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Illustrator vs. DrawPlus vs. Designer vs. CorelDRAW


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Thank you for your very respectful response. I'm sorry if the tone to my post sounded harsh, because it wasn't meant to be; merely to understand. There is really no tone on the internet, so some words can be interpreted wrong, and I think we both misinterpreted each other's.

 

No worries!

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Funny, I have never been asked to not mention other products on any forum...

 

I also don't think asking for clarification on a competing product is wrong--not if that clarification aids in making the comparison list more accurate.

 

That said, I think a list like this helps the person making it more than anyone reading it. There is no list on any forum like this that I do not see errors in...the same kinds of errors that most every software company makes when they have comparative lists—but user-made lists like this one are often void of the shear number of errors I see on company web sites that seek to cast their product(s) in a better light than their competitors.

 

So I see a user-made list, even with errors, as less confusing to new users than ones on company web sites.

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Funny, I have never been asked to not mention other products on any forum...

 

Ehehe, I've not been so lucky...  :)

 

 

I also don't think asking for clarification on a competing product is wrong--not if that clarification aids in making the comparison list more accurate.

 

If you want to post here a tutorial to show to how create a round corner or clip shapes in Adobe Illustrator, to demonstrate that it is capable of, you're free to do it...

I only said that it sounds to me not so polite...

 

Despite of my poor english I think I've expressed and clarified enough my point of view (and bleduc recognised it clearly), so I'll not go back to this point anymore.

:)

The white dog, making tools for artists, illustrators and doodlers

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Interesting string...

 

I used Corel from Ver 3... dabbled in Adobe then cancelled my subscription and went back to Corel...

 

 I went over to Designer after struggling with Corel in Parallels on my iMac (slowing etc) an I love Designer... However it lacks only one thing that will happily let me delete Corel & Parallels from my new Mac... the moving zero point in the rulers... Granted I am told how big etc the box/line I am creating is BUT if I could just chuck in some guidelines and move the "zero point" I would be totally wrapped... A few years ago It was promised in the future and in the meantime I will wait but have to run, dual Designer and Corel X8 on my Mac. Working on building and display design with the Designer zoom is frighteningly good!!

 

The ability to open all the files in Designer or Photo is a big plus... just that one little niggle... the movable zero

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Yes, Designer does have so much potential. I came from Illustrator and I was looking for a better program for my workflow. I think I was looking for three years. I went through a lot of art slumps too because Illustrator, although was my most used program, was a very frustrating one. It made it hard for to stay motivated in drawing. Everything in Designer can be accomplished so much easier, and it has a lot of the features Illustrator has. Plus, it's bringing a new feature I wanted in Illustrator for a long time, brush stabilization. It's in a lot of bitmap programs, but I don't think it was ever in a vector designing program. Designer is such a treat to me.

 

I never really work with rulers, so I am unaware of that feature. It wouldn't hurt to request it in the proper section though.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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In Illustrator there three drawing modes and one of them is the Draw inside which lets you paste objects from a clipboard from another object.

 

There is a pixel preview in Illustrator View-> Pixel Preview

 

Thank you for the tip. I already had that feature for pasting inside for Illustrator checked off, but I went in and made that change for the pixel preview.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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IMO the issue with feature lists is... It is sth we do all check when hunting for new software, ( I worked at a software developing company, and published those lists constantly as to know sometimes is the hidden(bugs, improves, new approach, etc) or less flashy list items the ones making a world of difference), but is a mere surface analysis...

Features lists worth nothing compared to how a tool allows you to do work in a real scenario.  I, for example, know better than most people (as is rare to find ppl using almost antagonist tools in a similar intense usage ratio) that a lot of Max features aren't in Blender, and that its UI (Blender's) is quite too different to anything else...But in real scenarios, and of course, only after I really got the hang of its UI through may professional commercial projects, that now I can see i am faster with it. More "fluid", in a way. Modeling organics with Wings3D is even a better comparison case, with these two (IMO).

 

A package might have not all features, what I care about is if in doing a poster, a flyer, book cover design and illustration, a photo edit, am working fast and being able through workarounds or implemented features to get the job done. If so, I don't freaking care if the tool have the 3.0 whatever the last trendy feature every package is introducing just to keep current and "IN". I've told some times with a CS 2 I lasted till relatively  recently in a company doing every imaginable task one person can be asked to do in 2D,  even while cs 6 was at some point already offered. 

 

No matter if it's round corners, or if PS in the past didn't have too much love in its brushes, or if the UI was not as clean as uncluttered as it could be, or whatever inconvenience.... if a software allows you to do the work in a reasonable time and there's no such thing for which you can't find a clever-fast workaround. So, lists tell me very little. It is true that when you see a 2D tool just listing a very few small feature set, and leaving out the most key features, that tool is out of the game unless it provides an extreme usefulness for a specific project task. But among lists so similar... You can't know which is better... Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that would be much more the deciding factor a very different collection of reasons. Hey, lest do a list ! humans love lists, don't we.... : 

 

1) The type of work you are doing. A photographer has a very different workflow than an Illustrator (hi !) has. Even a comic artist, while actually drawing and probably painting, has very specific needs (line accuracy), different than the ones of an illustrator. (I'm both... my bad...). And a pixel artist needs quite very different tool set and UI.(just to name a very short list of areas). 

2) The person! People with some mountains of patience (I believe I am of this type), in the case they (we) have strong reasons to bet for certain software, wont run away even with a certain number of usage difficulties. The interesting side of it is that this is not done for loving making work more difficult than it should be, but because there is a very deep intention of guessing by own's experience (not from a list, other users experiences, ads, or the whatever review says (paid or not) about A or B software. ) and actually desiring to have the best tool set, and for ever convinced that a multiple options tool set, instead of one single software is quite a clever way to go. (even if nothing wrong on the comfort of having a tool do everything, not needing to launch anything else: IMO, in the length and depth of today's projects in every area, this can't be ensured in many cases. )

 

3) Sometimes the workarounds are actually... more flexible and practical "features" than what was considered the "standard" feature, the trendy 3.0 feature of whatever, so massively accepted as the standard take at it.

 

4) It is the combination of the workarounds, speed ups in certain areas, features that actually are in the new software which are not in the dominant ones, and mostly, how it helps you globally in your project...this all is how I rather get to know if the tool is useful for me. The feature list, even if provided by a very skilled forum user, IMO, can be only a very "in the surface" initial orientation. Many packages list a feature equally but there's later on a world of difference in how they can be used in practical cases, in each app. Or... even sometimes, a feature is weirdly implemented, with a terrible UI in some software applications, still, does certain stuff no other else does and allows you to solve an important prob/bottle neck in a project where you were stuck, in occasions, saving a lot of time.

 

5) Versions and usage. Most threads i find comparing tools are not fair... Usually, the OP -not in this case!- is slightly biased already. Meaning, he/she uses a tool mostly, and have had certain usage of the other(/s) (IMO, that way nothing accurate will come out of that, you can see that a lot in written or video reviews !). Usually older version of the others is what are being compared to the other one, and often so this person not deeply knowing those other tools. And it is very logical that it happens to be so ! Is already close to impossible to stay up to date with every tool out there and still do your own work, lol...

 

About netiquette , gotta agree here with Paolo, very much indeed. It is not..completely polite. Is like if you go to an IT event, and go to the HP's, or MS booth, and put your Apple Prototype in their booth table, and speak and show to all potential MS or HP customers how great Apple products are, or, just saying hey, but let's not talk about MS products only, look my shiny Mac Book and iPad Pro, let's compare !... Not too "polite", right ? I know you do it with the best intentions, and that almost sure that Affinity doesn't mind at all (and anyway, would be too busy to care)... But it ain't the best promotion for them, either...

 

And... @Mike ...well.... You have been very lucky! This forum is extremely free. It is even in the pinned rules in a lot of company forums out there that promoting, debating, sepcially comparing, or even mentioning brands is strictly prohibited. (well, actually I worked as part of a marketing team -the graphic grunt for the sales ppl- and heck, should I be careful while dealing with the content (IE, html codes needed by those years with the little trade marks and registered, an a lot other issues) with the brands matter in every post, press release, social comment, etc...But yeah, that's a different matter). It only tells one nice things that a thread like this is allowed. I do prefer when communities show that they don't need to be regulated, by just being respectful by their own (1000s times more professional, too).

 

Nothing out of respect in this thread, though. I just wanted to point out that I know what Paolo means here, and confirm that it is a fact that this type of thread is very very censured even in non company related forums, that is, in general CG or 2D whatever forums. To be completely honest, most of those censorship solutions are more of a caution measure: People tends to feel very strongly about their tool of choice. Specially happens among professionals. Consider that is sth very important for us : You choose your tool also trying to hit the one used mostly in companies (and is years of investment to really learn a tool). Your plate of food is in danger. Even global perception becoming negative about a tool can damage you, some people unconsciously or not feel threatened about it (certainly not my case). So, those threads often end up in authentic ugly battles, trolling and insults, giving a bad image of the forum and company. IMO, these forums here are a mix of professionals, intense hobbyists and quite some casual users, so things are way more balanced. (probably the average in age is quite higher than in many of the forums I was mentioning, and it seems that in majority when people matures behaves better... ;D ) 

My whole point is that I welcome these threads, but I do believe no one ever should drive to any solid conclusion by these things, only a real project of yours, using almost solely one of these apps (a trial or a beta period tends to be more than enough), will tell you how good it is... for you. Or if it has the performance you need to have. That's why trials, beta period(well, not exactly, but..), or money refund are made for !  And that I see where Paolo is coming with the politeness. I don't even have to look for examples, I kind of "feel" it is not completely polite (even if nothing dramatic, either) netiquette or not...

 

Just like ranting way too much (in other threads, this one is specially respectful) about one application one could test deeply before purchasing, in the very long beta period...if after all that you buy it and find out you don't like it...IMO, did not test with a real project, or too little testing time. Nobody to blame there, but certainly, not them either... Then is a move on to another app, but that'd be it, as much. Even while (like with persons ;) ) is better patience and second chances... 

 

IMO the lists is only a first check if the tool aims to professional worlds or not. Kind of a first idea, to consider downloading the trial. But even if it lacks an important one for me, I am going to download and try it, find a possible workaround, if I find the app in general to have certain potential.

 

Geez, this one ended long...

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Hello SrPx,

Thank you for your response. As I mentioned to someone else about this topic, this is not a discussion of which program is best since many features on the list are not vector designing priorities but personal favorites. It is more on the lines of which is most convenient for everyone out there. After all, everyone has a different way of working. It also gives newcomers an idea of what to expect in Designer. Many people like myself likes how Affinity works in a very different approach. The staff has said many times, "It is about being different." So whether people are looking for more or less features, basics compared to advancement, or what else, this is just my way to compare it all.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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  • 1 month later...

I think it's really the kind of work being done where one programs shows itself to be more useful than another.  If you're working in sign making, t-shirt graphics, web, interface design, you'll find that one program does something better than another.  Overall, major software like Illustrator or Coreldraw will of course take you farther than prosumer software like DrawPlus or Designer, even if it's not the best at every single thing.  You can certainly pick out a handful of things that the prosumer stuff can do over the major programs.  I personally use DrawPlus a lot alongside Illustrator.  It is not a replacement for Illustrator, for the work I do, but I really enjoy the brush tools in DrawPlus and the way they work.

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It always depends and I think there are usually also many more individual factors, which do play a role here too. Such feature comparisons just give you a good first rough overview of what certain software might support in the one or other way, but it doesn't tell you in which way they are implemented, meaning if in a intuitively smooth, fast and bug free workflow etc. So it doesn't tell much about a software's overall usability, robustness and if you are very productive and feel at home with it during your daily work basis.

 

Some products, mainly the big long time players here, of course do support all or most kind of graphics industry standard things, often they also offer different ways (of which all lead to Rome) to do something one might need. But do they offer this in a intuitively fast adaptable/understandable way for non-professionals? - Not necessarily!

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I think it's really the kind of work being done where one programs shows itself to be more useful than another.  If you're working in sign making, t-shirt graphics, web, interface design, you'll find that one program does something better than another.  Overall, major software like Illustrator or Coreldraw will of course take you farther than prosumer software like DrawPlus or Designer, even if it's not the best at every single thing.  You can certainly pick out a handful of things that the prosumer stuff can do over the major programs.  I personally use DrawPlus a lot alongside Illustrator.  It is not a replacement for Illustrator, for the work I do, but I really enjoy the brush tools in DrawPlus and the way they work.

 

Thank you for your response. I think V_kyr seems to be on the right track, but just to be sure, please see my last post on the previous page.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Staff

Hi qasimmgm,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

You can use Layer FX (click the FX icon on the bottom of the layers panel) to add drop shadows to objects (we call them Outer Shadow). Regarding the other tools, the Mesh Warp distortion tool is already on Affinity Designer's roadmap (covers the whole 1.x cycle). and the others may become available later in future updates.

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Also, if the Contour Tool is used for creating a secondary stroke in Corel, you can do the same with the "Outline" effect in the Layer Effects panel MEB mentioned.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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The unfortunate and perplexing deal-breaker for Designer is that it treats all objects as filled. This means that if an object has a hole in it through which you can see other objects (like a frame or box that you've drawn around something), you can't select those objects by clicking on them. Details on this problem here.

 

I gave up on Designer entirely because of this glaring problem, and went back to Corel Draw. What kind of drawing program doesn't let you select objects by clicking on them?

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I remember that topic. I understand that can be a pain, and I'm sorry to see you go. Affinity does a really good job in addressing issues, so there is no guarantee that one won't eventually get addressed. For the time being, you can hold Alt and keep clicking on an object to select others behind it. Holding Alt will take you down on it's layer stack until you are on the very last layer.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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Hi qasimmgm,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

You can use Layer FX (click the FX icon on the bottom of the layers panel) to add drop shadows to objects (we call them Outer Shadow). Regarding the other tools, the Mesh Warp distortion tool is already on Affinity Designer's roadmap (covers the whole 1.x cycle). and the others may become available later in future updates.

thank you for the respond, I'm new to AD and I liked it as I'm playing around with the software, those effects are very important to me so I will wait to see if they will be embedded in the new editions, one more thing, I used to duplicate an object or repeat it around a center in CorelDRAW, can I do this in AD? and can I copy the properties from a shape to another?

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one more thing, I used to duplicate an object or repeat it around a center in CorelDRAW, can I do this in AD? and can I copy the properties from a shape to another?

 

Yes to both.

 

For your first question, you have to click the "Show Rotation Center" button when you have an object selected. Reposition the center point to the center you want all the objects to be around. Copy the object and paste it so it is stacked on top of the original. Then rotate the copy holding Shift to rotate it around the center point in 15 degree increments. Continue doing the same with the next duplicates until you have a complete pattern.

 

For your second question, you can paste styles on other objects in the Edit menu.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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Copy the object and paste it so it is stacked on top of the original. Then rotate the copy holding Shift to rotate it around the center point in 15 degree increments. Continue doing the same with the next duplicates until you have a complete pattern.

 

Better yet, use the Duplicate command (Cmd+J on a Mac or Ctrl+J on Windows) to create the copy. Then after rotating the copy you can just keep on duplicating it: the 'Power Duplicate' feature will kick in, applying the same amount of rotation to each new copy.

 

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Yes, but in order for Power Duplicate to work, a first copy must be made by dragging and not just a copy and paste. So in this case, you would have to drag an object which can cause it to lose its accuracy in a complete symmetrical circle. If duplicates could be made by rotation as well, then I would recommend this method.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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On 01/04/2017 at 5:53 PM, bleduc said:

If duplicates could be made by rotation as well, then I would recommend this method.

 

Have you tried it, Brian? ears.gif

post-8358-0-11528600-1491068786_thumb.jpg

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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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Have you tried it, Brian? ears.gif

 

What the? I don't think this is an April Fools joke. What key command are you using to create rotation duplicates? For me, Command and Alt do not have the same copying functionality for rotation as dragging.

 

   I do realise I am quite new here, but does not one need only click on the layer of the object then select that object in order to perform any operations? Perhaps I missed most of the discussion (did not read it in its entirety). In Corel, we simply switched to 'Simple Wireframe' view mode in order to better be able to select any object. 

 

Canuck

 

For getting a wireframe view, you only need to click on the last icon in the second set on the main toolbar (personas not counting as a set). You didn't miss that discussion because we were talking about something else.

 

If you hold Alt while dragging, you will create a duplicate of that object. What Alfred and I are talking about is a feature called Power Duplicate. After one drag duplicate, you press Ctrl/Cmd J (depending on the OS) to perform the Power Duplicate, and it will create multiples in the same pattern as the previous two. It distributes by position, size, form, and rotation. What I don't understand is that I thought a drag duplicate was required for it to work, but Alfred is apparently able to do it by rotation. I wonder if it was only implemented in Windows. I'm using Mac.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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What the? I don't think this is an April Fools joke. What key command are you using to create rotation duplicates? For me, Command and Alt do not have the same copying functionality for rotation as dragging.

 

Power rotate works the same way as power resize. If you use Cmd+J to create a duplicate, resize the duplicate and press Cmd+J again, the next duplicate will be resized by the same factor. If you rotate the first duplicate instead of resizing it, the next duplicate will be rotated by the same amount again, and if you both rotate and resize the first duplicate, the same transforms will be applied to subsequent duplicates.

post-8358-0-32069800-1491078362_thumb.jpg

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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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