WobblyPickles Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 I've used Photoshop for around 6 years now, I know it off the back of myhead and I want to say that Affinity Designer is the only best alternative to photoshop out there. I have to give credit to the team who made this, but ofcouse I'm gonna nit pick. Lets get started Affinity Designer Pros: 1. The performance it's outstanding! its that good that even adobe kinda got spooked, so the update which went to 2019 they tried to update their back end to try to at least keep up with Affinity with performance. 2. Going from Photoshop to Affinity Designer It's a walk in a park. The hotkeys are pretty much the same as photoshop, but you will come aross some hipcups when opening some PSD's which is to be expespted. 3. The price Stright away I'm gonna say I would be happy to pay way more then what you guys are chargeing, like I would be happy to pay around £100 or £200 for this program. in my opoinan I feel like you guys should change you pricing model. Exsample: Academic license £39.99 Hobby license £48.99 Indie & Freelancer license £159.99 Commercial license £389.99 this would support your development alot. Affinity Designer Cons: I know that some people will disgaree with what I will say which is fair enough, but I still think these needs to be addressed in my opoinan. 1. The only huge issuse I have with Affunity Desigener is the UI/UX Layers The issue I have is that the layers and folders are so hard to tell apart, it just becomes a huge mess of confuson and fustraion. In Photoshop you can tell which is the folders and the layers with a quck glance, now if your like me and have a memory span like a goldfish well this starts to turn into finding nemo. Gimp even has this problem but they are kinda going in the right directon but not at the same time, so if your doing a very big project and it needs folders and whatever yea I'm sorry I tried but I just cant it slows my work down like 90% depending how big the project is. 2. Toolbar There are to many colors going on. I get distracted with the colors, its nice to only have the color from the project which I'm working on. I know that some people like the icons instead of flat gray ones, but for me it means when working at the midle of the night half a sleep they dont blend all into each other The image shows 3 toolbars Affunity Desigener, Photoshop and Blender out of these 3 toolbars Affunity Desigener is the one I dont like, simple and clean is the best way to go with programs. Everybody wants it their way thats, why I think maybe down the line Affunity should add somthing where you can change these types of things becuase then everybody is happy I could nit pick on some more things but they are not as important, I think its just me need some more time with the program to understand it abit better. Other then that would I recomend the program YES! but NO! you might be asking why are you saying no? well that becuase of the fact that I want serif to change their pricing model once that happens then what are you waiting for go and buy it! I want to support serif they have made a great product it just needs some tweaking. Also please can you support linux, me and some other colueges wants to move from windows/adobe and it would be very intresting to see serif domate the linux market before adobe Note: Sorry for any bad spelling/grammer mistakes I nerly lost all this 2 times I just want to put it out there cus knowing my luck I will lose all this lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glicky Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 14 hours ago, WobblyPickles said: 2. Toolbar There are to many colors going on. I get distracted with the colors, its nice to only have the color from the project which I'm working on. I know that some people like the icons instead of flat gray ones, but for me it means when working at the midle of the night half a sleep they dont blend all into each other I agree, the tool icons in Affinity apps are very colorful, and don't belong in modern professional design software... but please not the "flat gray icons" like Adobe, it's so black and flat... i'm hating it. In my opinion we need colored icons, but not so colorful and blended like those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Mark Daniel Posted June 19, 2019 Staff Share Posted June 19, 2019 In Preferences -> User Interface There is an option for 'Monochromatic iconography' which will make all the icons greyscale and less distracting for you. WobblyPickles, vincentlepes and Patrick Connor 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincentlepes Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 You can make the tools greyscale in preferences > User Interface > Check "Monochromatic iconography" Patrick Connor 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGD Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 6 hours ago, WobblyPickles said: 1. The only huge issuse I have with Affunity Desigener is the UI/UX Layers The issue I have is that the layers and folders are so hard to tell apart, it just becomes a huge mess of confuson and fustraion. In Photoshop you can tell which is the folders and the layers with a quck glance, now if your like me and have a memory span like a goldfish well this starts to turn into finding nemo. Gimp even has this problem but they are kinda going in the right directon but not at the same time, so if your doing a very big project and it needs folders and whatever yea I'm sorry I tried but I just cant it slows my work down like 90% depending how big the project is. What you're asking for is, I believe, Universal Layers. I warned Serif devs about this, and it seems I wasn't wrong about it being an essential feature and there being more users asking for it than they seem to be acknowledging. Please chime in at the latest feature request thread regarding that particular feature so that our voices may be heard in one place. These Universal Layers should be implemented ASAP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fantomasas Posted June 20, 2019 Share Posted June 20, 2019 If you absolutely need a distinct group layer label, color them yellow or something. You go through the trouble of naming everything, so tag them with color while you are at it. I would prefer to have a little stronger indentation when it comes to hierarchy, but it is literally polishing the 98% -> 99% in terms of quality while I work with Coreldraw in the office, which is Windows 98 user experience... I guess I would agree that (Group) at the end of the layer name is not effective, perhaps we could have an icon between the thumbnail and name, a small folder icon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WobblyPickles Posted June 20, 2019 Author Share Posted June 20, 2019 3 hours ago, Mark Daniel said: In Preferences -> User Interface There is an option for 'Monochromatic iconography' which will make all the icons greyscale and less distracting for you. Thank you! I think that should be changed to somthing like "Grayscale icons" becuase thats what I was looking for or similar to, tbh I did not even know what monochromatic even was untill now for new comers thats to over the top in detail. The rule of thumb when dealing with infomation for anytype of program, app, website etc is to make it as simple as possible. A great age rage to test it if the infomation is perfect is by getting somone who is 12 and lower and 65 upwards if they know what they are doing and can figure it out reading and looking at icons for clues then your already golden. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WobblyPickles Posted June 20, 2019 Author Share Posted June 20, 2019 2 hours ago, Fantomasas said: If you absolutely need a distinct group layer label, color them yellow or something. You go through the trouble of naming everything, so tag them with color while you are at it. I would prefer to have a little stronger indentation when it comes to hierarchy, but it is literally polishing the 98% -> 99% in terms of quality while I work with Coreldraw in the office, which is Windows 98 user experience... I guess I would agree that (Group) at the end of the layer name is not effective, perhaps we could have an icon between the thumbnail and name, a small folder icon. I just wipped up a concept while following the style of affinity which is somthing which I would like. I used all the icons from affinity besides the eye icon, the reason why is becuase its universal in the creative program world so somone coming from photoshop, gimp etc understands stright away which improves the UX. Serif if you want to use this go stright ahead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frozen Death Knight Posted June 20, 2019 Share Posted June 20, 2019 @WobblyPickles Regarding the toolbar, you could try customizing it to your liking. Here's an image of my toolbar in Affinity Photo, and you can do this in Designer and Publisher as well (greyscale you can find in Preferences, as mentioned earlier). I also highlighted the option in the menu so you can find it easier. Another tip, you can undock and dock the toolbar if you double click in the empty toolbar space, as well as create a shortcut to toggle if you want to show or hide it. Hope that helps! ^^ vincentlepes 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.