Newbie asking for "greatest features" of AD/AP

[Pannonia]

Hi everybody,

I am a graphic designer and photographer with 20++ years experience of Photoshop (original Version 5, up to CS5) and Xara Designer (from the very beginning, up to V14Pro)

Total newbie with Affinity though, I actually bought AD and AP only yesterday.

 

On one hand, PS CS5 is rather dated by now and I never went for the subscription model.
I still use it daily and it does the job. Mostly photo development, composition, retouching, manipulation. I was just wondering what has happened in the past years and which new functions and tools are available in a modern graphics software.

 

On the other hand, i have the latest version of Xara Designer Pro. Sadly, Xara has not introduced any new design tools worth speaking of for the past years.
While I still use it daily for logodesign and printdesign from business card to multipage catalogues, it feels more and more dated.

After this long introduction, I was wondering if there are some "killer features" relative to PS CS5 / Xara Designer that I just "have to see".

 

For instance, I've been playing around with stacks and their different blend modes already after seeing a tutorial video about it. Blows me away from where I am coming.

Also, the Frequency Separation as a filter is a really cool thing.

 

Surely, a lot of people here will have former experience with Photoshop and maybe Xara too.

 

What were your greatest features to discover after switching to Affinity?

 

Cheers from Austria

[Fixx]

AP can handle very big images, ones that PS refuses to open.

[dominik]

5 hours ago, Pannonia said:

On the other hand, i have the latest version of Xara Designer Pro. Sadly, Xara has not introduced any new design tools worth speaking of for the past years.
While I still use it daily for logodesign and printdesign from business card to multipage catalogues, it feels more and more dated.

 

Hello @Pannonia,

 

welcome to the forums.

 

This is the same reason why I left Xara behind, the lack of development for years. I still keep my copy around but for everyday work I switched to AD.

 

There are many great features. To me comes to mind:

As a user of Xara and Creative Suite I found the learning curve very mild.

I find masking very simple and effective.

In AD the integration and of pixel layers is super easy. And if something cannot be done in AD I just switch over to APh.

 

Those are just a view that came to my mind.

Greetings to Austria!

d.

[verysame]

6 hours ago, Fixx said:

AP can handle very big images, ones that PS refuses to open.

 

That's surprising, Fixx.

Can you expand on this with some real data/examples?

[toltec]

3 hours ago, dominik said:

This is the same reason why I left Xara behind, the lack of development for years. I still keep my copy around but for everyday work I switched to AD..

 

No offense to our German cousins but maybe Xara (owned by Magix, a German company) use the same development team as Porsche for the 911.  

 

Design development is, er, a bit slow  

[dominik]

16 minutes ago, toltec said:

 

No offense to our German cousins but maybe Xara (owned by Magix, a German company) use the same development team as Porsche for the 911.  

 

Design development is, er, a bit slow  

 

Actually I was born in Stuttgart the hometown of Porsche. My brother once even worked there (which is long ago and I assume current development has nothing to with his time being there  )

But I am so very much not into cars that you can't offend me with this comparison 

 

I've got the impression that Magix had a major influence on the direction of development of Xara Designer. It moved more and more into the direction of 'painting by numbers' = huge amount of templates and left behind the original strengths of a very capable vector drawing program.

 

I am glad that Serif opened up a new perspective.

 

Cheers to London!

d.

[h_d]

I'm not an AD user, but for AP, the pluses for me are, in no special order:

 

+ Superb, sensitive selection tools

+ Non-destructive workflow

+ Great price, no subscription

+ Free updates (for now )

+ This forum/active input and support from Affinity

+ Tutorial videos

+ Stacking

+ Adjustment layers are their own masks

+ Tone mapping persona

+ Huge variety of export options

 

 

 

A couple of minuses:

 

- no export of clipping paths

- no batch processing of raw files

- limited support for IPTC or XMP metadata

 

Cheers from Bath!

 

 

 

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, h_d said:

- no export of clipping paths

 

When you choose JPEG as the export format, the additional controls revealed via the 'More...' button include a 'Convert clips to paths' checkbox.

 

[h_d]

 

36 minutes ago, Alfred said:

the additional controls revealed via the 'More...' button include a 'Convert clips to paths' checkbox.

 

 

But can the exported paths be used as clipping paths in page layout apps like QuarkXPress and Indesign?

[Pšenda]

12 hours ago, Pannonia said:

"killer features" relative to PS CS5 / Xara Designer

 

Ability to switch from AP to AD (and vice versa) and continue working on the same file.

You can take advantage of the maximum features from each application, and do not need export / import.

[firstdefence]

3 hours ago, dominik said:

Cheers to London!

Shouldn't that be Cheers to Nottingham, home of Serif and Affinity?

[h_d]

23 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Shouldn't that be Cheers to Nottingham, home of Serif and Affinity?

 

I think it may be because @toltec's location is London?

[firstdefence]

Just now, h_d said:

 

I think it may be because @toltec's location is London?

He should move and become a Snot:

Quote

The earliest historic notice of Nottingham refers to the place under the British name Tigguocobauc, which means “the house of caves.” From this has arisen the erroneous impression that the present name also has the same meaning.

Before it was modified by Norman influence the name had several forms, e.g. Snothryngham, Snottingaham, Snottingham—but Snotengaham was the earliest. This ending “ham” is akin to the word home, and is of Anglo-Saxon origin. It tells us of a people who came to this country—not, as the Romans did, to exploit—but to colonise and to make for themselves a home. It is not at all unlikely that Snottingham was the home of an Anglian family—Snot (the wise) by name. Thus with the possessive “ing” the whole word means “The home of Snot.”

 

[h_d]

Cue Colonel Bogey.

[Alfred]

 

3 hours ago, h_d said:

4 hours ago, Alfred said:

the additional controls revealed via the 'More...' button include a 'Convert clips to paths' checkbox.

 

 

But can the exported paths be used as clipping paths in page layout apps like QuarkXPress and Indesign?

 

Good question! I don't see how to do it in QXP, but I only have an old version (2015) and I'm not very familiar with it. I've never used InDesign.

 

[h_d]

I don't have QXP but in the good old days of QXP3, clipping paths had to be embedded in .eps files, not .jpgs. I've got InDesign on the work PC, AP is on the home Mac, but I might have a fiddle next week.

[dominik]

8 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Shouldn't that be Cheers to Nottingham, home of Serif and Affinity?

 

Hi @firstdefence,

while I virtually send cheers to Nottingham, home of Serif, almost every day, I sent those cheers to London, home of @toltec for he answered in his post us 'German cousins' (I learn new expressions every day  ).

 

Back on topic. I want to add one more feature to my 'greatest feature' list:

Powerful and relatively ease to use selection tool in APh.

 

d.

 

[Pannonia]

Thanks everybody for your opinions.

 

Seems the thread is going to different directions now. Most interesting things mentioned to me personally are:

 

• Non-destructive workflow
• Ability to switch from AP to AD (and vice versa) and continue working on the same file. (I have to try that)
• And possibly the "Tone Mapping Persona", just by the sound of it, will check it out.

 

To be honest, I was expecting a bit more "spectacular" things. Like the stacks I already mentioned, they are a real game changer for me.

 

One minus I have discovered: I really like Xara's shape tool and the way it handles vector paths.
Like click, click, click the points and then with the same tool edit beziers and everything. Not only very intuitive, but the way I am used to do it.

 

AD seems to have more of a Photoshop approach to it. Like click - then move mouse to create curve if needed. Next click and so on.

I hated this method in Photoshop and I sure don't like it in AD.

 

Is there a way to change this to a more "Xara-like behaviour" for lack of better words?

I did not go through the options yet, maybe this can be changed?

 

Cheers

 

[firstdefence]

30 minutes ago, Pannonia said:

One minus I have discovered: I really like Xara's shape tool and the way it handles vector paths.
Like click, click, click the points and then with the same tool edit beziers and everything. Not only very intuitive, but the way I am used to do it.

Affinity can do click click click, well almost, then just click on any part of the line and it will bend.

 

[dominik]

49 minutes ago, Pannonia said:

 

Is there a way to change this to a more "Xara-like behaviour" for lack of better words?

I did not go through the options yet, maybe this can be changed?

 

 

When working with the shape tool press and hold the CTRL key and you can work on nodes and lines like in Xara.

Is that what you are looking for?

d.

[Pannonia]

Thank you firstdefence and dominik, that was exactly what I was looking for.

[Pannonia]

Another cool thing I just found out about: Custom Stroke Widths and Profiles.

Sweet!

[toltec]

2 hours ago, dominik said:

 

Hi @firstdefence,

while I virtually send cheers to Nottingham, home of Serif, almost every day, I sent those cheers to London, home of @toltec for he answered in his post us 'German cousins' (I learn new expressions every day  ).

 

Sadly, after Brexit, I'm not sure if we will still be related ? 

[dutchshader]

10 hours ago, Alfred said:

 

 

Good question! I don't see how to do it in QXP, but I only have an old version (2015) and I'm not very familiar with it. I've never used InDesign.

 

just tested, they show up in qxp2015

[Alfred]

10 minutes ago, dutchshader said:

just tested, they show up in qxp2015

 

Thanks, @dutchshader. Perhaps you could attach your Affinity and JPEG files for others to try.