Affinity Software

[Fruitality]

Yo, any of y'all out there using or attempted to use Affinity Designer / Photo / Publisher?

After the v2 software released in late 2022, I bought it and figured I would try to make the switch from Adobe eventually. However, old habits die hard and it's difficult to switch when I'm always using Adobe for work and then when the time comes to work on a personal project I don't want to fight against learning new software to make it come togother. So I never made the switch.

However, 'Fuck Adobe' moments are happening more and more often these days, so I thought I might give it another go.

Has anybody else used these? Were there any particular tutorials or videos which made the switch easier? I suspect the best option might just be to commit and push through and eventually it will become as easy to use as Adobe.

I think it's the unchangeable Rotate Canvas hotkey on Alt (instead of Adobe's Zoom Canvas) which makes trying to switch such a disorienting experience for me. (it can be disabled in preferences though)

[Kai]

Yeah I use the Version 1 of the affinity suite for a long time. I was probably not that deep in the shortcuts and/or workflows from adobe products but I just did some little things until I didn't miss any of it. But I didn't use it professionally which is why I think I only scratched the surface.

Some of the good things:

* the pricing (even though V2 is way too expansive and it still dosnt feel like a real upgrade (it actually broke my workflow with trying to cut things out with the selection tool so I cant use it )
* the real time effects and blend modes
* more colorful UI (I like it)
* switching between publisher, photo and designer is pretty cool
* not that many submenus? Maybe there are just a bunch of missing features but idk.


Yeah I say push through and if you get stuck google the s*** out of it Good luck

[andrewelmore]

I really tried to use the v1 for a while but i just couldn't make my brain make the switch, and i ran into compatibility trouble with clients.

[Fruitality]

ah, welp. :/

[Kai]

this didnt work out

[andrewelmore]

did canva turn it into a subscription service? i'm scared to look lol

[Fruitality]

Not yet. They made this one page with their 'pledge' about how they won't ruin the software. No doubt some business conditions will eventually arise and they'll make some excuse for breaking it.

Anyway, in it they state:

... we are committed to continue to offer perpetual licenses in the future.

If we do offer a subscription, it will only ever be as an option alongside the perpetual model, for those who prefer it.

Whether or not those perpetual licences actually remain good value for users compared to the subscription is the question.

[TopHat]

Affinity's "betrayal" definitely upset me quite a bit - I jumped in on V1 a while back and upgraded to the full V2 package for all my devices. With Canva now being their owner, I personally think their words won't hold any weight in a year or two.

I'm starting to relearn Inkscape (started graphic design on there before moving over to Affinity Designer because of its superior UX) along with picking up Scribus to get into magazine design (to move away from Affinity Publisher). Not to mention - the fact they're still not supporting Linux (did recently start daily driving Linux along side Windows for whenever I still need that.) to this day (albeit it has a way smaller user base) makes me look into Free Open Source Software solutions.

Anyone else transitioning to other tools because of the Affinity acquisition?

[andrewelmore]

I'm not an Affinity guy but if anyone is or would like to be, they're having a big-ass sale right now:

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/

[vaynegarden]

we pretty much exclusively use Affinity Designer for our work nowadays. it's pretty robust and is especially good at handling a large number of elements.

so far, the very few things we miss in Illustrator is Image Trace and Freeform Gradients. but honestly, we've become so adept at tracing things ourself that Image Trace is kinda ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. for freeform gradients well idk we'll probably kick that over to Photo if we ever need it, but it's not really been a problem yet.

the Canva acquisition kinda came from left field for us (we bought it before the acquisition) so now, tbh, we kind of expect maybe 1, a max of 2 good version bumps and then probably the value proposition of improving Affinity for Canva drops off dramatically and we get a second Adobe on the market lol either way, we're just glad to own the software that we use again, instead of having to keep up with the ludicrous subscription price of Adobe software, especially now that they're kinda wholesale jamming AI into everything they make ;___;