Canva

[nezumi]

2 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

You really think out of 175 million users, none of them are professionals?

Never said that. I really think these are not tools for professionals for simple reason that are very limited to what you can do with it.

2 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

You may look down your nose at them for using Canva, but if it's "good enough" for Sony Music and Gucci, I would say it has something going for it.

For simple thing - simple tool. Let me ask you then - do you think every single visual job for these companies is made using Canva? Of course its good enough to slap photo with text on Instagram for ANY company. They are not making packaging or visualization in Canva.

Its funny how you are going against what Canva itself stated. Maybe go to them end explain them how they are wrong according to you.

@SrPx I understand you completely. Whats more I have a son in therapy now so my understanding of the issue is even deeper. I was raised in country (and times) where therapy was not an option. Not sure if it was better or worse - I just react differently to all that news. Also I am older so I have benefit of experience and perspective on things. I have seen many other "ends of the world", "nothing is going to be the same" etc. Certainly this is new and if anything gets me "depressed" is fact that people are so easy to manipulate, so quick to believe things without giving it a thought.
Mantra now is "AI will dominate soon". And like I said - that magical "5 years" after which AI will dominate stays 5 years. No matter that two of these years has passed and really and truly not much has changed. AI was very quick to develop in the beginning and then seems like it reached plateau. But hype is still going strong, "nothing will be ever the same again" and "you will see in 5 years", blablabla. And if you are not buying into the hype - of course you are being ridiculed as "luddite"
AI is just called that but it doesnt think. It has no idea about composition, colors, light, perspective... It doesnt know that if cable reaches one side of something should go out on the other side etc. It has no concept of making anything historically accurate because it is just mashing pictures together and if it was tagged "Roman helmet" it will use it even if its not. All it does is just copying and mashing iterations together. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. Its really far far away from replacing people for something more demanding. As all AI is - nobody solved main problem with it - hallucinations (I love how they are trying hard to anthropomorphize simple software error ) . Some AI tools would be nice to see, why not. I dont mind that automatic fill for pictures. Its like better content aware. Bring it on. Or automatic bitmap tracing powered by some "AI". Bring it too. Just dont bloat everything with some absurd AI toys like "automatic smile detection" or something.
Can you replace SOME jobs with it? Sure. But how the heck moving to different field will solve anything? Arent we told that AI will replace nearly everybody everywhere? Unless they are moving from being to designer to being a plumber I dont see how it makes sense. Just because we have image spitters now people change their life plan? I dont know man, it all seems so silly. I guess I will stay that "luddite who will be replaced in 5 years" for couple more years

Ha! You will be surprised how many similarities is between us I am also more into 3D sculpt that does not require texture, also for table top games, miniatures. Youre in Spain I see? So many fantastic miniature painters are from Spain. Mexico here although I am Polish so.. its a long story hahaha.
Anyways, yeah I was also doing this or that - recently revived love for retro and pixel art. And who knows, maybe I will go more retro and get that oil painting going. I did few murals in my time. You cant paint a real wall in real world with AI. You can only pretend you did. Pretty much like everything with AI - you can pretend it was you who created it, pretend it is actually thinking... Its a pretending tool Saludos!

[cTHULHU]

They still have to clear the regulators especially the UK one that torpedoed the Adobe / Figma deal, I wouldn't be putting down a Tesla deposit just yet. 

[Bit Disappointed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

[mehdy]

1 hour ago, Kemelvor said:

I've read all the pages, and I'm going to add my voice in the mayhem. If you want an early quick TL;DR, it's pretty much the same opinion as the crushing majority of what has been expressed.

I've been faithfully using Affinity Designer/Photo for 4 years, almost daily to draw on it. The brush engine was solid enough and the versatility of being able to switch seamlessly between Photo/Designer made me stay, even if I knew there could have been better options. The lack of subscription meant that I could store the installer on my backup HDD and be able to open my project files anytime I want. I bought the V2 instantly when it came out. Despite the little quirks like the smudge tool issue - which I reported a year ago, the unwieldy liquify tool and some lacking features, I was still very happy using your software for its great UI, the incredible versatility, the non-destructive features and the good brushes made by Frankentoon. I even spread the word to artist friends to give it a try. I've never considered it to be the "cheaper Adobe alternative" but a real, solid suite of software to rely on.

The acquisition by Canva is a sign of doom for me. I've been skeptical at first but reading more and more into that organization just killed any hope I could have.

• Canva already acquired good stuff before and closed them.
• They made an 1 billion $ offer (!) for your society that "only" made 31 millions $ in 2022. Aka major expectation to get that money back by all possible (and shitty) means.
• Canva is a venture capitalist-funded company and is preparing itself to go public. Aka incentive to put profits above all else.
• The deal was offered and acted within a single digit amount of weeks. Which is understandable given the big bag of money put on the table, but is a red flag for the users.

I don't mind AI as much as the others, it's a controversial tool but a tool regardless. But I fear the massive enshittification that will ensue, the data steal collection, as well as the legitimate dread of the inevitable subscription-based service that will come. I do understand that profit is the incentive for Serif, but our incentive is a quality software we can rely on. If this is not met, then why stay ? Our loyalty is only bound by the reliability of your reputation, and it's now at stake.

Like others, I understand why you shook hand with Canva. But I hope you'll understand why, us users, will go elsewhere. I feel sadness over it, as if everything amounted to a waste. It's the end of an era for me. I've grown as an artist with Affinity, and I will keep preciously the V2 to continue drawing on it. I'll even buy the V3 if it's still a "Pay once, keep forever" that isn't too intrusive, even if a sub is offered on the side like CSP. Simply to encourage you to stay true to yourself and show your new owners that it's the way to go. But otherwise, I'm ready to say goodbye to you, with heavy heart. And thank for the awesome experience of discovering the marvelous possibilities of Affinity.

Thank you for sharing

[SrPx]

@nezumi
Very solid points (even more than the previous).

It's super late here and my energy is depleted 😁, so, pardon for being somewhat brief.
Yep! from Spain!  . Traditional painter (where it all started) and with so many other suits....   (but it comes also due to being on earth a bit more than half a century, heh...and having way too much curiosity)  

Yep, I saw many folks (some friends, even) already switching careers (some that ONLY have painted, their entire existence, they can't code to save their lives, so, I neither see the point...). I switch constantly, almost with every gig, since always. But not going to stop digital painting, ever, and even less the case with traditional painting and drawing. It's about passion.   

To stay a bit more on topic (sorry, it's my bad): Here's me hoping (and even believing) that it all go well, and we'll keep having Affinity with a perpetual license model (as an option; for sure there will be also a subscription model...it's Canva) for a very long time. I might be a dumb optimist (I am, in general), but, despite the first impression, I now suspect things will go that way. The user base is too large, now, and too tied to the perpetual license concept, and they'd move on (to open source or other apps), otherwise. Even if nothing has been firmly assured for 3.x versions and beyond. Really, the part which I most dislike is the collaboration with a software and company which main thing in the late months has been its illustration AI "generation" tool (while I agree with you that the current "AI" -whatever the brand- is pretty dumb). I might move to doing art with other tools, but for that reason (matter of principles), not for the other reasons mentioned in this thread. For most Affinity users, though, I think all will keep the same, even better, as I do believe that the Affinity apps are going to improve faster, now. Reading more between the lines, and noticing some extra details do make me think like this, now. But we'll see!    

[  And more important than anything, I really hope your kid is doing well, now.  In any case, I believe we all should go to therapy at some point, even being perfectly fine. I've yet to go once (my generation is like you described yours, yep...).  ]
 

[Lionpride]

You will definitely end up having subscription, canva did not bought you off just because you are kindred spirits 😂🤣. That said If you think that people will pay a subscription to you instead of Adobe, you are in for a rude awakening, the very same way that happened with clip studio... Oh well when that happens we will jump ship.

[RichardMH]

4 hours ago, RichiePhoto said:

I don't get this tweet from Affinity

Aren't double negatives fun! 

[Amontillado]

1 hour ago, Bit Disappointed said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

I'm steamed. The correct term is encraperation, which I personally invented in about 2012. Doctorow is endeficating my accomplishments, the dirty rat!

[nezumi]

42 minutes ago, SrPx said:

But not going to stop digital painting, ever, and even less the case with traditional painting and drawing. It's about passion.   

Same here. I didn't got into Art because I wanted to make money on it. Its great that I can (because I despise doing something else) but if I couldn't I would be drawing and sculpting and creating no matter what new, shiny, trend would tell you to do nothing and being nobody. Generative AI for art is pretty much this in my view. As quickly as possible spit as many pictures as you can. You are reduced to mindless operator, merely a quality inspector checking AI spits for quality. You do not create anything just making requests and sorting whats good on the right and whats bad on the left 😆

Over half century, ha? I am right behind you there. Wait couple years please 😄

50 minutes ago, SrPx said:

I might move to doing art with other tools, but for that reason (matter of principles)

Yeah, principles isnt something people cherish these days (I know I am speaking like an old man that I am haha) . Everybody is just about "production" and "money" and "how fast you can produce". Just sad overall. You probably heard about books about Captain Alatriste. Or maybe you didnt - just because youre in Spain doesnt mean you read those haha. Anyways there is a great series of books and some illustrations in them are fantastic. So accurate to what you just read. If they used AI for it it would be just usual, more-or-less mess. But here comes the understanding of situation, emotion, historical knowledge. These illustartions look like sketches but when you take a closer look.. Ow my. Just came to my head for no reason, sorry for this tangent

Have a good night! Hope you are right with whats coming to Affinity. And if not... We will be still drawing, and sculpting and what not

[OzNate]

30 minutes ago, RichardMH said:

Aren't double negatives fun! 

Ooh, you're right!

[Rafael Souza]

I feel betrayed. I felt like I supported a cause. I hope Canva don't change the business model of Affinity.

[wader]

Good luck and hope it works out for Affinity/Canva employees.

I still run Photoshop CS6 that I've clung to since CC became the only option.

Seems I'll be doing the same for v2 of Affinity products, they really are great and should remain relevant for some time to come.

[When_Subscription]

Being curious I thought I'd see what the Canva Pro offering is all about. So, on the main page I am presented with a trial button with the option to pay by the month for $19.99 AUD, yet once that start trial button is clicked, I'm immediately presented with a monthly cost of $39.99. A quick look online (Reddit etc) and it would appear Canva has done doubled their pricing at some point this year, and the pricing is currently "unintentionally" being misrepresented on the hook page. It's been like this for what looks to be a month or more. If that's how Canva does business, I want nothing to do with them.

On the bright side, I managed to reinstate my Adobe student (All Apps) subscription for under $30, that of which trumps anything both Canva and Affinity are currently offering combined. I now look forward to the speed and reliability of Illustrator, even though I will miss Designer's simplified UI.

Goodbye my fellow ex/Affinity supporters. It was fun while it lasted.

[Danielcz]

17 hours ago, BofG said:

This was Serif's own statement in their last accounts filing.

They probably dont have access to much "material" to train "clean" datasets as Adobe Stock has. Thats very expensive and most competitors locked in theirs data.

[Greengestalt]

Also this isn't the 1990s or the 00s.

IF these guys do mess with us by going subscription we could pitch in and MAKE OUR OWN.

How?

India.

I've got friends who work with tech companies there.  Think Fiverr prices but legit pros.  Imagine thousands of VERY PO'd people willing to pitch in to develop a new suite software that does what Affinity (and Photoshop) does?  Pool a bunch of $50, $100 notes for shares to get the work done...  We'd make it a low profit company with rules not to be bought out and what we couldn't do.  Mainly no subscription service.  I'm FOR AI - look at how Corel Painter 2021 implemented those features (not image generation) and no complaints.  But frankly you can use Affinity as it is to fix fingers and have the Ai Engine separate.  As it is Affinity is NON-Ai, no data scraping (never got around to it) so that's an edge.

We'd run the company as a kooky mass Democracy with a few (LIMITED %) major stakeholders having slight edge to tie break, maybe a CEO with 1 person (share % minimum but not too minimum) one vote?  $ for advertising, improvement, what features?

Again we have a computer base in the Gigabytes of memory, Gigaherts for speed and incredible graphics cards.  And Ai isn't just making art and data snooping, lots of AIs (learning modules) could be used.  We could put in our ELUA absolutely NO way they could be used to spy on customers and any data collected is anonymized so no way to trace to any party. But we have (by Xer standards / childhood memories) a CRAY supercomputer on our desktops in comparison to way back.  Adobe had an edge of making its software work in the early Megahertz/Kilobyte era -that was like ATARI having people who could program ANYTHING on that system...  Not as complex, time consuming and tons of people cranked out by colleges to then weep as the foreign countries cranked out more so our corporate pigs could cheat them...

Furthermore (privacy paranoia) there are lots of places for a "Canary in the digital mine" if we hire international (India) programmers so any authority (USA/Europe) comes in with a gag order and "You will put spyware in" the alarm sounds and in the company charter its not a breach of trust but ring the bells, call the lawyer.  This is versus a for maximum profit big corporation who goes "Uh, if you have some undeserved tax breaks there we'll welcome you in and keep it secret!"  No need for a gag order even if they are a major VPN and the spyware the govern-NOT forces in is hacked in hours and sold as a backdoor on the darkweb...

 

The need - a Photoshop alternative that can do and use features most need now and again - but most don't want to subscribe.

--that costs $ to justify investment but isn't 

 

For me....

.

I want "Auto-Trace" back.  That was a Serif (Pre Affinity) feature they used to compete with (RIP thanks again to Adobe) Macromedia Flash and it's vectoring - that's why I keep my Draw Plus disk.  I'd like it back and improved so it can both do what we wished but "Poster edges" never does and it did so much better - both for art style effects and legit vector creations for websites that take bytes to kilobytes vs megabytes.

 

Company wants me and most of us to stay?
No subscription or at worse always a "Perpetual" with sane upgrade prices - put in EULA

Bring BACK auto-trace and improve it

Keep AI art a "Subscription" option since the field is changing so rapidly it'd be obsolete in months.

 

[Duskstalker]

ive been reiterating this whole mess for some hours and im leaning towards switching back to adobe in the next days, which stings because i have a ton of projects based on affinity, but i dont wanna be caught with my pants down. as a pro user i need to know where this ordeal is going, all we know is some empty corpo talk thats mostly worded to dance around the pudding - it reeks of sellout. canva casually fiddling around with my business on uncertain terms is unacceptable. they could be disabling the activation servers tomorrow and force a subscription. i dont trust a single word ash said here or in the video. its super fabricated and dishonest, he cannot even sit straight while delivering that corpo nonsense. 

[pixelstuff]

30 minutes ago, Greengestalt said:

Also this isn't the 1990s or the 00s.

IF these guys do mess with us by going subscription we could pitch in and MAKE OUR OWN.

How?

India.

I've got friends who work with tech companies there.  Think Fiverr prices but legit pros.  Imagine thousands of VERY PO'd people willing to pitch in to develop a new suite software that does what Affinity (and Photoshop) does?  Pool a bunch of $50, $100 notes for shares to get the work done...  We'd make it a low profit company with rules not to be bought out and what we couldn't do. 

 

 

If you are going to donate money to hire programmers you might as well have them work on existing open source projects (or forks) like GIMP, Inkscape, and Scribus to get a leg up on the development. Otherwise you are probably looking at a 10 year project to get things anywhere close to feature parity with existing Adobe and Affinity apps.

[RH3]

Still waiting to hear a response from Ash… can you hear the crickets?

something to be aware of: I’m still using Adobe CS6 on a mid 2012 MacBook Pro. Still works perfectly with just a slowly fading battery. I’m now trapped with this version due to MacOS versions on the Intel platform, Adobe’s refusal to create the required 64-bit installer (they knew what would happen if they did), switching-off the license servers for those versions, not prepared to go the subscription route and finally Apple’s introduction of their own CPUs.

There are ways to run Intel code on an M-series Mac but far from ideal and MacOS version wouldn’t allow CS6 to be installed. Rock and Hard place.

Affinity was the answer for me. It does most of what I need and it absolutely wasn’t a subscription model.

Seems I need to keep my 2012 MacBook going longer than I had intended.

Are we to trust Ash and take his word for gospel or are we seeing yet another CEO become as unfavourable as a Real Estate agent like most other CEO’s these days?

[Ronald N. Tan]

With the new funds as resources, does this mean people like me who are interested in RTL Languages will be more of a strong reality in the very soon future as opposed to the usual Serif replies of "having to reprogram from the grounds up because RTL language support" is a complex process?

They missed out a huge opportunity to potentially capture the market share in India, Arabic Diaspora, Hebrew, and East Asian (Mandation, Japanese, Etc).

Regardless of this news, can we also remember the company's kindness and understanding during the pandemic? Serif for the longest time discounted their softwares to 50%. Does anyone remember this?

I have privately expressed my grievances towards Affinity and I refuse to upgrade to any of their software until they include the RTL Languages. For my needs, Publisher 1.X has served me well and will continue to do so.

I am a current Adobe CC Photography Plan member and also continue to be perpetual license holder of Capture one 16.3.X. Their Black Friday deal of 50% off the perpetual license was too good to pass up! These fees (to me) are cost of doing business and I'll simply adjust my fees accordingly.

Can we be little bit more optimistic and hopeful?!

[GenewalDesign]

8 minutes ago, Ronald N. Tan said:

Can we be little bit more optimistic and hopeful?!

 

[Skeletor]

1 hour ago, Ronald N. Tan said:

… Can we be little bit more optimistic and hopeful?!

It is very difficult to remain positive here when you look at the history of small companies being taken over by large companies.
Ash can talk all he wants, but Serif has been taken over, so in the end it's what the Canva boss says and does that counts.

It's possible that nothing will change in the near future, but what about in six months or a year? So, I probably won't be spending any more money on plugins and the like in the near future. My hopes are not too high.

[PaulEC]

I think that, for me, the big problem with this take over is not so much the possibility of Affinity moving towards being a subscription service (although, on principle I object to that,) my main concern is regarding continuation of service. I've seen it happen before, when a smaller company is bought up by a larger one. At first, everything is fine, everyone is happy. The old managers retain their positions, and have a nice pay out, there are promises of further investment and new, superior products. Then the bubble bursts. The parent company decides that profits are not good enough to justify their investment. They want them to start cutting corners, use cheaper materials, move to cheaper premises and lay off staff. The product is not as good as it was, there is little new development and innovation, inevitably sales drop and customers go elsewhere. The end result is that the smaller company effectively disappears. I'm not saying that this always happens, but it is a genuine concern!

[paschulke2]

Content of this post deleted by myself.

Edited March 28 by paschulke2

[Chills]

8 hours ago, PaulEC said:

Not if it doesn't have shareholders! Serif and (AFAIK) Canva, are private, rather than a public companies, so the directors and board have no one to answer to but themselves!

They do both have shareholders.  Being a private company means it is not floated on the stock exchange for just anyone to buy shares.   AFAICS Canva is owned by a load of venture capitalists.

[Bit Disappointed]

Well, I've said what I have to say, and I'm waiting to see what actually happens. But the situation is not satisfactory as a professional customer who uses Designer for quite heavy products. I can't wait to see if v2 is the last version before radical changes to the programs, or if they disappear. Subscription doesn't bother me, that's fine, but I can't tolerate the other ridiculous uncertainty as a serious user. I must secure myself and my future NOW, and I know where I'll do that. I can't wait for that bullshit game.

But I want to take this opportunity to thank the many, many inputs from customers I was unaware of until now. This forum has been too dominated by a small circle of overly optimistic and unrealistic users who have overshadowed everyone else's needs and perceptions, and who possibly also gave Serif an unrealistically optimistic view of where they stand, what the products can do, and what their options are, and especially how far customers will follow them. The market is ruthless, and 3 million customers isn't as much as it sounds. They will quickly establish themselves elsewhere.

For my part, I reached some sort of nausea climax with the sentence, that we are part of the revolution now. After the usual generic business bullshit statement. Look at yourselves in the mirror. Do you see a spineless sheep? If not, search the market NOW for alternatives. Serif's apparently very cheap communication employee who wrote that, has a complete lack of basic knowledge, and not least about the fact that revolutions today are a painful chaos where major powers cross swords, and millions flee the misery. The common man almost always loses everything.

I wish all of you, who have stepped out of the shadows and into the debate here, all the best, and remember that there's nothing so bad that it isn't good for something. It's comforting to be optimistic, but it's a solid survival strategy to take active steps yourself and secure your own interests. Remember, you are creative, which is the magical quality that fuels imagination with energy, and you will surely come up with something. And then, the situation might not turn out as bad as we are waiting to clarify now. But don't bet on it.