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Affinity Designer is not Affinity Photo


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Hi,

 

We notice that a number of users are complaining that certain features (Inpainting brush, RAW develop, Document Crop, etc.) are not available in the current Affinity Designer beta..

 

There is a good reason for this - the product we have released is "Affinity Designer" (vector editor, graphic design tool).

 

So, to anyone looking for our fully-featured photo editing application - "Affinity Photo" - this is not the beta you were looking for!!

 

Affinity Photo on Windows will enter public beta for Windows later this year - you should wait for that announcement email if you want those things..

 

I recognise and appreciate that our marketing people made this far from obvious - and will apologise (on their behalf) for that.

 

Thanks,

 

Andy.

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I think it would have been great if affinity designer and photo were one application, as this would bring in all the features you want in a graphic design and image manipulation software.

I disagree. Because a good application works well when has a clear mission.

 

Do you want to draw, edit, apply effects (some good effects) an so on? AD

Do you want to create or edit a bitmap image? AF

Do you want to publish complex documents? AP

 

Do not try to catch all in one app. That is a wrong way. Because one app can not do all well. Imagine the User interface, the windows, and all the panes you can put in one app. And could we talk about updates of a monster app?

 

Indeed, you can go wrong with just an app that tries to do well in one area. Illustrator, for example is tremendously confusing. A lot of panels, so many panels that do a lot of things. Affinity Designer can do the same things faster and simpler than Illustrator. The routines and options are simpler and clever.

 

Is like eat food. You need spoon for soup. And a knife to cut bread. You can not eat soup with a knife... Er well, you can do, but the results are not practical and desirable.

 

I have been involved in DTP since 1983. Do you know about Common Ground, xRes, Canvas? One app that can do all sort of things usually do not work well in any area.

Graphic designer from Bilbao (Spain) FreeHand forever. Affinity Designer rocks! - Diseñador gráfico de Bilbao (España). FreeHand forever. Affinity Designer ¡mola!

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I disagree. Because a good application works well when has a clear mission.

 

Do you want to draw, edit, apply effects (some good effects) an so on? AD

Do you want to create or edit a bitmap image? AF

Do you want to publish complex documents? AP

 

Do not try to catch all in one app. That is a wrong way. Because one app can not do all well. Imagine the User interface, the windows, and all the panes you can put in one app. And could we talk about updates of a monster app?

 

Indeed, you can go wrong with just an app that tries to do well in one area. Illustrator, for example is tremendously confusing. A lot of panels, so many panels that do a lot of things. Affinity Designer can do the same things faster and simpler than Illustrator. The routines and options are simpler and clever.

 

Is like eat food. You need spoon for soap. And a knife to cut bread. You can not eat soap with a knife... Er well, you can do, but the results are not practical and desirable.

 

I have been involved in DTP since 1983. Do you know about Common Ground, xRes, Canvas? One app that can do all sort of things usually do not work well in any area.

What's AF? I thought it was just AD or AP?

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 Illustrator, for example is tremendously confusing. A lot of panels, so many panels that do a lot of things.

 

Although I agree with splitting the workflow between several apps, I can't walk by this comment. Illustrator has so many panels because it offers high functionality and control over the image, which is a must in prepress, for example. I can't even say what can be redone in Illustrator UI, because all of its functions are pretty useful in all sorts of cases.

 

 

Affinity Designer can do the same things faster and simpler than Illustrator. The routines and options are simpler and clever.

 

 

Are there any demonstrative tutorials?

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I think it would have been great if affinity designer and photo were one application, as this would bring in all the features you want in a graphic design and image manipulation software.

There is two way of working with vector graphic and bitmaps. Mixing them together in one app seems not very good idea - some actions, even if named very same, works differently in the word of vectors and reality of bitmaps. I'll be happy to work with two separate applications with ability for work over different elements of the same project. For example if bitmap is used as a background for graphic design, double click on it should open a file in bitmap editor and all the changes made should be visible in vector graph project after editing is finished.

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Although I agree with splitting the workflow between several apps, I can't walk by this comment. Illustrator has so many panels because it offers high functionality and control over the image, which is a must in prepress, for example. I can't even say what can be redone in Illustrator UI, because all of its functions are pretty useful in all sorts of cases.

 

 

 

 

Are there any demonstrative tutorials?

Well. You can read this PDF:

 

http://www.freehandforum.org/images/AI_FH_UI_and_Features.pdf

 

And follow 2 twitter accounts:

 

https://twitter.com/FreeHandForum

 

https://twitter.com/adobeuigripes

 

I do not say Illustrator is a bad application. What I said is that has routines or ways of make work done complicated. In FreeHand yo can do a lot of things in the Inspector panel. You can edit all the corners at once or one by one of a squares, for example.

 

You can see this pool of images in Flickr:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/krollian/albums/72157645962387176

 

Indeed, Javier Zarracina says that fire up FreeHand is a Zen experience, because the app is so powerful for draw and has not a lot of panels to do day to day work.

 

I love, for example not to have a lot of colors that I do not actually need in a given document. Say, I use 3 colors. Why I have in the swatches panel so many colors, gradients or so on? Hey. I do not want to say how people have to work. Is my opinion.

 

I had a stationary document that is used to create a new document in FreeHand with the basic colors: CMYK and RGB, White and Black, guides, and bleeds. I do not like elements in my screen that I do not use.

See how to apply Pantones or the different tones of tone color in FreeHand: A real pleasure!!

 

----

 

And apologies:

 

AD is Affinity Designer, AP is Affinity Photo and AP is Affinity Publisher. Sorry!!

Graphic designer from Bilbao (Spain) FreeHand forever. Affinity Designer rocks! - Diseñador gráfico de Bilbao (España). FreeHand forever. Affinity Designer ¡mola!

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Also, it would be a huge waste of resources for specialists if they got features in a huge application that does things they never actually need. A modular system where people get just what they need is the best for experienced professionals.

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I think it would have been great if affinity designer and photo were one application...

 

 

Do not try to catch all in one app. That is a wrong way. Because one app can not do all well.

 

It all depends on the quality of the implementation. I'm not at all against raster / vector integration when its done well.

 

Deneba Canvas is one of the two "hybrid" vector / raster programs dating all the way back to the early black and white Mac applications (the other being Silicon Graphics SuperPaint). Canvas is still around (now marketed by ACD) and its integration of vector and raster is still well done (and its vector feature set excellent).

 

Serif's rival, Xara, also does an elegant job of providing raster editing features (and web design features) within Designer Pro.

 

But the "jump to" approach between separate full-featured vector and raster applications works just as well. I don't find Corel's integration of Draw and PhotoPaint any kind of a productivity stumbling block, and I expect Affinity's docuent sharing approach will no doubt be fine, too.

 

It's all in the attention to UI elegance.

 

Illustrator, for example, is tremendously confusing.

 

 

Yes, it is. One only need peruse its user forum to see the frustration and eternally-repeated questions of newcomers. It's the most inelegant, scattered, confused, cluttered, and ambiguous UI in the vector drawing category.

 

I could build a long list of specifics (and have). But the really ugly part of the story is that its innovation-choking market dominance seems to cause other developers to mimic some of its worst elements as unassailable "de facto standards", the prime example being the unnecessary, tedious, but now pandemic insistence on two separate primary selection pointers. (Any proficient FreeHand user knows what I'm talking about.)

 

JET

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No wonder no one answered in questions area about Affinity Photo just not there in beta windows what a sadness, especially from all the promo material.

 

I'm a Photo Shop 5.5 user will not go the great Adobe Way anymore just not my cup of coffee monthly or yearly fees to feed the beast.   Yet I'm looking forward to the finished product this works and feels similar to Draw Plus 8 so that helps me get around.  This if fulfills on the photographic side of things may well be my replacement.   

 

I did like the fact that it took my PSD files and brought them in layers, that was a pleasant surprise.

 

Looking forward to your finale product.

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I disagree. Because a good application works well when has a clear mission.

 

Do you want to draw, edit, apply effects (some good effects) an so on? AD

Do you want to create or edit a bitmap image? AF

Do you want to publish complex documents? AP

 

In that case "Pixel Persona" must be removed from AD and it should be, because you have it in APh. Also, Typography and Vector capabilities from APh.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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In that case "Pixel Persona" must be removed from AD and it should be, because you have it in APh. Also, Typography and Vector capabilities from APh.

 

I find this thread an interesting question. According to the documents (I'm not a Mac owner so I haven't seen much of Affinity apps yet) there one common file format, one shared undo history, and different "personas" that look a lot like you could do some operations of the other discipline. Apparently there must be a lot of shared code in the program to be able to do all that. Why not just make one application out of it? But I'll have to see how it looks when all parts are available.

 

Related question: I've asked myself the same about office suites. You have limited text formatting in spreadsheet apps, and limited table support in word processors. Why not combine Word, Excel and PowerPoint (or their equivalents in your favourite office suite) into one single program called "Office" or so? Would make many tasks easier. Since Office 2010+ have the concept of context-sensitive ribbons (previously probably toolbars), comparable to context-sensitive toolbars in AD, all functionality should be there when it applies but not overload the UI any other time. Many buttons could easily be shared, too.

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I find this thread an interesting question. According to the documents (I'm not a Mac owner so I haven't seen much of Affinity apps yet) there one common file format, one shared undo history, and different "personas" that look a lot like you could do some operations of the other discipline. Apparently there must be a lot of shared code in the program to be able to do all that. Why not just make one application out of it? But I'll have to see how it looks when all parts are available.

 

Yes, they have a lot of common code, like Serif's apps, so it would be much better if they:

1. remove "obsolete" code and stick to what the app is suppose to do, or

2. make one app, out of three, or

3. make something like Xara -- keep all three separate, and make one PRO version with some extra features.

 

 

Related question: I've asked myself the same about office suites. You have limited text formatting in spreadsheet apps, and limited table support in word processors. Why not combine Word, Excel and PowerPoint (or their equivalents in your favourite office suite) into one single program called "Office" or so? Would make many tasks easier. Since Office 2010+ have the concept of context-sensitive ribbons (previously probably toolbars), comparable to context-sensitive toolbars in AD, all functionality should be there when it applies but not overload the UI any other time. Many buttons could easily be shared, too.

 

Something like Papyrus did.

http://www.papyrus-author.com

http://www.papyrus.de/

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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One of the great plus points of using the Affinity range is the uncluttered UI with most options being on surface level. Combining all the apps into a single one would cluster the UI and make it feel bloated. Also as MEB mentioned previously, the apps are designed to seamlessly share the same file type with the options still editable in each app. Removing any code would prevent this.

 

Although it's heavily vector based, Designer is a design program so there is a need for pixel manipulation. however generally this is different from the manipulation you need for photo editing which is all raster. Obviously the ability to use the apps beyond their base intention depends on your own creativity.

Serif Europe Ltd - Check the latest news at www.affinity.serif.com

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One of the great plus points of using the Affinity range is the uncluttered UI with most options being on surface level. Combining all the apps into a single one would cluster the UI and make it feel bloated. Also as MEB mentioned previously, the apps are designed to seamlessly share the same file type with the options still editable in each app. Removing any code would prevent this.

 

I must disagree with you. Cluttering depends on previous planing/designing of app's interface. And (un)cluttered code depends of developers skills. For instance, PhotoLine is very small, fast and uncluttered app and it is all-in-one design. It is even portable.

 

 

Although it's heavily vector based, Designer is a design program so there is a need for pixel manipulation. however generally this is different from the manipulation you need for photo editing which is all raster. Obviously the ability to use the apps beyond their base intention depends on your own creativity.

 

No, it does not need pixel manipulation at all.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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It is, what it is. I have absolutely no issue with how Affinity markets their products. I am glad to be part of the Beta program & if all goes well I'll purchase the software. Looking forward to trying Affinity Photo Beta when available.

Affinity Designer 2.0.0 Windows  · Affinity Photo 2.0.0 Windows  ·  Windows 11 Pro 64-bit   ·  AMD Ryzen 9-3900X 12-Core 3.80Ghz  ·  16Gb RAM   ·  Asus DUAL-RTX2070-O8G-EVO-V2 
 
 
 
 
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I must disagree with you. Cluttering depends on previous planing/designing of app's interface. And (un)cluttered code depends of developers skills. For instance, PhotoLine is very small, fast and uncluttered app and it is all-in-one design. It is even portable.

 

 

 

No, it does not need pixel manipulation at all.

 

No, more features mean more clutter. "Planning/design" really translates into inefficient workflows, lots of roadblocks to getting work done and ultimately a mess of a product. Affinity has a common file format and pretty seamless interop today and they are both focused, performant tools. Also, by arguing that designer doesn't need raster tools just weakens your argument, you know that right? 

 

#RantOver #PostBrexitRage

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So..

I realised this (title) pretty much immediately, but I couldn't find any info on Affinity Photo for Windows... like, if it was already created, or in beta, or what..

The website gives no clear indication This post is the first confirmation I could find on the topic (thanks, by the way).

 

Would be nice to state on the website that the Photo beta is only at the 'in the works' stage..

 

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So..

I realised this (title) pretty much immediately, but I couldn't find any info on Affinity Photo for Windows... like, if it was already created, or in beta, or what..

The website gives no clear indication This post is the first confirmation I could find on the topic (thanks, by the way).

 

Would be nice to state on the website that the Photo beta is only at the 'in the works' stage..

 

The Photo public beta should be available by the end of the year. 

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The Photo public beta should be available by the end of the year. 

 

Is the Publisher public beta still on course to be available by the end of the year? That sounds like an awful lot to cram into the next six months!

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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