Designer 1.5 - Edit in AF-photo

[Eisbar]

After updating on 1.5 I can no more edit (or "send) opened files to photo. The other way from photo -> designer is also not working. Before it runs without any problems!

 

Thx

[VIPStephan]

There is a fix for that in the making. Patience, young padawan.

[Eisbar]

I updated to 1.5.1 - but it is still not working

[MEB]

Hi Eisbar,

Thanks for your report. This issue will be solved soon.

Photo 1.4.3 and Designer 1.5 use different (incompatible) file formats. There will be an update to Photo soon (1.4.4) that will let you open files sent from Designer 1.5 without issues.

Bear with us while we are working on it.

[Chris_K]

HI Eisbar

 

This is because Designer and Photo are currently out of sync version wise. Photo is a slightly older version than Designer so it is not able to support the new features that the app has, which is what is preventing you from passing the document over. There will be an update to photo which will bring the versions back into sync and remedy the issue. As we had a couple of issue with designer we've held back slightly to make sure they are not also affecting Photo

 

Alternatively you can download the Photo 1.5 beta which should allow you to open the files

[KipV]

Once Photo 1.4.4 comes out will I be able to bring a file I have been working on in Photo Beta 1.5 back to Photo 1.4.4? It seems like I wouldn't be able to go from a higher version number back down to a lower one.

[MEB]

Yes, the only purpose of Photo 1.4.4 update is to allow compatibility between files created in Designer and Photo 1.5 (Beta or not) with Photo 1.4.4.

In other words, Affinity Photo 1.4.4 will support the new 1.5 file format.

[jclounge]

I stumbled across this issue recently too.

 

When are Designer and Photo going to be merged into a single app the way they probably always should have been?

 

It's a bit annoying having some tools/options here, other tools/options there, breaking compatibility like you have just done, etc.

[MEB]

Hi jclounge,

Both Photo and Designer 1.5 should have been launched almost simultaneously to keep compatibility between their file formats, however due to some issues/crash reports with Designer we decided to delay Photo 1.5 until we could fix the issues with Designer (to avoid repeating the same issues/problems with Photo). All this happened after the macOS Sierra launch which may have introduced some unexpected/undetected issues on its own too. Hopefully this shouldn't happen again. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Meanwhile if you need to switch files between the two programs you can install the latest betas of both Photo and Designer and they should work as intended.

 

Designer and Photo will never be merged into a single application. They serve completely different purposes and not all users may be interested in the the functionality of both apps. It would also make it a lot heavier, more complicated to maintain and update as well as more difficult to learn. Note that not all functionalities/tools were implemented yet, so there's still more to come to each of them. The idea is to offer an expanded feature set for each one, able to fill the needs of professional users, rather than provide all functionality into a single app that may not be particularly good at anything.

[R C-R]

It would also make it a lot heavier, more complicated to maintain and update as well as more difficult to learn..

That alone is reason enough to keep the apps separate. If they were combined, we would probably still be limited to the reduced feature set AD had before the 1.5 release while the developers work out the bugs that have delayed the release of AP 1.5. So no assets, symbols, etc.

[jclounge]

I don't buy the argument that it would be heavier or more complicated to maintain. Clearly the two apps are using the vast majority of their codebases the same as each other. They can both load each other's file formats, and can both even edit things that only the other app can create, as if they created those things themselves. If they are supposed to serve such different purposes, then why would they ever need to be so tightly compatible? It's plainly ridiculous to pretend they are hugely different in their purposes.

 

Until I see any evidence otherwise, what looks far more likely is that it's a coldly calculated marketing decision. Plus, having two separate apps has certainly not made either one very bug-free, and has caused issues between them where there should be none.

 

I would bet that it is in fact harder to maintain the apps separately because it means keeping track of all their arbitrary superficial differences, and expending time and energy deciding on just the right balance of differences to force people to buy both apps. If they were combined into one app, I would wager that the 1.5 release would have arrived around the same time, with just as many features, and far fewer bugs due to less duplication of effort and dividing of focus.

[VIPStephan]

jclounge, you seem fail to see that not all people are doing the same things and using the same features. I, for example, can count on one hand how much I’ve touched the pixel persona in AD. I’m not developing and/or retouching photos, so why would I want all the photo retouching features in my application?

Maintenance aside, multiple modular applications are just better for power users than one big bloated all-in-one application.

[R C-R]

If they are supposed to serve such different purposes, then why would they ever need to be so tightly compatible?

So that they can develop an integrated suite of products, each released when it is sufficiently developed to be useful to some segment of the market, without delaying any of them until the others are ready or requiring users to buy the ones they have no use for.

 

Don't forget that aside from AD & AP, they have announced their intention to release a publishing app within the next year & eventually a data asset manager. Imagine how long it would take to develop a single app with even the basic features of each of those four apps or what they would have to charge for it to stay in business for long.

[MEB]

Hi jclounge,

There's some base features that are common to both apps, - they are part of a suite - but apart from those, Affinity Designer is a graphic/web/ui design and illustration program, while Photo is a RAW converter/developer and photo-editing application. You will not find advanced photo-editing tools like channels, stacking, filters, histogram, scopes or RAW development tools just to mention a few in Designer, likewise there will not be symbols, constraints, advanced vector tools, artboards etc in Photo since they don't make sense on a photo-editing program. They are far from serving the same purpose and the more tools/features we add to them the more obvious this will be.

[Petar Petrenko]

I think it would be much better idea if there is only one core app and you sell only personas, so everybody could choose what (s)he need for design.  ;)

[VIPStephan]

I think it would be much better idea if there is only one core app and you sell only personas, so everybody could choose what (s)he need for design.  ;)

That’s one thing I thought about, too. That could be a viable option.

[R C-R]

I think it would be much better idea if there is only one core app and you sell only personas, so everybody could choose what (s)he need for design.  ;)

So what happens when the core app needs to be updated to support some new feature of a separately sold persona?

[Petar Petrenko]

So what happens when the core app needs to be updated to support some new feature of a separately sold persona?

 

Like antivirus apps. They upgrade their core app beside their virus definitions. Everything is doable. Core app could be free of charge, just to introduce the potential user with the app and only personas could be sold.

[R C-R]

Like antivirus apps. They upgrade their core app beside their virus definitions. Everything is doable. Core app could be free of charge, just to introduce the potential user with the app and only personas could be sold.

Think about how that would have to work in practice:

 

Say I have the core app & the equivalent of Designer's Draw persona, but not the equivalent of Photo's Pixel persona. The Pixel persona is updated with a new feature that requires an update to the core app. Then the Draw persona gets an update that likewise requires an update to the core app. Later, Publisher becomes available, adding one or more new personas to the mix, which almost certainly would require major changes to the core app to support those features.

 

Do you see the problems with this? There could be half a dozen or more versions of the core app in existence at any given time, each supporting some different combination of personas. If instead there was just one 'master' version, everyone would have to update it every time an update to any persona required that, whether or not it was required for the personas they owned. Not only would that be annoying, it would unnecessarily bloat the size of the core app installed on their computer(s).

 

Now consider bugs. Not only could they be caused by something in the core app, they could also be caused by something in one or more personas or how those personas interact with each other and/or with the core app. I hope it obvious how much more difficult this would make it for the developers to eliminate bugs. Likewise, imagine what would happen when users need to reset the app to eliminate some issue -- if nothing else, everything in every persona would be reset to defaults, requiring users to tediously reconfigure every persona to whatever they were previously using, or to use some new partial reset options to reset only whatever they hope is causing the problem.

 

You also have to consider how updates are done on the two (& eventually three) different platforms. Mac users will need to use the Mac App Store app built into the OS for this, which imposes some restrictions on how this is done. One of them is that new versions must be downloaded, which automatically replace the previous one. This means no small, quickly downloadable patches can be issued -- every time an update is released, a complete full sized version must be downloaded. They must also be vetted by Apple before they can be released. That's good from a security standpoint but it can mean delays before a new retail version appears in the available updates.

 

I could go on, but I hope you get the idea. There are very good reasons why each app is sold & maintained separately, benefitting both users & developers.

[Petar Petrenko]

The glass is have empty. OK, forget it.