Has V2 fixed Affinity's biggest issues?

[Kal]

8 hours ago, deeds said:

Probably older than you.

Maybe. (I'm just a little older than Apple.) I took a gamble on that one, thinking that if you're tough enough to laugh in the face of the bomb, you could probably take a misattributed jibe at your age. 😉

 

8 hours ago, deeds said:

This saves me daily, sometimes hourly, as I switch between operating systems and their various apps for digital creativity. There's still no fabled security, nor stability, when running many creative apps including game engines, whilst they all battle to get at video memory, main memory, GPU and CPU as greedily as possible.

Maybe OS switching is the key to your system instability? Nothing ever slowed my Mac down like running Windows via Parallels. Thankfully, the only Windows anywhere near my Mac these days are the ones through which I can see our beautiful rural property.

 

8 hours ago, deeds said:

The only was a lightly irreverent and facetious attempt at humour by way of referencing how shockingly strongly the "Sorry" stands out (to active, current users) as extremely unusual in this day and age

True. The bigger these companies get, the less human they get. We recently had a run-in with Microsoft, where they blocked our mail server for allegedly sending spam (which it wasn't) but would provide no evidence (there wasn't any). It took them over a month to finally do something about it, and the closest I got to an apology (having demanded both an apology and an explanation) was this:

Quote

I do apologize, but I am unable to provide any details about this situation since we do not have the liberty to discuss the nature of the block.

I do apologise, but. I do apologise, but we are much too big and important to care about your tiny business. I do apologise, but corporate policy is to protect our privacy, not your rights. I do apologise, but I'm not paid enough to stick my neck out and admit that we made a mistake. I do apologise, but we'll kill you in court if you were ever stupid enough to take action on the grounds of anti-competitive behaviour.

[deeds]

1 hour ago, Kal said:

Maybe OS switching is the key to your system instability? Nothing ever slowed my Mac down like running Windows via Parallels. Thankfully, the only Windows anywhere near my Mac these days are the ones through which I can see our beautiful rural property.

It's me that switches OS, not the computers. I use a Mac and a PC, both are very fast. But under load, both will crash, entirely. The Mac less so, perhaps twice a week. But apps on the Mac will freeze, and need to be forced closed, quite a bit more often. Usually when least expected, definitely when least desired.

1 hour ago, Kal said:

Maybe. (I'm just a little older than Apple.) I took a gamble on that one, thinking that if you're tough enough to laugh in the face of the bomb, you could probably take a misattributed jibe at your age. 😉

Absolutely! Skin thick as a gum tree and sticky as Vegemite on a warm spring day and a penchant for Fred Dagg.

1 hour ago, Kal said:

Microsoft: I do apologize, but I am unable to provide any details about this situation since we do not have the liberty to discuss the nature of the block.

Sorry to hear that, but...

Just kidding!

Have been down that road with both of them, locked out of Apple's iCloud, still. They won't believe I'm me, despite offering to show them passport etc.

1 hour ago, Kal said:

The bigger these companies get, the less human they get.

But... this behaviour is now endemic. All companies have now isolated themselves from their prole users and customers.  

It's as though every company is run by sociopaths delighting in making lives as difficult and tortured as possible, with a glee that's public.

And then came the pandemic... wherein things went to 11 on all these scales and the massive corporations were handed the customers of every little and medium sized business.

 

 

[Kal]

9 hours ago, deeds said:

Skin thick as a gum tree and sticky as Vegemite

You should probably get that looked at.

Seriously though… sounds like we might be on the same land mass. Just a crazy hunch. 🦘🙂

 

9 hours ago, deeds said:

But... this behaviour is now endemic. All companies have now isolated themselves from their prole users and customers.

The big ones yes, and that's been the story for some time. When was the last time you thought about writing directly to Adobe with your software issue? And yet, indie devs (of which I am one) are expected to offer personalised support for our $15 apps (which we do). Ironic huh.

[Samuli]

4 hours ago, Kal said:

You should probably get that looked at.

Seriously though… sounds like we might be on the same land mass. Just a crazy hunch. 🦘🙂

 

The big ones yes, and that's been the story for some time. When was the last time you thought about writing directly to Adobe with your software issue? And yet, indie devs (of which I am one) are expected to offer personalised support for our $15 apps (which we do). Ironic huh.

Adobe used to have employees on their forums who knew the apps and their development and were occasionally super helpful… and other times the opposite, but they’re human, so they get frustrated. It’s been years since I last tried the forums because I’ve just minimized my Adobe exposure but it did work. The larger the dev, the bigger the chance that someone on the forum knows the issue. 

[Kal]

8 hours ago, Samuli said:

The larger the dev, the bigger the chance that someone on the forum knows the issue.

I’d say that’s mostly determined by the size of the user base and the overall level of engagement on the user forums. I see no real correlation between the size of the company and the number of staff that are engaged on their own forums—more often than not, I’d say it’s inversely proportional.

@deeds said, “companies have now isolated themselves from their prole users and customers“, and I think that’s true of the big companies like Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, etc. If you’re lucky enough to have an Apple Store near you, and the time to book an appointment, you can get face-to-face support with a real person, which is great. But when it comes to online support, in my experience the best support (by far!) tends to come from the smaller developers.

[deeds]

If development is outsourced, the service is woeful. 

If the key, initial developers are gone, but the development hasn't (yet) been outsourced, the service is woeful.

A key example of a medium sized business with its initial key developers still working on SOME of their products, is JetBrains. If you're lucky enough to be using one of their products that still has elements of the initial team working on it, the service and support is truly staggering. Better than anything, ever, from any era, for any product. Start emailing them with exact information about anything, at their sales emails even though you're already a customer, and the responses will floor you... if it's one of their products with the original core team still somewhat intact. 

They try, with the other products, and it's still better support than just about any other modern company making software, but it pales in comparison to what happens if you're using something with some original team members. Can't say this strongly enough, hence repeating it. 

 

I suspect most of Affinity's development is outsourced.

 

The most extreme negative example of long term outsourcing of development is Yamaha. 

 

[loukash]

6 hours ago, deeds said:

I suspect most of Affinity's development is outsourced.

affinity.serif.com/en-us/careers/senior-c-software-engineer 
Pay attention to the 4th bullet point in the "How to apply" box.

6 hours ago, deeds said:

The most extreme negative example of long term outsourcing of development is Yamaha. 

Yamaha is a BIG company, so you may need to specify first which branch you're talking about. For instance, I'm a user of Line 6 products which also belongs to the Yamaha group. line6.com/company  At Line 6, all development is done inhouse. line6.com/company/jobs
Except for the manufacturing process which is unfortunately – just like the vast majority of tech companies – outsourced to China.

[deeds]

3 hours ago, loukash said:

affinity.serif.com/en-us/careers/senior-c-software-engineer 
Pay attention to the 4th bullet point in the "How to apply" box.

Yamaha is a BIG company, so you may need to specify first which branch you're talking about. For instance, I'm a user of Line 6 products which also belongs to the Yamaha group. line6.com/company  At Line 6, all development is done inhouse. line6.com/company/jobs
Except for the manufacturing process which is unfortunately – just like the vast majority of tech companies – outsourced to China.

Yamaha. Not Yamaha Inc's wider purchases, though some of them do outsource significantly, too.

 

That ad almost convinces me they do most of their coding through outsourced facilities.

 

[ashf]

15 hours ago, deeds said:

I suspect most of Affinity's development is outsourced

According to what Serif said they don't hire people outside of UK.
Staff must live in there, in order to accomplish made in UK...lol

[deeds]

16 minutes ago, ashf said:

According to what Serif said they don't hire people outside of UK.
Staff must live in there, in order to accomplish made in UK...lol

"said"?

Do you know how outsourcing works? You don't "hire" them, the work is contracted out. 

That involves using people here to write up specifications and often the headers for the implementations, and then to monitor and check the resulting code.

 

[ashf]

30 minutes ago, deeds said:

"said"?

Do you know how outsourcing works? You don't "hire" them, the work is contracted out. 

That involves using people here to write up specifications and often the headers for the implementations, and then to monitor and check the resulting code.

 

Like loukash linked, that's the way Serif hires a engineer and they don't outsource to outside of the company, as far as I know.
 

[tatanka]

Just bought the v2 suite, and I was running my head against Publisher’s inability to print a black logo as black. So I search the forum and read this

Quote

 

Affinity Publisher's default PDF export settings for print-ready artwork ('PDF (press-ready)') turns black (K:100) to a CMYK mix (e.g. C:71, M:66, Y:66, K:76), which would be a disaster if not detected before your job goes to print (something which is difficult when there are no pre-press tools provided). There are other issues too, like line art being downsampled and antialiased (related to the previous two issues).

Changes in V2

This has not been fixed. The 'PDF (press-ready)' export preset still has an all-or nothing 'Embed profiles' option ticked by default, and still causes black artwork (like text) to get converted to a CMYK mix.

Incredulous I re-read it. Can it really be so that a DTP suite can not print a simple black logo as black? Really? What is described in the quote above is exactly what is happening at my end.

If there is a way to make a logo black (K=100 or GREY=0, either is fine), place it in a Publisher document, and then have it output the logo with the colour it was given – then please let me know!

Converting black to dirty CMYK renders Publisher useless for professional work.

[chirpy]

On 11/17/2022 at 3:10 PM, Samuli said:

Only used Freehand at school, but we were taught to use find & replace. InDesign’s links panel could do something like it but not seamlessly. To be honest, I preferred InDesign over Illustrator for basic vector work. 

InDesign’s links panel (which is also like Illustrator’s) is nothing like the FH Find & Replace. The links panel can only replace placed items within the ID doc and nothing else. The F&R panel could change literally anything in the FH doc.

[chessboard]

@tatanka

I just tried this in Publisher V2. Admittedly in a very simple way, but it's all about principle.

I made a one page document in Publisher with CMYK/8 profile. Drew a shape and set the fill colour to CMYK 0/0/0/100. I then exported this as PDF with "rasterize: nothing", colour space: CMYK and colour profile as in document (ISO coated v2 300% ECI).

I than checked the PDF in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and there the black shape is still at CMYK 0/0/0/100. The colour separations in Photoshop show colour only for black channel.

Perhaps you should check Publisher again.

[tatanka]

1 minute ago, chessboard said:

@tatanka

I just tried this in Publisher V2. Admittedly in a very simple way, but it's all about principle.

I made a one page document in Publisher with CMYK/8 profile. Drew a shape and set the fill colour to CMYK 0/0/0/100. I then exported this as PDF with "rasterize: nothing", colour space: CMYK and colour profile as in document (ISO coated v2 300% ECI).

I than checked the PDF in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and there the black shape is still at CMYK 0/0/0/100. The colour separations in Photoshop show colour only for black channel.

Perhaps you should check Publisher again.

Here is what I do (I’m also in version 2): Create a Publisher document in grey-scale mode. Create a logo in Designer in grey-scale mode. Colour the logo grey=0. Export as PDF (or EPS, tried both), and place the file in the Publisher document. Now print the document, and the logo is not printed grey=0 so a raster is put in it. Export the Publisher document as PDF and then print that PDF from MacOS Preview works perfectly so that the logo is grey=0 and without raster.

I have a Publisher test-document where I have created all permutations of Designer2|PDF|EPS with grey=0|K=100|RGB=0,0,0. Printing that from Publisher will fail all of them – they will all have raster because they are not grey=0. However, exporting that Publisher document as a PDF 1.7 with no ICC-profile, and then printing that from MacOS Preview gives me correct full-black in these two combinations: PDF grey=0, and PDF RGB=0,0,0.

So yeah. Any ideas?

[chessboard]

Sorry, but could you please explain what grey=0 means? I know only the print colours cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Is grey a spot colour (solid colour)?

BTW, why do you export the logo from Designer in PDF or EPS format to place it in Publisher? You can use the native Designer format.

[tatanka]

39 minutes ago, chessboard said:

Sorry, but could you please explain what grey=0 means? I know only the print colours cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Is grey a spot colour (solid colour)?

BTW, why do you export the logo from Designer in PDF or EPS format to place it in Publisher? You can use the native Designer format.

Grey is what it says it is. It is the grey-scale value in a grey-scale document. Grey=0 = black.

In the second paragraph of my post I carefully explained that I did try placing a native Designer file in Publisher, and the results that followed.

[chessboard]

I assume that greyscale isn't treated as percentage of the solid printing colour black. That's a missunderstanding of what the greyscale mode is in my eyes.

I would suggest to use CMYK mode for print documents and adjust the colour as CMYK (in your case as 100% Black) and use no other colour model if I want to be sure to get the right print colour. All other colour models have to be rasterized for printing. That's in the nature of printing colours.

[PaoloT]

4 hours ago, tatanka said:

So yeah. Any ideas?

Select Gray as the output color space, and you should be set.

Paolo

 

[Kal]

12 hours ago, tatanka said:

Incredulous I re-read it. Can it really be so that a DTP suite can not print a simple black logo as black? Really? What is described in the quote above is exactly what is happening at my end.

If there is a way to make a logo black (K=100 or GREY=0, either is fine), place it in a Publisher document, and then have it output the logo with the colour it was given – then please let me know!

Hi @tatanka. We're talking about two different things here. My comment was referring only to exporting a PDF from Publisher with the default print-ready preset, 'PDF (press-ready)'. If you want to know more about that, there's a whole discussion about it here. But I think you already discovered the main take-home from that discussion anyway, because later you said:

6 hours ago, tatanka said:

However, exporting that Publisher document as a PDF 1.7 with no ICC-profile … gives me correct full-black

Regarding your other issues, it might be worth starting a new discussion? From memory, there are also some existing discussions about black not printing as black from Affinity apps. That's not something I have personally come across—aside from the lack of support for true 1-bit (black) images.

[loukash]

7 hours ago, tatanka said:

Any ideas?

For 100% K, always set up a CMYK document, not gray!

[chirpy]

18 hours ago, tatanka said:

Just bought the v2 suite, and I was running my head against Publisher’s inability to print a black logo as black. So I search the forum and read this

Incredulous I re-read it. Can it really be so that a DTP suite can not print a simple black logo as black? Really? What is described in the quote above is exactly what is happening at my end.

If there is a way to make a logo black (K=100 or GREY=0, either is fine), place it in a Publisher document, and then have it output the logo with the colour it was given – then please let me know!

Converting black to dirty CMYK renders Publisher useless for professional work.

I have had this issue, as well. None of the Affinity apps will print correctly directly from the app itself. I have to export as a PDF first and then they print fine. Kind of frustrating.

[tatanka]

8 hours ago, loukash said:

For 100% K, always set up a CMYK document, not gray!

Did that, doesn’t matter. The print will have raster in the placed documents. This sounds like a bug.

[tatanka]

3 hours ago, chirpy said:

I have had this issue, as well. None of the Affinity apps will print correctly directly from the app itself. I have to export as a PDF first and then they print fine. Kind of frustrating.

Yes, thank you. I’m not the only one suffering from this nonsense.

[chessboard]

2 hours ago, tatanka said:

Did that, doesn’t matter. The print will have raster in the placed documents. This sounds like a bug.

The logo you place in the CMYK Publisher document must have CMYK as colour space too. Otherwise it will be rasterized by Publisher.