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Photoshop piece recreated completely in Affinity Designer


retrograde

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So... I wanted to see how Affinity Designer's pixel painting feature set stacked up to Photoshop's with a little experiment.

 

I had created this Bunny illustration in Photoshop CS4 (yes I know I'm a little behind the curve) and decided to take a crack at it in AD. I was excited with some earlier attempts at painting in AD so I thought a back to back comparison would really reveal it's strengths and/or weaknesses. The original image on the left is PS the recreated AD image is on the right.  The other two images are from AD with a background added.

 

Years ago I used to be an airbrush artist and I worked out a workflow in PS where I used the paths as "frisket" to created selections to "airbrush" inside of.  The AD piece at right is done in a similar fashion. I created paths of the various objects, arranged them on layers and painted inside them using the great selection of brushes available.  But with AD I was finding I could work a little more flexible and more "un-destructive" allowing for more freedom to experiment and play with ideas... for instance the whiskers are strokes that I can continue to tweak if needed, the high lights on the ears are also strokes that could be further refined and a lot of the "painting" are actually effects and not painted at all, so those would be adjustable after the fact as well...

 

...all in all I was very pleased with the outcome and more importantly the "workflow" exceeded my expectations. For me, truly this is the perfect workflow that I have been wanting for years, a real balance of vector and pixel that delivers on what it promises - finally!

 

Now I'm not dis'ing Photoshop, and I don't want to start an Adobe bashing thread...  I just thought a comparison of what I discovered in my working method might benefit others and also I wanted to thank the Serif team for offering all of us a solid choice!

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Top shelf work as expected Retrograde! Thank you for taking the time to do this. You are right Adobe bashing is not necessary at all. This is clearly demonstrates that AD is quite capable and solution for executing this type of work. There is no question in my mind that its a solid contender to the competition.

 

The workflow in this application is really by far and for the price just unbeatable at the moment! I am  really am excited to see what Affinity Photo has to offer because Designer right now feel really strong and in some cases it might be all one might need.

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Cheers Ronnie, yes in this case not only is it a serious contender for illustrator but it's knocking hard on the photoshop door... for me and my workflow and at least for this kind of work. And I agree there is certainly room in this area for a few capable applications to play nice.  ;)  Competition is a good thing and all that... 

 

Believe me I've tried just about everything out there, I'm always looking and I'm pretty satisfied with AD, and it's only gonna get better. If Designer is anything to go by, Photo and Publisher will be exciting for sure.

 

Just waiting patiently for some of those promised Designer features: multiple pages, type and object distortion, customizable shortcuts etc, etc...

 

Exciting times ahead for us design nerds! ;)

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Yah, it really does knock on photoshops door. Honestly, it really has a sweet niche! 'm totally nerding out on this tool. IT was so easy to pick up and and really allows me to focus on technique and workflow and not fight with how it works. 

 

I digress cause i am seriously nerding out lol

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Nice work. :)

2009: 27 inch iMac / Intel Core i5 / 2.66 GHz / 16 GB Memory / System: Yosemite 10.10.3 – PRINCIPAL DESIGN SOFTWARE: QuarkXpress 9.5.1, 10.5 and 2015 / Pinegrow Web Designer / Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo / Acorn

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  • Staff

Incidentally, if you're enjoying painting to add texture and shading, you really really need to keep a look out for the start of the Photo beta - we have some brushes from Paolo Limoncelli who has done something utterly incredible and the brushes just look completely out of this world - the guy is an absolute genius!

 

I'd really like to take a look at your file in a bit more detail - if you ever fancy sharing it with me then just send it to mpriestley at seriflabs.com - I'll obviously never use the file for anything other than for drooling over! :)

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Thanks everyone for your compliments on the piece. I'll be working on some more similar pieces soon. I have a ton of concepts that I want to bring to life...

 

Jens, yes the Designer piece came out more vibrant and rich. I think that may be because I felt more confident to push things a bit further than in the Photoshop piece.

 

Matt, sure thing, I'll send over the file for closer "lab analysis" in the morning, it's getting late here.   

 

Your comments and all of the other similar comments on the forum of the upcoming Photo beta are getting me all giddy...can't wait. Those brushes sound very cool...when, when, when???  :wacko:

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As retrograde said...

 

Now I'm not dis'ing Photoshop, and I don't want to start an Adobe bashing thread...  I just thought a comparison of what I discovered in my working method might benefit others and also I wanted to thank the Serif team for offering all of us a solid choice!

 

Now here's my thoughts on the subject...

Well done AD: seems that you've done the impossible: trying to keep both camps happy, both on cost and performance

MacBook pro, 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB, OS X 10.11.6

 

http://www.pinterest.com/peter2111

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Cheers MEB, seriously for me, for this kind of work it HAS replaced the appeal of Photoshop.

 

Some of those pixel brushes are really quite impressive for a new "vector" program.

 

hehe Peter that's why I included that paths outline view...  :)  I was debating whether to show it in the Designer UI as well but thought that might be a little overkill ;) oh why not. Here's a screen showing my layers setup... it's the key to success for me - organization!

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Thanks Jens, it's looks like more work than it is. I usually figure out the main layers based on my sketch, then add as needed. Designer's layer system is pretty robust. I'm pretty happy with the general workflow, I haven't run across any speedbumps. In the end it's always a good investment to get organized early. Even on the simpler pieces.

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