Affinity Photo / Designer
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- Bennn
Anyone in here is using Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer as an alternative to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator?
I've read good reviews and the interface looks very clean.
Only 70$ each, one payment no monthly plan.
Any QBNers thoughts on it?
- monNom1
I did the beta then bought the first versions of both for the PC. They're good software, very feature-rich. I keep wanting to spend more time in them to really learn them, but I've been busy and haven't been able to devote the time (going on a couple years now). Photoshop and illustrator are just too familiar.
Well worth the money IMO. I did struggle with colour management recently trying to get aRGB content display right in the workspace, but that may be user error on my part.
Just a note on how they compare. photo is like a mix between photoshop and light room. If you do UI stuff in PS, you probably won't like the tools etc as much
Designer is like illustrator with PS built in. You can have vector layers and raster layers in the same document. Nice for UI design with available component libraries.
A few times I've missed specific tools (can't remember which now) but for the most part, if you know adobe software, you'll transition without much trouble.
- Bennn2
- broken voice, could not listen.shapesalad
- Yes, Adobe your UI/UX of your apps is antique. We wait for an update. But you just add bloated features only niche users need.shapesalad
- i_monk2
90 day free trial and 50% off:
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us…
- plash5
I'm done with Adobe. Everything about it now pisses me off. CC is just a storefront for micro-purchases and the software has become completely unreliable.
Purchased Designer, Photo & Publisher for 50% off each. I can't wait to design again. instead of troubleshooting smart objects
- grafician1
Affinity has a great Youtube channel with many useful videos about doing design work and stuff with their apps:
- raf0
I was surprised all PSD files from projects I've been working on currently opened properly in Affinity Photo, look and work properly and can be reexported back to PSD.
Impressive. I couldn't, however, open a 1.2 GB PSB file. Also, image comps are not supported and get lost in export to PSD.
- Layer Comps are the last feature I rely on in PS that doesn't transfer to other apps - but at least you can batch those to files.evilpeacock
- PSB is a newer different variation of the PS file format, so I'm not surprised it's not as widely supported. Lightroom only added support recently!evilpeacock
- They support smart objects in PSD now, we can open all those mockups files in Affinitygrafician
- colin_s0
what's up with the difference in the divide tool? absolutely sucks i can't just draw a line through text and chop it in half. weird they'd use the same language as illustrator but not have the same functions.
- it's all about patents, that's what Affinity is up against with Adobe and that's why it's a tough transition: https://uspto.report…spot13
- yes that's a total pain in the arse. it only works if you use a box instead.hans_glib
- colin_s0
OK fairly substantial complaint:
I'm seeing a massive failure in JPG export quality
Like exporting a book project, the full-size JPGs are obviously fine and all but massive in size, pixel-wise and data-wise
In Photo, I'm reducing to 1200x750 @ 96dpi and the export sizes at 85% quality are over 1mb. Not only that, but the export quality is pretty awful, what Photoshop used to do ~50%
Is the compression algorithm just that bad? Like the files I'm getting from this aren't really usable online in a portfolio and it's a bit worrisome.
- OK after un-checking "embed ICC" as a default they reduced in size somewhat, but still noticeably worse than PScolin_s
- that's very odd. i've just tried making a 1200x849 jpg and even at 100% quality it's under a meg.hans_glib
- even if i scale it up to 96dpi res (1600x1132) it's still only 1.1mb at 100% qualityhans_glib
- i've noticed that the compression is much stronger than ps and whereas i'd use 60% quality in ps now i use 85 in photohans_glib
- Tinyjpg.com everything?nb
- it was ICC profile stuff - color conversion i think that adobe does by default and I had to go in and fuck withcolin_s
- Tinyjpg is your friend.
https://tinyjpg.com/…ETM
- jtb261
It’s great on iPad
- grafician1
- Cool. Bought Publisher a few days ago. It take a little bit of getting used to, but I like it.Continuity
- Big fan of Affinitycassiellux
- All updates here: https://affinity.ser…grafician
- colin_s3
I'm doing a monthly book project this year and just finished my third, fully made with the Affinity suite.
I have to say after 15 years of DIY publishing with Adobe, I don't miss it at all after 15 weeks.
There are a few things with Publisher that still were just easier with Adobe - changing the shape of text boxes, updating linked files when things get moved around in folders... but these I'm sure will be updated in time.
The only part I haven't figured out yet is the font menu, which includes a ton of system fonts that Adobe never did / seemed much more integrated to my font management. When I know what font I want it isn't the biggest deal, but browsing through a menu can be a necessary evil and it's basically impossible on Publisher.
- I don't have it open right now, and haven't played too much with it yet anyway, but can you not simply search for the font by typing it into the dropdown?Continuity
- I think they listen to users, so you should bring it up on their forums and try to push it into their roadmapESKEMA
- I really hope they release a font management program at some point.i_monk
- @continuity, sure, but sometimes I just like looking at the menu and seeing my options, and a zillion fonts I didn't know exist show upcolin_s
- @eskema i am going to once i update to the new release and spend some time w/itcolin_s
- Continuity1
So I've been using Publisher a bit more today, to make some edits on my CV.
I really, really like it, overall. The trouble I'm having is my muscle memory, especially with the layers panel. It's really the little things, like the location of the lock icon on a layer, and so on. No big deal, just takes a bit of getting used to.
What I'm *not* too thrilled with, though, it's the absence of an always-there Links panel. Seems to me that's an essential thing to have. As it stands — and it took me a good 10 minutes to figure this out — you have to click Document > Resource Manager to get a window that serves the same function. However, it's not a panel like Layers, Pages, etc, and it disappears after you're done what you're doing.
Still, for the price, this really is an excellent (and fucking fast, even on my mid-2014 MBP) alternative to InDesign. I can only hope it evolves is such a way that things like this are addressed.
- hans_glib0
i'm almost fully converted, tho designer continues to let me down. illy cs3 gets a regular dusting off, i wish that it weren't so.
- May I ask how it lets you down?Nairn
- ^^^ seconded. I went from CS3 to Designer, and it felt at home almost immediately.section_014
- a recent fail:
no way to have a vector pattern along a line, bitmap only
a constant fail:
no ability to duplicate a move (rather than a copy-move)hans_glib - no object blendhans_glib
- colin_s0
Started a production / freelance gig and some TIF files were sent to me that affinity didn't recognize had multiple layers. It's strange, preview could see two, affinity could open with just the background. But apparently there was much more than that.
Hoping the update will fix the situation and I don't have to try and put photoshop on my 8 year old machine lol
- The TIFF layer thing is kind of a hack; Their may be a PSD layered into the TIFF file the way AI puts a PDF in from of AI data.evilpeacock
- So the same AI/PDF file extension hack applies... change the TIFF extension to .PSD and try opening that...evilpeacock
- uan0
Got Affinity Photo and want to try it out on a project to replace PS.
Any good tutorials on retouching, things like spot healing tool, patch tool, and so on?
- oey_oey0
Affinity Designer and Photo don't recognize/show my installed fonts...
I mean it only recognizes System Fonts and Fonts in the User Library.Anything I've activated either in FontExplorer X Pro or FontBase is not showing.
I've been searching for half hour for a solution and I just can't understand.
- I uninstalled FontExplorer before installing FontBase to avoid issuesoey_oey
- Illustrator also doesn't show fonts activated in FontBase...WTF?! I already changed the root folder option and nothing works. anyone?oey_oey
- You need to restart it to recognise newly installed fonts - for each new fontgrafician
- Also in Ai you need to use Adobe Fonts/Typekit to activate any fontsgrafician
- frustrating, trying to start a project for a hour now...and I just can't get things to work. I don't remember such an issue ever.oey_oey
- okay, I just read that about AI too, but in Affinity nothing is working. thanks for your input grafician!oey_oey
- It's the same with Figma or other apps btw, for each new font installed, you need to restart the appgrafician
- Okay, fonts from FontBase get activated in Affinity only when I restart the computer...LOL!oey_oey
- I’m sticking with suitcase fusionGnash
- grafician1
Update to 1.10
- Guys, why downvote this? FFS already.section_014
- haters gonna hateoey_oey
- lol wasn't mepango