It was good while it lasted. Where do you plan to go now?

[marciomendonsa]

It was good while it lasted. Where do you plan to go now? This morning we had the sad news that Serif was acquired by Canvas. Sad… the software that I spent time developing, loving, etc.

The big question now is: Where do we go from here?

I used Gimp for years, but when I discovered Affinity Photo, I realized I was moving from a small economy car to an Alfa Romeo.

I wouldn’t want to go back to Gimp, as I see that even in version 3 it is still far behind the current version of Affinity Photo.

And you, where do you plan to go?

[Bryan Rieger]

Probably staying with Adobe (after 10 years I was never able to fully rid myself of them), and slowly beginning to migrate all of my Affinity Designer files to Illustrator and Photoshop. Not happy to be back primarily with Adobe, but it's the devil I know, well.

Depending on where the Affinity apps end up going under Canva's control I might re-evaluate down the road. I do fear however that development priorities for Canva will far outweigh any of the endless requests from Affinity users over the years.

I’m also a little concerned that Canva may choose to force cloud storage on the Affinity apps (and users) much like Linearity (another Canva competitor) did when they rebranded Vectornator to Curve.

Update: after reading @Ash's update on The Affinity and Canva Pledge I'm feeling a little more optimistic about the acquisition, although I do hope that fixing long-term issues, UI/UX fixes, and improving overall stability aren't pushed aside in favour of shiny new features. The acquisition and this statement indicates that Canva and Affinity are indeed in it for the long-haul, and as such, I hope they both see the value in ensuring the underlying foundation is rock-solid before moving at pace towards the future.

Edited March 27 by Bryan Rieger
Update on reading 'The Affinity and Canva Pledge'.

[marciomendonsa]

Corel Paint Shop Pro. Is it an alternative?

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

1 minute ago, marciomendonsa said:

Corel Paint Shop Pro. Is it an alternative?

No.

[JamesH]

7 minutes ago, Bryan Rieger said:

Staying with Adobe (after 10 years I was never able to rid myself of them), and beginning to move all of my Affinity Designer files to Illustrator and Photoshop.

Unfortunately I'm also preparing to jump back to Adobe.... Sad day. 

[marciomendonsa]

If you have to pay for a subscription, why not just stick with Adobe, right?

[loukash]

17 minutes ago, marciomendonsa said:

where do you plan to go?

Nowhere.
Has Affinity 2.4.1 suddenly stopped working as of this morning?

[Bryan Rieger]

5 minutes ago, loukash said:

Has Affinity 2.4.1 suddenly stopped working as of this morning?

Nope, but personally I wouldn't risk investing even more of my work with it going forward. The thought of having to migrate another 1-3 years more of Affinity files down the road doesn't sound particularly enticing at the moment—especially as NO OTHER APPLICATION can read or work with the Affinity *.afwhatever file format.

Edited March 26 by Bryan Rieger
Mention of closed .af* file format.

[mopperle]

Guys, dont panic. Nothing has been decided yet. There will be changes for sure as with every merger/acquisition, but whether they will be good or bad for us Affinity users, time will tell and if it will get worse, you have enough time to move elsewhere. 

[DuncanL]

Acquisitions almost never end well for the acquired product.  I've been part of several such buyouts and despite all the "no plans to change" they always mean the buyer gets bored of the thing they bought after a few years and can't now work out how to sell.

Having been with Serif for many, many years I'll stick with Affinity for now;  because that's where all my work and skills are, but I rather suspect that any v3 will never happen;  and if it does will certainly become a subscription product.

Shame.

[Mithferion]

I'm not going anywhere... today.

Best regards!

[loukash]

@Bryan Rieger, I get that.

So… personally, I still have a few years ahead until official retirement, but I've been already slowly withdrawing from all this design business anyway. I may be a designer by profession, but I've always been a musician at heart. That's what I'm definitely gonna do for as long as my fingers and eardrums will allow. 

For the design work that I will choose to do, Affinity 2 will still do a good job for many years to come.
I mean, as of 2024 I can still be creative using Affinity 1 on a MacBook Pro from 2008 if necessary. It's a bit slow but it still works.

• Will I pay any subscription, should this happen with v3?
  No friggin' way.
• Will I pay for a v3 perpetual license now that Serif is being owned by a huge company?
  Thinking of it today, unlikely. 

I'll wait and see.  

[Medical Officer Bones]

Well, Affinity always has been (and still is) a secondary app for myself. My main hub is PhotoLine. I also use Clip Studio EX and Krita.

For myself I consider PhotoLine the only real alternative to Photoshop, mainly because 1bit image support is lacking in Affinity, and I need that for my work.

And PhotoLine also offer a good solid set of vector editing tools. While PhotoLine doesn't support AI tools, I now use Krita with its free AI plugin to balance that out together with its painting tools (which are okay in PhotoLine, but can't compete with Krita or Affinity). Clip Studio EX I use for comic work and publication.

To me PhotoLine is that Swiss knife app that holds my workflow together. And does it well. Affinity never was able to.

[Twolane]

I picked up Affinity v1 for Photo and Publisher, as I wanted to do POD printing with Ingram-Spark and Amazon. Fortunately for me, I did not convert any of those v1 Photo cover files/Publisher files over to V2. And I have just finished downloading all of my v.1.10.6 software, so there's that.

Good luck to the rest of you. I am not hopeful for any non-sub versions of the Affinity line in future.

[jimh12345]

I read this with dismay.

I think we've all learned that any time a CEO makes an "exciting announcement", it means bad news for users.  And I'd say most software acquisitions mean nothing but slow death for the product.

The question is: who is Canva, really, and how do they currently make their money?  Because all they'll do is try to torture and mangle Affinity into fitting some hole in their current product line.  

 

[loukash]

24 minutes ago, mopperle said:

but whether they will be good or bad for us Affinity users, time will tell

Agreed.
As designers, many of us have been burned. FreeHand and iView Media, just to name the two major victims I used to be using.

But not every such acquisition ends up that badly. Some examples from my alternate musician-self:

• Apple buying Emagic Logic 20 years ago?
  What an amazing tool Logic is today! And apparently still developed by the same Emagic team. (Alright, Apple going subscription model with the new Logic for iPad smells fishy though…)
• Yamaha swallowing Line 6?
  Buying their HX Stomp amp and effect modeler was my best music gear investment in literally four decades being an active musician! Hard to tell if the Line 6 company had all the resources without Yamaha backing.

So, also with Affinity it still can continue pretty well.

[Medical Officer Bones]

6 minutes ago, jimh12345 said:

The question is: who is Canva, really, and how do they currently make their money?  Because all they'll do is try to torture and mangle Affinity into fitting some hole in their current product line.  

Canva is generally despised by design professionals. A 'dirty' word.  It is a design block/template service, its design software is web-based and woefully imprecise, and it allows non-designers in business and office environments to play designer.

Design professionals have to deal with the fall-out. Inconsistent company branding and communication, having to work with JPG files that are delivered to them for "final print delivery"... Designs that feel generic or all over the place. Clients have delivered Canva work to colleagues of mine, and they had to redraw and rebuild the entire designs in Illustrator.

Canva acquiring Affinity is, as someone in another forum stated:

Quote

I don’t think it’s going to work out for [Canva], given that their current credibility in the actual design market is often “despise and avoid”. It would be like McDonalds buying The French Laundry - i don’t think their hamburgers would get better, and the steaks will likely get worse.

 

[jimh12345]

34 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

 It is a design block/template service, its design software is web-based and woefully imprecise, and it allows non-designers in business and office environments to play designer.

Well if Canva isn't even interested in photography, it's probably over for Affinity "Photo".  It hasn't been receiving much development anyway, in areas crucial to photographers - like raw processing, and export.  

I've been using the combination of Capture One and Affinity Photo;  I guess it's  time to move on to one of several products that claim to incorporate the best of both - with no subscription, of course.    

[dominik]

1 hour ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Well, Affinity always has been (and still is) a secondary app for myself. My main hub is PhotoLine. I also use Clip Studio EX and Krita.

For myself I consider PhotoLine the only real alternative to Photoshop, mainly because 1bit image support is lacking in Affinity, and I need that for my work.

And PhotoLine also offer a good solid set of vector editing tools. While PhotoLine doesn't support AI tools, I now use Krita with its free AI plugin to balance that out together with its painting tools (which are okay in PhotoLine, but can't compete with Krita or Affinity). Clip Studio EX I use for comic work and publication.

To me PhotoLine is that Swiss knife app that holds my workflow together. And does it well. Affinity never was able to.

Hi @Medical Officer Bones,

thanks for giving an insight in your workflow that you mentioned in this other thread. Food for thought, though my needs are quite different. For now I am sticking with Affinity but it is good to know there is PhotoLine around.

d.

[Medical Officer Bones]

@dominik We all have different needs and workflows. As long as we have alternatives to work with, it's fine. PhotoLine is not perfect: no software is.

But I worry about the impoverishment in (semi-)professional image editors. While GIMP is nice for what it is, a true Blender grade open source image editor equivalent is still missing.

[SreckoM]

Will keep Affinity until it hits subscription only mode. Than it will be, probably, 'Back to Adobe'. I did try open source alternatives, like Inkscape and Gimp, but those  are good for simple to medium level tasks. It is nightmare to work on a bit larger projects ...

[marciomendonsa]

2 horas atrás, jimh12345 disse:

Bem, se o Canva nem se interessa por fotografia, provavelmente acabou para o Affinity "Photo". De qualquer forma, não tem recebido muito desenvolvimento, em áreas cruciais para os fotógrafos - como processamento de matérias-primas e exportação.

Tenho usado a combinação de Capture One e Affinity Photo; Acho que é hora de passar para um dos vários produtos que afirmam incorporar o melhor de ambos - sem assinatura, é claro.

Meu negócio é fotografia também. Principalmente começando em RAW e fazendo ajustes mais finos em AP... Começando, aos poucos, a arrumar as malas...

[tudor]

3 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Canva is generally despised by design professionals. A 'dirty' word.  It is a design block/template service, its design software is web-based and woefully imprecise, and it allows non-designers in business and office environments to play designer.

Design professionals have to deal with the fall-out. Inconsistent company branding and communication, having to work with JPG files that are delivered to them for "final print delivery"... Designs that feel generic or all over the place. Clients have delivered Canva work to colleagues of mine, and they had to redraw and rebuild the entire designs in Illustrator.

Guess what, in the near future your colleagues will probably be able to use Affinity apps to deliver quality templates to clients who use Canva. As a designer who makes money selling graphic design services to business customers, I see this as an opportunity. Canva is huge in the business world.

[Mystical]

I'm not familiar with Canva but a quick look at their website it shows they do some sort of video editing. Hope of a motion graphics editor in Affinity suite would be the best outcome.

As others have said, if they move from perpetual for subscription that would be the end, especially since its the reason I got rid of Adobe and support Affinity. I'm not going to get all doom and gloom assuming the worst but I will be keeping an eye out now that things have changed.

[JamesH]

37 minutes ago, Mystical said:

I'm not familiar with Canva but a quick look at their website it shows they do some sort of video editing. Hope of a motion graphics editor in Affinity suite would be the best outcome.

As others have said, if they move from perpetual for subscription that would be the end, especially since its the reason I got rid of Adobe and support Affinity. I'm not going to get all doom and gloom assuming the worst but I will be keeping an eye out now that things have changed.

Its a graphics editor for the masses. Very basic. No video that I'm aware of.