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Introduce Yourself


MattP

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Hello

 

I'm Brett, and I'm a commercial pilot based in Texas.  Have used Macs for over 25 years and was an early user of Deneba's Canvas illustration app.  With the release of Mac OS 10.7 Lion, developer support for Canvas ended and so did the app itself, which was incapable of running without Rosetta.

 

I never did grasp the complex toolset behaviors within Adobe Illustrator, and simpler drawing apps on Apple's App Store were all lacking something, so the past four years have been deeply frustrating for me.  Attempts to use Canvas in virtualization were similarly unhappy, while Canvas' owners have been talking of a new Mac release for years but doing little about it.

 

Searching for alternatives to Canvas brought me here, and I have to say my early impressions are terrific.  Tool behaviors are very similar to those of Canvas, and the app is fast and stable.  I think I've found my new "home" in the graphics world!  Thanks to all of you Affinity team members for your development efforts and diligence in implementing our numerous feature requests and bug fixes.  Looking forward to the official release.

 

Kind Regards-

 

Brett Berg

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I decided to stop lurking and offer a mountain of thankyous to everyone here, not least of all the dev team.

 

After a disappointing couple of years knowing that fireworks has entered the legacy stage of it's life cycle and finally turning my back on  Quark Xpress quirk depress forever, I see light at the end of the tunnel.

 

I know freehand users and a lot of people previously working in Adobe environments also feel they have recieved the rough end of the pineapple, so it's great to see an organically developed toolset forming around what groups of designers are asking for.

 

As I get time I'm sure I'll find and adjust to the way AD handles the tasks I normally include in my workflows.  

 

Thanks for providing a beacon of hope that some day soon I can cease constantly opening and re-formatting files all over my applications folder.

 

Cinzio 

 

 

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Hi,

 

Max here. Mac user since 1985 and am a Mac programmer with five Mac applications over the years. Nothing new for some time. Started using Adobe Illustrator in 1987 and created the first Mac application to send Postscript files to non Postscript devices (”SignPost”) by decoding the Postscript vector format. Still have a Mac Classic somewhere. Mastered Illustrator early on but had stopped purchasing it when the price went out of orbit. I use it primarily for technical drawings so not really into all the wild effects but nice to know they are there now in Affinity Designer and so easy to produce.

 

Picking up using this very quickly. Into Stereo Photography, playing pool, programming and playing with my original owner 1992 Dodge Stealth RT/Twin Turbo.

 

Can’t say enough for the group responsible for this endeavor. As a Mac programmer my hat is really off to the team here as I know how much time and effort must have been put into making something that can compete with the big boys a Adobe. I would not even attempt to do what they have done. May the whole world beat a path to their door.

 

Max

OS X Ventura 13.0.1, Mac Studio M1 Max, 27" Apple Studio Display, 32 GB SSD. Affinity Universal License for 2.0.

Mac User & Programmer since 1985 to date. Author of “SignPost” for vinyl sign cutting.

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Ok, my (nick-) name is Lescot aka Val. I have been traveling the world for 9 year before coming back to my hometown Cologne in Germany.

 

I started with PC's, switched to Mac when a virus killed my PC during a project.

 

I go for wild-style/new ways. And I do pick my tools when they work for me.

 

You might have seen my designs when you follow Viva-TV Europe or MTV. And you might own some products I designed when you like Pixar or Disney.

 

Totally happy when someone tries something new - and goes for it.

 

Looks like a cool community with highly dedicated people. Wishing you all the best for your attack on Adobe. Yes, they started something great...and forgot that the times are changing.

 

Had one of the first Betas, but just started posting today, because NOW I know what I'm talking about ;)

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Hi all:

I'm new to Serif. I found Affinity Designer while researching alternatives to Adobe. I've taught Digital Imaging, Digital Image Manipulation, and Publication Design — currently Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign — at a small seminary/college for the past 15 years. Too bad the school computers are all Windows-based!

 

I also have a few small businesses: creating this Jewish day planner: https://design613.com/balabusta/index.html, doing freelance graphics, and doing space planning and kitchen design (2D and 3D CAD mostly in Sketchup Pro).

 

I've been playing with Designer for a few days (and it's crashed on me more than once :huh: ), and hope Affinity will prove a worthy competitor to Adobe and their monopolistic business model.

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Hi everyone! I'm Valentin from St-Petersburg, Russia.

 

I've started in 1996 with Photoshop 3.0 (it had just got layers) and CorelXARA 1.2 (it had a size of 6Mb then). Of course I had to use every other program over time -- Corel, FreeHand, Illustrator, all of them awkward and painful to use. Xara was my only love for all these years. It is still a fantastic software, but -- only for Windows! So every 3-4 months I'd ask Google something like "Xara replacement for Mac" -- and today I stumbled across Affinity, which definitely has this fantastic spirit of simplicity and great attitude. Happy and can't wait to see what's next!

 

I'm an interaction designer, thinking though sites and applications, and I need a tool to try many different ideas, make beautiful layouts and gain inspiration :) Also looking forward the Publisher software, with a wish to use it for creating interactive prototypes.

 

Here's a sample of a small site I've designed recently --- http://www.hmx.ru/ .

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Hi everyone.

 

My name is Rik.

 

I heard about Afinity from another forum called TalkGraphics.

TalkGraphics is a forum for, probably the best, vector drawing programme.

That's not to say that over the years, Xara's products have gone in the direction some users would want.

 

The main reason I love Xara, is for its Shape Tool. If it wasn't for that tool, I probably would not have produced anything with Xara. I just hate the Pen Tool. But, that's me!

Another reason why Xara is so good, is that the programme is very intuitive.

That's not to say that there's not a learning curve.

But, then that's true of any software.

 

Anyway. I've had a bit of a play with Afinity.

And my first impressions are very good indeed.

I made sure that I didn't start comparing, and just investigated the various tools.

 

Afinity appears to be very intuitive, also.

I was able to use most of the tools and get results the way I wanted.

 

I had a go at making a simple button.

I was easily abel to draw the shape I wanted and adjust, put a highlight on it using transparency, and apply a shadow.

 

The only thing I can't seem to work out, is how to just export the button with its background.

I can't seem to find a way, where the whole page is not saved.

 

I will keep using Afinity and see how things develop.

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  • Staff

Hi Rik,

Welcome to Affinity Forums,

 

If the button, shadow and highlight all belong to the same layer, go to the Export Persona (third icon below the light controls on top left corner), select the layer in the Layers Panel and click Create Slice button (the little yellow square at the bottom of the panel)

 

Then select the Slices tab on the Layers panel, select the slice you just created choose the format and options in the Export Options panel above and finally click the small button on the slice on the right (a box with an arrow pointing up) to export to a file.

 

Those steps allow you to export the contents of a layer (creating a slice from its contents). If you want to export the entire document, just go to File -> Export...

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  • Staff

No it's easy, believe me. What's happening is that Affinity Design offers you more export options than Xara Designer Pro 10. Forget my original instructions.

 

So, if you want to do in a similar way to Xara just go to File -> Export...

If you want the background transparent just make sure you select Transparent background in Document Setup dialog.

 

Sorry the mess...

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If you want the background transparent just make sure you select Transparent background in Document Setup dialog.

 

So that's why I couldn't (easily) get the effect I wanted on an earlier project! Thanks :)

MacBook Pro 11,2,  Intel i7 4 core, 8Gb RAM, Graphics Intel Iris Pro.

iPad Pro 11.4,  256Gb, 10.5 Retina, A10X Fusion chip, Apple pencil

Desktop upgraded to Win10 64-bit, Intel i5 quad core, 8Gb RAM, NVIDIA GefORCE GT730

The Win-10 laptop is on permanent loan to my daughter......

My Flickr Album

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No it's easy, believe me. What's happening is that Affinity Design offers you more export options than Xara Designer Pro 10. Forget my original instructions.

 

So, if you want to do in a similar way to Xara just go to File -> Export...

If you want the background transparent just make sure you select Transparent background in Document Setup dialog.

 

Sorry the mess...

Hi MEB.

 

I don't think that File -> Export... works with what I want to do.

 

I want to select an object, or a number of object that go together to make a drawing.

If I make the background transparent, then upon export, the whole page is also exported.

 

What I want to do is to export only the selected object(s), and be able to save in a particular format...

 

So, I think the answer, for me, is your original instructions.

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Hi, I’m Paul. I mostly design websites, but I also do other design work. I’m looking for some definite Photoshop/Illustrator replacements, and from what I’ve heard and seen about Affinity Design, I’m pretty impressed so far. I also tinker with stereo photography, and will be wanting to use Affinity to edit and create stereo cards. So lots to look at and think about.

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Hello my name is: Dav(id).

— Designing Consultant & Consulting Designer. (~15 years of Branding, Design & Typography. In Europe.)

— ‘Design Nomad’.

— Former FreeHand Friend; Already Affinity Appreciator. ;)

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Hi, I'm Rod and I've been in graphic design since 1986. Got on Pagemaker in '87, Illustrator in '88, CorelDraw in '91, Canvas in '93, Freehand in '94 and--recently--in March 2014 while searching for alternatives to Illustrator, DrawPlus. Having been in the military for a while, we had to use whatever design apps were bought at a particular duty station; hence the spotty references. Mainly been using Illustrator and Freehand until Adobe pulled the plug on FH. LOVE Affinity Designer!

 

Two Questions:

 

What's going to be the final drop date of AD on the Mac App Store?

 

When's the beta of Affinity Photo coming out? As much fun as it was to test/use AD, I can't wait to run Photo around the block!

 

Keep doin' it to it,

 

An Affinity Designer/DrawPlus user for life.

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  • Staff

Two Questions:

 

What's going to be the final drop date of AD on the Mac App Store?

 

When's the beta of Affinity Photo coming out? As much fun as it was to test/use AD, I can't wait to run Photo around the block!

 

 

We will announce the release date of Affinity Designer later this week.

 

Affinity Photo beta should be here for Christmas. 

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Hi I'm Peter Welsh, I come from a catering background, then I retrained at Newcastle college in 1994-6 as a Music Tech student (How to be a roadie). This lit my appetite for DTP and the awesome power of the Mac (I only used it for OCR scanning). Even though I never had any sketching abilities I knew then that one day I would want and own a Mac with Illustrator/Photoshop. A little while later after a trip to a newsagent (on the Isle of Wight) I came back with a magazine with a free CD cover disk: DrawPlus 2. This was that genesis moment. At this point, all I could do was follow the excellent step by step tutorial, which taught me about object, layers, palettes and the undo button.

 

The work/stuff I have done was modest by the standards found here. But I am very proud of them. Such examples are opening hours for a pet food shop and a specials list for a chip shop in also Sandown. It felt really good replacing the marker pen/Sellotape/scrappy paper sign knocked up during somebody's coffee break. My fee for that job/showcase was a free portion of macaroni cheese. It was amazing knowing that I could match the colour, layout and font. Imagine what I could do if I could sketch...I still have these pieces somewhere - may I'll post them here.

 

So after buying this Mac last May, it's been a huge learning curve to pick up Mac OSX. Bootcamp wasn't ideal with Windows 7. I ended up losing my MBR, but not my work (saved on a memory stick or two). I also managed to pick up Adobe CS4 DP for 50p at a car boot sale, in Peterborough. This was the Mac setup, it works...but it works me, for too much head scratching not very intuitive. Time spent learning this, is time not spent designing. So as you can Imagine I really do feel lost without DrawPlus: almost an addiction. Some might say that PagePlus is more me and they may be right, but you know what?

Serif is for me! David, go get Goliath! Then run and never stop :D

 

PS I have upgraded my step-daughter's laptop from Windows Vista to Pear Linux 5, (a beautiful Mac OS X clone). This Linux distro has been withdrawn forever...by an unknown firm. If it wasn't for Pear 5 I wouldn't be a Mac user.

 

RIP Pear OS and thank you David Tavares. 

Message to the big boys... We're here!

 

Peter.

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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Howdy all! I'm Michael Rhodes, cartoonist, storyteller and illustrator. Got to this party a bit late, only got the beta yesterday and been playing around in it to get a feel for the app and now am working on character sheets (just for grins&giggles I tell myself, knowing full well this is a shake-down of what AD can do and what I can do in it). I am in the process of de-adobe-izing (and I make up words on a moment's notice) my graphic work flow. Lately I've only been  using Illustrator just to letter my comics as ol' illustrator is getting a bit bloated and can't walk up the stairs without take a few breaks to catch its breath. Now that I've been using ComicLife 3, I've not even been using bloat-strator for that. 

Photoslop has been replaced with Manga Studio 5 (aka Clip Studio Pro) and Sketchbook pro (love the fisheye perspective tool in Sketchbook).

 

So I've been looking for a good replacement for Illustrator. finally settled on iDraw and Artboard after getting disgruntled over the sketchiness of the makers of Sketch. While I don't begrudge anybody making a bit of coin, there's a way to do it and a way not to do it. Bohemian gave me an excellent lesson on how not to do it. Not to go all Aesop Grapes on y'all, Sketch really isn't for creating "art" (as in illustrative/comic/cartoon art) and has an interface only programmers who think they can also be designers can love. Anyway, I was on the MacUpdate page and it listed all the newly updated apps and I saw that Sketch has a new update, thinking it was for some other app I clicked on that link and saw it was for that app that is *dead to me*. Because I had some time to waste, I read the comments which was pretty much the balance between outrage and apologists as usual. Then one comment mentioned that a new app could come in and kick some proper behind. That app was Affinity Designer. The poster didn't include an URL, so I searched and promptly had my morning consumed. 

 

Affinity Designer has the potential to be a great for me replacement for Illustrator. I'm still gonna have to keep Illustrator CS6 as at this point, nothing can kill it (not even FIRE can) but I'm sure it's universality will be crumbling in time. Look how Flash is withering on the vine at this time. And Flash was the reason for Adobe buying Macromedia and promptly killing Freehand. At least Freehand is in good company: Pagemaker and GoLive needed some companions. :(

 

So I've freed up the resources to purchase AD tomorrow.

 

Glad to have found out about Affinity Designer and look forward to using it a lot in the future.

Mac OS X Catinlina, 2014 iMac, 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7, Huion Kamvas Pro 22 Graphic Tablet, 16GB RAM, MacOS10.12 || Magic keyboard w/numeric keypad, wireless trackpad, Kengsington Edge Trackball || Flux Capacitor in a secure location

---

I encourage kids to go ahead and play on my lawn. I mean, how else can I make sure the death-traps work?

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Hi all, as a former enthusiastic user of Serifs PagePlus, DrawPlus, PhotoPlus and WebPlus, to my dismay I kind of fell out of the loop after moving to OSX about 4 years ago. I have periodically dipped in and out of Serifs forums to see who was asking the question "will Serif software be ported to the Mac?" to always be met with the same old response, basically "No way!". I did not want to go VM or Bootcamp simply because installing Windows on a Mac really defeats the purpose of having a Mac, so Imagine my surprise and glee when I did a "Serif for Mac" search recently and came across Affinity ... whoo hoo they finally did it!! When familiar with Serifs quality and ease of use, there was just nothing coming close on OSX. OK I appreciate that, for you own reasons, you guys want to keep a defined separation between this new range and the Plus range but with so much in the way of legacy development and testing in that software, you have a huge wealth of material to work from. The fact that you are developing Affinity from the ground up to be more streamlined and polished, a pro app for a pro system, just makes me smile wider.

 

Well I downloaded and "played" with a beta (or 4) and have now bought the app. Excited to be part of Serifs new adventure and eagerly awaiting Photo and Publisher  :)

 

Good job guys, keep up the good work! You never know, scare Adobe enough and they may come knocking at your door with a huge cheque, a la Macromedia in 2005 LOL ... RESIST!!!

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