trying it out finally

[billah59]

hi all

I finally got to try out Affinity out I will say its a differnt animal for sure!

Ive had it for a while I really couldnt do anything with it,at the time I was taking care of my late mother,yeah she was really a handful

its going to take me a while to get used to using this Ive been using X4 for a longtime ,started using Serif since Windows Xp,so its been a minute

the butterfly I did freehand like ive been doing with X4 how ive done it that compared to this way is for sure differnt but this is a start

my only thing is my black line is transparnet I dont know what what im doing wrong here other than that this how this turned out

bugs bunny on the right I want to use my old stuff too,so ive been tinkering around with it using i did in 2014 if you look the picture on the right using the older serif is jagged running it through affinity it made everything smoother,kinda changed the grey a little i have years of stuff ive made with this & to remake them would take me a very long time,my elements that is

i still have some learing to do

bmbjr

[dannyg9]

You're off to a fantastic start. Don't loose enthusiasm for the software. There is a learning curve but not that steep, especially if you take it slow. The versions that the suite is at is leaps and bounds above where it was when introduced. Too much to digest at once but small bites and you'll be flying in no time.

[billah59]

I wanted to do something difficult,a little so I did this

Its from a coffee cup I have i put my spin on it the elements are from Serif X4 the confetti,balloons lettering i figured out how do this

so after making a Affinity file out of it then i exported it as a jpg ,this does kinda like X4 ,its got somethings missing that i used quite a bit on X4 by the time i got done with this

i was starting to feel comfortable using it,i still have some learning to do

 

[Alfred]

18 hours ago, billah59 said:

Ive been using X4 for a longtime

I presume you mean DrawPlus X4 (hybrid vector/raster drawing) rather than PhotoPlus X4  (image editing) or PagePlus X4 (desktop publishing).

[billah59]

no its X4

Ive figured out to save it to where i can save it in X4 so I can open it i  Affinity

I use a Hp Pc with a Wacom tablet or a Apple Pencil & I pad

[billah59]

this is a demo i made of what ive done so far,im getting to where i feel good about using it now

time to check out some of the other stuff see what I can do with that I still dont have it quite figured out yet but its getting better

bmbjr

[billah59]

I dont know what happened to the spaceman i resized it in Paint ,might have something to do with it

renders i did using both X4 and Affinity some of it,some was just totally Affinity ,that includes my cutsom colors comming from X4

i cant belive they wont let you use 1 from the other like they did with the other versions ,you still can sort of as ive said ive got years of "elements " so 1 way i figured out how to use them

for those who dont know this is how ive done it in x4 save it in photoshop then open up in Affinity thats whats working for me sometimes if ive used a specail mask or something when it opens up in Affinity it wont be the right color & I will have to change it back thats the only problem ive had so far,it saves everything including my layers

that ive made ,so i can work on them 1 layer at time if i have to ,a little extra work ,but its cool  through the years ive been told to try Vector drawing,instead of free hand like i do ive tried no matter how simple it might be,its always the same it ends up being a big mess,at this point i think ive just gave up on it

 

[Alfred]

On 1/22/2025 at 3:59 PM, Alfred said:

I presume you mean DrawPlus X4 (hybrid vector/raster drawing) rather than PhotoPlus X4  (image editing) or PagePlus X4 (desktop publishing).

 

56 minutes ago, billah59 said:

no its X4

The legacy products I mentioned are all version X4. When I saw the word ‘drawing’ in your topic tags, I wrongly assumed that you meant vector/raster drawing that you would do with DrawPlus or possibly PagePlus, rather than raster-focused painting that you would do with PhotoPlus, and that you’re making the transition to Affinity Designer. I can now see from your screenshots that you did in fact mean moving to Affinity Photo from Serif PhotoPlus.

 

50 minutes ago, billah59 said:

i cant belive they wont let you use 1 from the other like they did with the other versions

The legacy applications are Windows-only, with a limited ability to share saved elements across different programs in the range. The Affinity applications are cross-platform and use the same file format for all apps at a given release level.

 

56 minutes ago, billah59 said:

through the years ive been told to try Vector drawing,instead of free hand like i do ive tried no matter how simple it might be,its always the same it ends up being a big mess,at this point i think ive just gave up on it

Vector drawing is a very different process, because you’re essentially working with control points. This makes it relatively easy to tweak the lines in a drawing, but you probably need you watch some tutorial videos to help you get the hang of it.

[billah59]

so i tried something else out to see what else Affinity can do as i say its a differnt animal

i tried 1 of the how-tos i belive it was called something like switching sky

this is what i came up with

 

[billah59]

i used my own pictures

top left was shot using a Blackberry,bottom right was shot using a Windows phone the middle was the end result

i want to try this on something else i just dont know what yet