Harrythespida Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 Having been a fan and avid user of Serif software for many years I am about to jump ship from windows to mac..............has anyone gone from Drawplus x8 to Affinity Designer and if so what was the learning curve like? I have been looking at Photoshop on my existing windows for the past few days and the learning curve looks horrific for a 72 year old. I also hope to use Affinity Photo in place of Paint Shop Pro which I have also been using since the King died. Any like wise comments on this plan would also be welcome . Many thanks harrythespida Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KEC Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 Just started using Mac and Affinity Designer also. I have DrawPlus X8 (on my PC) and am switching to Affinity Designer (on a Mac). I will admit that I am a VERY casual user of both of them, rather than a power user. But I have found the learning curve to be quite reasonable. It has not taken me long to get up to speed on Designer, perhaps a week at most. One thing to keep in mind is that Affinity Designer is very new and is not nearly as mature (read complete) as DrawPlus. I am able to basic drawings but am having trouble with more complex things because the features are either not yet implemented (arrowheads on lines, for example) or they are not yet working completely (snapping still primitive and "buggy", for example). But it looks like it is going to transition from being a good product to a really great product as it is improved in the next few releases. I use Photoshop casually as well. It is extremely powerful and very complex, so the learning curve is steep. I'm just now playing with Affinity Photo and, as a casual user, it seems it may do 99% of what I need to do. But again, I'm not close to using the full capabilities of Photoshop. By the way, I have spent a good bit of time just getting familiar with the Mac OS X and learning to do things I know how to do in Windows! But I am liking OS X very well, especially the integration with the iPhone and iPad. Have Fun and Good Luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KEC Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 I have to admit that my difficulty with snapping was principally due to my not understanding some of the nuances of how it worked. It seems obvious now, but you can't snap to objects that are locked (duh) and, I believe, the objects need to be on the same layer (subtle and limiting). I have not found it to be "buggy", but it is still a bit primitive compared to AI or a low-end CAD package. So after a few more days, I've found Affinity Designer to be excellent and plan to use it extensively going forward! I think it would be interesting to have a vector drawing program with the power and precision of a CAD application (without the dimensioning tools, etc.) CAD apps have the ability to snap to perpendiculars, tangents, for example. And they have really handy ways to switch from one snap mode to another. I've used TurboCAD (PC) pretty extensively and think it's a good model for industrial strength snapping. This would be extremely handy for technical illustrations... Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted May 23, 2016 Staff Share Posted May 23, 2016 Hi KEC, Thanks for your feedback. Snapping should work with locked objects and with object on other layers too. Just make sure they are snapping candidates. Affinity apps only snap to a maximum of six objects at a time to avoid a profusion of guides appearing on screen. If you need to know which objects are being considered for snapping (those are called snapping candidates in Affinity apps) you can make Affinity highlight them going to menu View ▸ Snapping Manager... and checking Show snapping candidates. They will be highlighted with a pink outline on the canvas. If you want to align an object while you are dragging it, with another one that isn't a snapping candidate (doesn't have the pink outline), just mouse hover it for a few moments until it gets the pink outline too, then the guides should appear as usual. To learn a little more about snapping and snapping candidates in Affinity apps check this video tutorial: Snapping: Object Creation The snapping features will be improved/expanded soon, so expect some news here in the next betas. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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