Canva

[Archangel]

14 minutes ago, Ash said:

Yeah for the record done by a new employee doing our social media, it was not authorised by me or any of the senior management here and was in the context of loads of rumours that Adobe were going to buy us at that time. But yeah I get it, we've been caught out with a stupid tweet which everyone is loving throwing back in our face. We're not the first and won't be the last!

To be fair the post was written in the present tense. Perhaps the employee should have added the word currently to make it clearer. I hope he or she wasn't sacked because of it.

[Rodi]

14 minutes ago, Bryce said:

What problems are you experiencing? I use Affinity and the problems with CMYK colors was fixed in a later version of 1.x. We are a print and vinyl shop and don't seem to have any more problems with Affinity (there are always certain files depending on the designer) than we have with Adobe.

Hey Bryce,

Spot color issues going to process, black going to process. Here is a regular problem. Spot color job have to adjust for folding panels. Most times it is quicker to duplicate the pdf and crop n move the panels, but they touch and ouch, process! So now I Generally use Affinity as a panel check file.


It's a tough spot because the pdfs I get in are questionable at best at times.

I've done a lot of work with it and I have touted it to many people. They are freaked out when you show how to edit a pdf and make it a page layout program instead of a pdf. I do that for envelope work that will be repeated and changed in the future. 

Try this in InDesign, 84 page pdf. Each page you have to bring in and drop just right or adjust. Affinity drop once adjust copy go to next page, very nice!

 

[Skeletor]

2 hours ago, Ash said:

… There will certainly not be any cynical cutting down of features or limitation of ongoing support in our existing apps just to force a subscription play. …
 

Well, but now someone could say V3 doesn't exist yet, just a thought.

[fraisecafe]

I appreciate the clarifications, @Ash, especially re: V3 and beyond; That especially has been very concerning, not knowing how this works beyond V2.

That said, I do have two questions:

1. What independence do you and the Serif staff maintain over the roadmap? What control/say does Canva have?

You've stated that past acquisitions have no bearing on this. At the same time, honestly, we've heard that in the past, too. It would go a long way if you could clarify why you believe that.

Given the potential impacts for designers/creatives/business owners/etc. for all of this, as well as those past examples, while it may not appear to have bearing for you personally, for many of us whose livelihoods rest on purchase decisions such as whether to invest in your ecosystem or another, it certainly does for us. This is our livelihood and we are right to be not only concerned, but cautious, especially given how the initial announcement dropped like a lead balloon. As such, I hope you can see how difficult that idea may be to swallow without further clarity on the above.

2. How does Serif/Affinity intend to ethically deal with AI, Data Collection/Data-mining, and 3rd-Party access to said data (including Canva)?

It may be that you've spoken to this already, and if I have missed that statement, please feel free to point me to it, but I have yet to see anything noted about how AI may be implemented. Bluntly, Canva does not have a good track record with any of these and, as hot topics for the industry that has affected many of us, it seems like a glaring omission to not have clarity on this, too. To my mind, the most ethical way to do this may be difficult to implement:

- Opt-in on a design-by-design basis for our own designs, with consent being required and consent also being able to be revoked.
- Similarly, opt-in consent (with the ability to retract consent in the future) regarding Data/Datamining, as well as clear access to what data has been collected.
- Opt-in consent for 3rd-party data sales on a per-vendor basis, likewise with the ability to retract and delete said data at any point.

Could you please speak to these two items, as well?

[TomM1]

They can always use the de facto subscription model of a paid upgrade every year with some new features.

You can choose the upgrade or not.

The question then becomes how many versions, if any, can you skip and still get the upgrade price.

[Intuos5]

41 minutes ago, debraspicher said:

So I guess we can take the silence as a firm "nah" and the laugh emoji from the forum heckler was a massive morale boost to the effect of "it's going to be more or less the same." It's genuinely a massive shame. I love Affinity products how they are being tailored. But if they don't function as designed, none of that matters in the end... Best wishes.

I have also found my fare share of bugs, if I see the release notes and Serif Info Bot, I also feel like these bugs are not addressed. That said, for 2.5, some of the bugs I reported have supposedly been fixed. I'm not sure whether what you are experiencing is down to your particular configuration or not. Perhaps, you've been very unlucky. I get the frustration of bugs that need to be fixed, though I also see employees willing to reproduce and fix bugs, particularly when they are focussed on them in the Beta stage. The info bot can also be seen as a genuine effort to help communicate to people that their issues might be solved and that they should have a look to confirm. But if the company is understaffed (i.e. some time ago there were difficulties hiring new developers) there's only so much that can be fixed.

[PhilipPeake]

All I can say is that my expectations have been colored by my experience with Adobe, which was far from pleasant.

With CS6 I bought a Mac license since I had enough of Windows in so many ways. Then, of course, they wanted a subscription. No. Not playing that game. When Apple moved the Mac to 64 bit binaries only, my CS6 became useless.

I did have a separate, perpetual license for Lightroom, and thought that for my purposes it just might be enough, as it was getting more capable all the time.
The updates became more and more difficult to locate. Every path led to a subscription page and support were not helpful. Eventually, they just backed out of their commitment to the perpetual licenses and abandoned the people using them.

That has left a VERY dirty taste in my mouth. I will not, under any circumstances rent software - that is what it is. Particularly with a proprietary storage format.

Time will tell if the nice words actually mean anything. I suppose that at the worst, it would open an opportunity for a new startup to address the market not interested in software rental.

 

[monzo]

10 minutes ago, TomM1 said:

They can always use the de facto subscription model of a paid upgrade every year with some new features.

You can choose the upgrade or not.

The question then becomes how many versions, if any, can you skip and still get the upgrade price.

I think that’s a fair option for developers and customers - and an incentive for both to keep developing and keep buying.

Ableton do a similar, though not yearly thing, and offer a discount for upgrades. I tend to upgrade every second release.

[Thomas Bohn]

4 minutes ago, BofG said:

Does anyone know if there's a delete account option? Saw some posts saying you have to email Serif to ask but wanted to check if that's still the case?

I think you need to ask when you want to delete your forum account and I don't think it will delete your posts

[Chills]

14 minutes ago, PhilipPeake said:

All I can say is that my expectations have been colored by my experience with Adobe, which was far from pleasant.

With CS6 I bought a Mac license since I had enough of Windows in so many ways. Then, of course, they wanted a subscription. No. Not playing that game. When Apple moved the Mac to 64 bit binaries only, my CS6 became useless.

I did have a separate, perpetual license for Lightroom, and thought that for my purposes it just might be enough, as it was getting more capable all the time.
The updates became more and more difficult to locate. Every path led to a subscription page and support were not helpful. Eventually, they just backed out of their commitment to the perpetual licenses and abandoned the people using them.

That has left a VERY dirty taste in my mouth. I will not, under any circumstances rent software - that is what it is. Particularly with a proprietary storage format.

Time will tell if the nice words actually mean anything. I suppose that at the worst, it would open an opportunity for a new startup to address the market not interested in software rental.

 

I agree re Adobe, CS->CC   and Lightroom.

There were a lot of assurances for LR, but they reneged on them.  They stopped all LR (Perpetual) support just a couple of weeks before Google changed their maps API so LR (perpetual)  V6.14 maps section no longer works.    A lot of LR users stayed on V6.14 or went looking for other options.
 
Adobe were less than helpful in a face to face meeting a coupe of week ago.  Perhaps Canva can help Affinity do a DAM "Light-Bridge" a Lightroom/Bridge type app.   Photographers want a Lightroom but designers and Publishers need to manage other assets as well.

 

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, BofG said:

Does anyone know if there's a delete account option? Saw some posts saying you have to email Serif to ask but wanted to check if that's still the case?

Yes, you should email dataprotection@serif.com from the email address associated with the account to request deletion. 

[JoshB]

2 hours ago, Ash said:

To address some of what is being said on this thread...

Firstly to be clear I'm not a founder, but have been with the company for 25 years. I'm officially appointed as Managing Director of the company, but also use CEO as my title as that is my role in terms of how other countries would view it.

Both Canva and us have made 100% clear we are committing to perpetual licences always being available. That will include V3 or any other future major upgrade of our apps which are released. What's more I will say with Canva's backing we are not under the same financial pressure we would have been to release a V3 anytime soon, meaning those of you using V2 will actually benefit from more features as free updates which may previously have been held back for a V3 if that makes sense. This is of great benefit from an engineering standpoint too as we are far better testing and releasing features in smaller chunks than saving them up to package up as a sellable upgrade. 

https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/affinity-canva-pledge/

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24113423/affinity-canva-acquisition-pledge-license-price-subscription

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/affinity-and-canva-pledge/

As we have made clear there will at some point be a subscription option also which people can take if they choose to. I'm sure there will be additional benefits to that subscription in the future such as asset and document sync, sharing and collaboration and other things which naturally require a subscription as they are features which incur ongoing cost. It may also include other things which can be leveraged with a Canva subscription such as greater stock libraries of images, graphics and fonts. Hopefully that would just be considered reasonable and understandable. There will certainly not be any cynical cutting down of features or limitation of ongoing support in our existing apps just to force a subscription play.

I understand examples of previous acquisitions can make some of you fearful, but they are just historic examples - it has no bearing on what will happen in this case and we are genuinely doing something here which is very different and special. Everything I said on Tuesday, and what both Canva and us pledged yesterday, is 100% true and we are going to stand by it. That includes keeping our entire team here with no layoffs, and continuing to be based in Nottingham. 

If you want to believe this or not is up to you, I'm not sure what more we can say at this point to convince those who doubt it. We'll deliver on this over the coming months and years so whatever is being said right now I know it's going to be all good and assuming you are still using Affinity apps you will be happy with how they have developed and that we have continued to be fair and inclusive with our pricing.

Also to follow on from Patricks point - I can take some of the personal attacks on me, but I have to say some of the conduct on this thread with some of you being very quick to attack other community members just because they hold different opinions is really disheartening to see. You can absolutely give your opinion on this deal for sure, and we are happy to leave this as an open forum within reason, but that does mean being courteous to other forum members and not just repeating the same points over and over.

Thanks,

Ash
 

Really appreciate you hopping into the firestorm here and clarifying these items @Ash. I for one will take it at face value and until proven wrong. I look forward to what the future can bring!

*****

I know this isn't the most popular opinion but I just want to say I am willing to give the team at Serif an opportunity to prove themselves. Every one of us on this forum is living a unique life with decisions that need made. We make those decisions using the best information we have at the time, even though they might not make sense to anyone else. It really bothers me to see this barrage of attacks against the leadership at Serif and insinuating that they are only money hungry scrouges looking to make a pile of money. Who is to say each of us wouldn't have made the same decision? 

I do understand too that purchases like the one discussed here have often screwed over the customers. But it isn't necessarily the rule. As someone else pointed out, DaVinci Resolve, was purchased by BMD and the changes that came were great. There is a chance that this merger can have the same results. (If I am wrong in 2 years, I will be disappointed, but then again, there is nothing I could do about it anyway)

Not that I will change anyone's mind for sure, just thought I'd toss my voice into the void to help nudge this forum towards a little more positivity. 😄

Cheers and wishing each person who may read this the very best!

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

How many of you out there that is negative around this buyout of Serif Ltd?

It seems that PC have been waking up and starting treathen us if we continue our replying around our negativism…

 

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, AffinityMakesMeSad said:

How many of you out there that is negative around this buyout of Serif Ltd?

It seems that PC have been waking up and starting treathen us if we continue our replying around our negativism…

I don't think anybody is threatening anybody about it. It is just that it won't accomplish anything so it is a bit hard to understand why people keep wasting their time posting about it.

[Alfred]

44 minutes ago, BofG said:

Does anyone know if there's a delete account option? Saw some posts saying you have to email Serif to ask but wanted to check if that's still the case?

 

38 minutes ago, Thomas Bohn said:

I think you need to ask when you want to delete your forum account and I don't think it will delete your posts

 

Yes, you do need to ask (by sending an email to dataprotection@serif.com from the email account associated with your forum account). And no, your posts aren’t automatically deleted. I hope @BofG doesn’t edit out any post content or ask for posts to be deleted, because there’s lots of useful and/or interesting stuff that would deplete or even break many threads if removed.

[Frozen Death Knight]

I will reserve my judgement in regards to this being a good thing or not. From my own experience software have developed for the worse after being acquired by much bigger companies that have vastly different business values. Examples such as Substance when bought by Adobe and Pixologic ZBrush being bought by Maxon. I don't know anything about Canva or their business culture, but I will give you over at Serif the benefit of the doubt about your decision to merge with them. Ever since I picked up Affinity back in 2017 I have come to appreciate how you have developed Affinity into something I rely on for work. You deserve that much at least.

Good that you are making a promise to uphold the values that made people want to buy your software. Just to make things crystal clear however, if you break them I will simply start looking elsewhere for software that suit my needs and move on. I have learned to become a wanderer ever since Adobe began its subscription crusade over a decade ago. No hard feelings if it happens, since I have gotten used to that trust being broken. Also remember that Affinity only got to this point because of people not wanting to be forced to subscribe to Adobe, so if you are going to add subscriptions, having perpetual licenses will be key to retaining our trust.

As for what I want to actually see being developed now when you have some serious capital to back up your development, then here's a list!

• Linux version, or at least make it fully compatible with Proton/Wine/whatever. Pretty sure you can afford it now!
• An animation timeline for Designer and Photo with proper GIF and vector support. I want to do animated vectors in an intuitive way that's at least on par with Illustrator+After Effects. 
• 3D perspective tools and grids.
• Fix Windows specific drawing bugs.
• Vector brushes and erasers.
• More vector tools. I.e. free form gradients, blending one shape into another, node clean-up operators (merge, simplify, etc.), and more.
• Auto-trace for Designer. Been a decade since you said you wanted to add it in.
• More game development tools for textures. Been 4 years since that teaser.
• Cleaner lasso selections with both mouse and tablet.
• AI powered tools such as selection, upscaling, and some ways to integrate generative fill, whether in-house or external.
• Finishing the plug-in system and code API.
• Make an Affinity Infinity software with all Personas in one software. I really don't want to switch softwares when I can have everything in one place.
• More brush management features such as sub-folders, the ability to R click to select brushes, etc.

Don't disappoint!

[CatClaw]

2 hours ago, Ash said:

Yeah for the record done by a new employee doing our social media, it was not authorised by me or any of the senior management here and was in the context of loads of rumours that Adobe were going to buy us at that time. But yeah I get it, we've been caught out with a stupid tweet which everyone is loving throwing back in our face. We're not the first and won't be the last!

In that case, no hard feelings here. BUT i'm still skeptical about the changes or no changes. Wait and see i guess. when we can use our previous versions whitout restrictions i'm 50% chilled. i just had seen so many companies switch from "we might have perpetual/subscription" to abo only and not many semi-pros can afford thousands of subscriptions models. (Not to mention the Streamingplatforms lol.)

[Alfred]

7 minutes ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

• Vector brushes and erasers.
• More vector tools. I.e. free form gradients, blending one shape into another, node clean-up operators (merge, simplifyy, etc.), and more.

In other words, more vector tools and more vector tools! I’d like to see these, too. And not only simplify/smooth, but also roughen. Vector patterns would be the icing on the cake.

A Dimension Tool has frequently been requested, and we’re already halfway there with the Measure Tool: I’m sure that many of us would love to see this taken to its logical conclusion. And I’m equally sure that a Connector Tool would be widely welcomed, too.

[myclay]

3 hours ago, Ash said:

To address some of what is being said on this thread...

Both Canva and us have made 100% clear we are committing to perpetual licences always being available. That will include V3 or any other future major upgrade of our apps which are released. Everything I said on Tuesday, and what both Canva and us pledged yesterday, is 100% true and we are going to stand by it.

If you want to believe this or not is up to you, I'm not sure what more we can say at this point to convince those who doubt it. We'll deliver on this over the coming months and years so whatever is being said right now I know it's going to be all good and assuming you are still using Affinity apps you will be happy with how they have developed and that we have continued to be fair and inclusive with our pricing.

Thanks,

Ash
 

Hello Ash and Team,

thank you for keeping discussions open! that move sparks confidence. Massive kudos for that even if it gives v2 release flashbacks.
The multiple bought licenses where purchased only because of the perpetual licensing.

ps: It would be great if we could get offline activateable licenses for V2.

[Dr. Bunsen]

1 hour ago, JoshB said:

I know this isn't the most popular opinion but I just want to say I am willing to give the team at Serif an opportunity to prove themselves. Every one of us on this forum is living a unique life with decisions that need made. We make those decisions using the best information we have at the time, even though they might not make sense to anyone else. It really bothers me to see this barrage of attacks against the leadership at Serif and insinuating that they are only money hungry scrouges looking to make a pile of money. Who is to say each of us wouldn't have made the same decision? 

I do understand too that purchases like the one discussed here have often screwed over the customers. But it isn't necessarily the rule. As someone else pointed out, DaVinci Resolve, was purchased by BMD and the changes that came were great. There is a chance that this merger can have the same results. (If I am wrong in 2 years, I will be disappointed, but then again, there is nothing I could do about it anyway)

Not that I will change anyone's mind for sure, just thought I'd toss my voice into the void to help nudge this forum towards a little more positivity. 😄

Cheers and wishing each person who may read this the very best!

Well said, I share your sentiments, especially at how this thread has been derailed with personal attacks on both the Serif employees and those with differing opinions from the vocal dissenters. I particularly appreciate Ash's contributions, and the patience shown in letting this thread rumble on as a shock/anger venting mechanism for many, when so many other companies would have shut it down.

Quite frankly, some growing up is required. Worth bearing this in mind:

For the past few years, the Affinity products have been great for me, for what I do, and have been incredible value. I've trusted the Serif team in that time and they haven't let me down; I'm willing to trust them going forwards too.

[user_0815]

As long as Affinity continues to be a stand alone product with an affordable perpetual license, I’m fine. 

[Tia Lapis]

15 minutes ago, Dr. Bunsen said:

For the past few years, the Affinity products have been great for me, for what I do, and have been incredible value. I've trusted the Serif team in that time and they haven't let me down; I'm willing to trust them going forwards too.

The problem is that Serif hasn't any deciding power anymore - They sold out. All deciding happens at Canva now. And all the gloom thems from people not trusting Canva.

[Strangechilde]

Thank you Ash and Patrick-- your statements help. I won't be jumping ship anytime soon. I'm content to wait and see what happens.

I must admit that the tone of much of this thread has been a bit more than I can stomach, so I'll probably be just lurking in the shadows, but I wish you all well.

[TomM1]

I think my Affinity app is snappier since Canva took over!

[Ciaran77]

@Frozen Death Knight   

As for what I want to actually see being developed now when you have some serious capital to back up your development, then here's a list!

• Linux version, or at least make it fully compatible with Proton/Wine/whatever. Pretty sure you can afford it now!  - At Least a 10 year timescale for implementation, will be made available ONLY with a £400.00 a year subscription 'knight rider' plan, don't blame us, blame Canva
• An animation timeline for Designer and Photo with proper GIF and vector support. I want to do animated vectors in an intuitive way that's at least on par with Illustrator+After Effects - 20 years before we can implement this, this will cost you an additional £400.00, just for asking the question, and an additional £400 on top of youre 'knight rider' plan . 
• 3D perspective tools and grids - We never heard of this, could you sketch this out on a bit of paper and we'll have a look at it
• Fix Windows specific drawing bugs. We'll wait and see what Canva says regarding this issue before we address it
• Vector brushes and erasers. What are they?
• More vector tools. I.e. free form gradients, blending one shape into another, node clean-up operators (merge, simplifyy, etc.), and more. ahh, We'll get back to you on that, maybe
• Auto-trace for Designer. Been a decade since you said you wanted to add it in. - That's a very complication operation to perform, we might have to wait until interdimensional quantum computing is solved until we can address that particular problem
• More game development tools for textures. Been 4 years since that teaser.  - We'll wait and see what Canva says regarding this issue
• Cleaner lasso selections with both mouse and tablet. - Canva have told us to forget about that
• AI powered tools such as selection, upscaling, and some ways to integrate generative fill, whether in-house or external. With regards to A.I, we're still struggling with an 'image Trace Tool', so, like ah  
• Finishing the plug-in system and code API. ah, you do realise that you have to have you computer plugged in at the socket, for it to switch on to use our products 
• Make an Affinity Infinity software with all Personas in one software. I really don't want to switch softwares when I can have everything in one place. Canva have told us to forget about that
• More brush management features such as sub-folders, the ability to R click to select brushes, etc. NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo