' has a really nice ring to it. ;) 

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2 hours ago, AlainP said:

Real professionals don't whine all the time on discussion forums. They make suggestions and work using other tools if the ones they have don't fulfill their needs. They usually don't cry for $50.

This doesn't give a complete picture of the situation.

- The only other tool is the Adobe suite. It has a very high cost for freelancers in some countries. Some could repay it with about one week of full-time work in a year. Something more in slower years. But for lower-wages countries it is a very expensive tool.

- Even if cost is not a matter, the Adobe suite keeps your files hostage. Stop paying, and you are no longer able to see what's inside. The only way is to start paying again, or hope that the free IDMarkz viewer will still be available.

- With Adobe, you are forced to update. Even in the middle of a critical job. Even if the update removes some feature or app you are using.

- The price of the Affinity suite is incredibly low. This is something I'm personally not fond of, because it means having to share the tools with people whose job doesn't depend on them. I would like they costed more. But I understand that this would prevent Serif from selling in a much wider market. While the "pro" market is shrinking, and probably continuing to pay multi-year contracts with Adobe up to the end of the times.

Oh, maybe Serif should have two different versions of their suite: one, more expensive, for pros. And another one, costing less and with a lot of bugs, for those who don't complain for the bugs, considering the price.

Paolo

 

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1 minute ago, Bryan Rieger said:

I had to look up what possible definition for HOA might be useful in this thread. Personally, I'm going for 'High Order Aberration' or 'Horse of the Americas'—but I have to admit, 'High On ASCII' has a really nice ring to it. ;) 

Ooh yes

Microsoft Windows 10 Home (Build 19045)
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Monitor 1 4K @ 125% due to a bug
Monitor 2 4K @ 150%
Monitor 3 (as needed) 1080p @ 100%

WACOM Intuos4 Large; X-rite i1Display Pro; NIKON D5600 DSLR

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On topic sort of? I'm not 100% sure how this thread is being arranged topically, so let me know if it does not fit. I just got alerted of this tweet.. yeah, even Clip Studio is adding AI of some sort. Their codebase is quite old maybe? I'm not really sure. The CSP moniker is newish. It used to be known by a far more niche name (Manga Studio).

image.png.be36d0d27a12891842de76f053d74ea3.png

 

Microsoft Windows 10 Home (Build 19045)
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X @ 3.8Ghz (-30 all core +200mhz PBO); Mobo: Asus X470 Prime Pro
32GB DDR4 (3600Mhz); EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3080 X3C Ultra 12GB
Monitor 1 4K @ 125% due to a bug
Monitor 2 4K @ 150%
Monitor 3 (as needed) 1080p @ 100%

WACOM Intuos4 Large; X-rite i1Display Pro; NIKON D5600 DSLR

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2 hours ago, AlainP said:

Real professionals don't whine all the time on discussion forums. They make suggestions and work using other tools if the ones they have don't fulfill their needs.

Exactly, and then the forum's emotional and emotionally driven members can think about how many with a serious and (semi)pro agenda in here they have scared away. Or simply discouraged from getting involved at all after scanning the forum. In general, you may wonder why these professionals are not to be found in this forum at all. 

I certainly don't use Affinity professionally. I once thought it had potential and followed it excitedly, but that hope evaporated year after year. And the forum has certainly not raised my hopes.

At work I call companies for support, or create a support ticket that is answered by a professional and customer oriented person who doesn't call me "Hater" or part of a coordinated attack by the competition. Whether you'll be satisfied with the response or handling is not a given, but you don't have to go through a meat grinder of random annoying people from the Internet. So you don't have to go through all sorts of bullshit that bypasses the core of the problem, as is the case in here. It's simply too unserious for professional use.

Nevertheless, there are people who use/have to use the programs to generate their income, and I feel sorry for them having to go that route for support or feedback in here.

There is something particularly wrong in this forum. I don't use many forums myself, three to be exact, most of what I do is professional as described above, but apart from some open source forums I visited as a youngster, the others are far less characterised by cult and youth club mentality. In fact, I can actually get issues resolved or great answers.

The great harm is that the majority of long standing issues are never, ever addressed in a thorough and balanced way, but that everything ends up in nonsense.

 1) You have completely wrecked the layers panel, Serif.

2) I recommend Reddit groups instead of this forum. Not the same few bot-like users replying to everything, a wider representation of users, fewer fanboys, more qualified users. In short, better!

3) I was here to report bugs and submit improvement requests for professional work professionally in a large setup and to bring a lot of knowledge from the world, i.e. professional product development, web- and software development, usability, user experience design and accessibility. I actually know what I am talking about!

BUT! We are phasing out Designer and Affinity in 2022 Q1 - and replacing it with feature complete and algorithmically competent alternatives.
Publisher is unsuitable for serious use, and was never adopted.

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Just my 2¢, but the whole 'professional' discussion (in relation to tools) is so dated and loaded with baggage. Since the rise of the 'prosumer' in the 80s many, many folks have been performing 'professional' work using the tools readily available, and affordable to them. In the 80s this was the desktop-publishing revolution which enabled 'regular' folks with a Macintosh and a little software to create work that would have traditionally been done using expensive professional typesetters[1]. In the 90s this might have been video production companies using slightly better quality camcorders than the consumer ones, but not anywhere near the quality (and price) of the high-end professional cameras—or using Premiere and After Effects instead of a dedicated Avid suite to edit their work. And let's not forget the internet (considered a fad early on) which enabled a generation of hackers using relatively simple tools to build some of the biggest and most valuable companies today. Now it might be using Procreate and Instagram to build your illustration career, or Google Docs and Substack to author and market your books.

Today, with laptops, iPhones and iPads, Procreate, Instagram, Canva, Figma, Google Docs, Keynote, Blender, GameMaker, etc. many folks make professional quality work without the need for what many folks would deem 'professional quality tools' (Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Cloud, Autodesk Maya, Unity, etc). I think Serif knows this 'prosumer' market very well, not only with their previous apps, but also with many of the new customers that are coming to Serif tools for the first time today. These folks look at what these new tools enable them to do, and not focus on expectations (ahem, baggage) they don't have because they a) have never used the 'professional' tools, or b) were utterly confused when trying to use the 'professional' tools.

I think much of the friction comes when Serif (or other folks in general) draw comparisons to other, entrenched 'industry standard' applications (ahem, Adobe) that have been extensively used in many recent traditional 'professional' workflows. The Affinity apps aren't there yet, and maybe never will be. However, if your professional work isn't tied to 'traditional workflows' the Affinity apps have an awful lot to offer already (if they can fix the bugs/UX issues).

Maybe trying to replace InDesign with Affinity Publisher for your publishing business isn't the way to go today (or possibly ever), or maybe Publisher is exactly what you need to finally launch that new knitting magazine you've been thinking about? Maybe you still need to use Illustrator and Photoshop to exchange files with your existing customers, or maybe Designer and Photo provide and excellent (and budget friendly) way for your team to create the assets needed for your new game. These are all just tools we use to accomplish things we couldn't have done without them. If it works, use it, if it doesn't, don't.

[1] In my first job my boss would make me take the 'bloated' PostScript output from Illustrator and optimize it for the imagesetter so it would process faster. Was I ever happy when we moved away from that archaic workflow.

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When I use the word professional, it is a 100% reference to whether the product is used in a professional context where the creative uses the product in order to sell a product or the product as a part product, or where the product is used in a context where the product in its final form or as part of something larger is finally to be sold. Or used by professionals by authorities or organisations. In this context several other professionals and professional equipment are involved. Printers, print shops, web servers, other creative, whatever. What my product can do is not as relevant as that it works in the middle of a workflow. And in particular as an end product.

When you throw around the term professional tools in marketing, which Serif loves, you have to be aware that someone assumes this is what is meant by professional, because that is simply the reality for someone.

I am well aware that some need less than others. But it is so much their need and tolerance for the unfortunate many necessary workarounds that dominate this forum. Someone has to take the term professional seriously because Serif uses it non-stop.

When you even advertise that v2 "sets new standards", that it is "Professional photo editing, publishing, graphic design and illustration", that with v2 you are "breaking barriers," you have to expect feedback from the disappointed. And it has come.

Double disappointment for those Serif customers when they are confronted with nonsense from random people in here.

 1) You have completely wrecked the layers panel, Serif.

2) I recommend Reddit groups instead of this forum. Not the same few bot-like users replying to everything, a wider representation of users, fewer fanboys, more qualified users. In short, better!

3) I was here to report bugs and submit improvement requests for professional work professionally in a large setup and to bring a lot of knowledge from the world, i.e. professional product development, web- and software development, usability, user experience design and accessibility. I actually know what I am talking about!

BUT! We are phasing out Designer and Affinity in 2022 Q1 - and replacing it with feature complete and algorithmically competent alternatives.
Publisher is unsuitable for serious use, and was never adopted.

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21 minutes ago, Bryan Rieger said:

Maybe trying to replace InDesign with Affinity Publisher...

I think this is one of the issues that I see regularly in this forum.

Some people want all the features of InDesign in APub (and at the price of APub). Some feature they want which they occasionally describe as "basic" or "professional" (a peculiar dichotomy of terms) is missing from APub but present in InDesign. If they had started in APub they may have found a workaround which, while not ideal, is still usable. In other words they can try to work within the limitations of the program they are using. When a feature does not exist they can request that it be added, knowing that means it may or not be added with an unknown timescale to match.

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1 hour ago, François R said:

When you even advertise that v2 "sets new standards", that it is "Professional photo editing, publishing, graphic design and illustration", that with v2 you are "breaking barriers," you have to expect feedback from the disappointed. And it has come.

If someone is a "professional" - as you qualify him here, then he should know that marketing gibberish about something being the best, the fastest, the most perfect is simply gibberish that a "professional" can't believe at all. "Professional" is a professional because he can easily recognize that it is just marketing gibberish and that the given application does not do what he needs and requires for his professional work.
So I absolutely do not understand why a "professional" should be somehow disappointed, or should even feel cheated, because during trial period (today even 30 days) he quickly revealed that the given product is not suitable for him at all, so he will not buy it - after all, no one is forcing him to do so.

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301
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The customer who is most valuable to Serif's, and it's app suite's future, is the one who buys the whole suite, who spends £90, not £30, (actually it's those who'd spend £90 x 6+ for their studio). This isn't about "£30". And they're the one's who will keep buying it when it's £500.

Why do they buy the whole suite?

Because they use all three apps constantly, every day. <<< That's the defining characteristic of these customers.

And yes, there is a distinct pattern to how they use the three apps, so there are 'needs' that are distinct to that pattern of activity.

Photographers will possibly never buy Designer, and may never buy Publisher. They'll - probably / likely to / may - only ever spend £30.

So here it is - why these particular 'professionals' whinge: I've randomly picked Photo. At the moment, Photo is focussed on the specialist photographer, at the expense of the individual using all three apps every day. Designer is the same. The 'suite' is not a 'suite', other than superficially. There is no incompatibility between specialist photographer and three-app-user, btw.

Their needs are not getting met, while photographers and illustrators are. It's not about being special.

By the way, I've admired Serif for their stated mission, and it's heart-breaking to see something with so much love and effort poured in to it missing the target they set themselves.

---------------

NOTES:
'Professional O_o !' The pattern of activity I've described above is the 'workflow' I'm referring to when I talk about 'professional'.
**** Feel free to suggest something else I can use to label those who use all three apps more or less equally, I'll welcome it with both arms. I'll even change my heinous username if I can ****
My use of the word professional is NOT a judgement on anyone and I know it's a crude label, but it's the best I've got, unfortunately. @François R, three posts above, has a good definition that I recognise and am referring to. It's a particular process in a context, that doesn't have a label anyone understands instantly, unlike 'photographer', or 'illustrator'. 'Designer' is a label for a plethera of processes - furniture, clothes, bridges, databases, systems, heirarchies, business models, packaging, UI's....

It is not about 'skill' or 'creativity' or 'professional attitude', or 'special status' (I naively thought everyone understood that, and I apologise for offence).

The username 'designer' was already taken at the time, and I didn't give it much thought, btw.


Marketing gibberish What's the alternative? 'Professionals' should only give time to testing stuff that doesn't make these promises? Importantly, properly testing an app to assess whether it's usable is quite an exercise, requiring no small investment of time - as I said, it's not about £30.
 

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Words are crude implements, difficult to get perfect, easy to get tied in knots with, and often - usually - misunderstood, which is why 'tolarence' is the best word of all.

The word "professional" fits us all - amateur, semi-pro, beginner, advanced, middle, beyond it all, and on....., because professionals are tolerant.

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19 minutes ago, ProDesigner said:

the one who buys the whole suite, who spends £90, not £30

Very well. That is me. I was one of the first to buy the V2 apps, within hours or minutes of them being released.

21 minutes ago, ProDesigner said:

Why do they buy the whole suite?

Because they use all three apps constantly, every day

I don't use all three constantly every day. So that is not the only reason why people buy the whole suite. The offer was very good so that is why I took it up. I occasionally use APhoto but don't use it very often as I have a DAM which does most (practically everything) of what I need for photos. If APhoto had a DAM built in I would probably use it (hint hint).

23 minutes ago, ProDesigner said:

Their needs are not getting met

This is why I mention special pleading. Yet again somebody has said that certain customers, in this case those who spend £90 x however many users in their offices, are more important. What about my needs? I paid the same £90. Their needs (whoever they are) are not more important than mine.

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Every single business has 'core' customers who keep them afloat. Who provide 80% of the revenue that pays wages and other bills. It's reality. I hate to break it to you, but you may not be in the 'important customer' bucket with a lot of the firms you're paying. It's not personal.

And you've mentioned just one feature you need. Try a dozen. It might be the starving who are pleading a special case here?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Words are crude implements, difficult to get perfect, easy to get tied in knots with, and often - usually - misunderstood, which is why 'tolarence' is the best word of all.

The word "professional" fits us all - amateur, semi-pro, beginner, advanced, middle, beyond it all, and on....., because professionals are tolerant.

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23 minutes ago, Artsketch said:

Is it really worth £500 every 2-3 years?

Well, it won't be £500 unless you've bought multiple Universal licenses or a lot of individual product licenses.

And it isn't every 2-3 years. Or, at least, it might not be. First, V2 could be like V1 and last for 7 years. Next, there's no requirement to upgrade to the next paid version, whenever there is one. You can keep using V2 as long as you want.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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9 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You can keep using V2 as long as you want.

Your device's OS will be the determiner of how long. I can't see Serif will offer updates ad infinitum for previous versions.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Words are crude implements, difficult to get perfect, easy to get tied in knots with, and often - usually - misunderstood, which is why 'tolarence' is the best word of all.

The word "professional" fits us all - amateur, semi-pro, beginner, advanced, middle, beyond it all, and on....., because professionals are tolerant.

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3 hours ago, Pšenda said:

If someone is a "professional" - as you qualify him here, then he should know that marketing gibberish about something being the best, the fastest, the most perfect is simply gibberish that a "professional" can't believe at all. "Professional" is a professional because he can easily recognize that it is just marketing gibberish and that the given application does not do what he needs and requires for his professional work.
So I absolutely do not understand why a "professional" should be somehow disappointed, or should even feel cheated, because during trial period (today even 30 days) he quickly revealed that the given product is not suitable for him at all, so he will not buy it - after all, no one is forcing him to do so.

That is right. You don't understand. But you post. 7000 times. Your completely blind and ritual defense of Serif with such unserious nonsense is part of the problem. Not the solution.

 1) You have completely wrecked the layers panel, Serif.

2) I recommend Reddit groups instead of this forum. Not the same few bot-like users replying to everything, a wider representation of users, fewer fanboys, more qualified users. In short, better!

3) I was here to report bugs and submit improvement requests for professional work professionally in a large setup and to bring a lot of knowledge from the world, i.e. professional product development, web- and software development, usability, user experience design and accessibility. I actually know what I am talking about!

BUT! We are phasing out Designer and Affinity in 2022 Q1 - and replacing it with feature complete and algorithmically competent alternatives.
Publisher is unsuitable for serious use, and was never adopted.

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7 minutes ago, Artsketch said:

If it will be compatible with Apple's yearly macOS and iPadOS update.

If it's not, then for the foreseeable future Serif will update it to keep it running. Even if V3 were to be released in 3 years, I figure Serif will (try to) keep V2 running for at least 5.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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14 minutes ago, François R said:

But you post. 7000 times.

360 posts since the end of 2019? So 180 ish a year.

Where do you get 7k from?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Words are crude implements, difficult to get perfect, easy to get tied in knots with, and often - usually - misunderstood, which is why 'tolarence' is the best word of all.

The word "professional" fits us all - amateur, semi-pro, beginner, advanced, middle, beyond it all, and on....., because professionals are tolerant.

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10 minutes ago, ProDesigner said:

360 posts since the end of 2019? So 180 ish a year.

Where do you get 7k from?

From the profile I was actually replying to.

 1) You have completely wrecked the layers panel, Serif.

2) I recommend Reddit groups instead of this forum. Not the same few bot-like users replying to everything, a wider representation of users, fewer fanboys, more qualified users. In short, better!

3) I was here to report bugs and submit improvement requests for professional work professionally in a large setup and to bring a lot of knowledge from the world, i.e. professional product development, web- and software development, usability, user experience design and accessibility. I actually know what I am talking about!

BUT! We are phasing out Designer and Affinity in 2022 Q1 - and replacing it with feature complete and algorithmically competent alternatives.
Publisher is unsuitable for serious use, and was never adopted.

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9 minutes ago, ProDesigner said:

360 posts since the end of 2019? So 120 a year.

Where do you get 7k from?

François R was talking to Psenda there, not to you.

 

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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