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Affinity 2

affinity.serif.com

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Re: Affinity 2

#131

Post by Pulcinella »

Thank god it looks like they finally fixed the slider UI on iPad. Previously the slider for something like a a stroke size appeared radially which was awkward. Worse, it didn’t actually function radially. You could not drag the slider around the circle. Instead dragging to the right increased the value and dragging left decreased the value; also dragging up increased the value and dragging down decreased the value. Both axis operated at the same time so if you dragged right but also down slightly, some of the dragging would cancel itself out. The only way to get it to work properly was to drag diagonally between the bottom left of the screen to the top right. Now it appears the sliders just go up and down like every other UI on the planet.

It does not appear that they have added free form and mesh gradients or gradients along a path. I really really don’t like Adobe, but it’s all the little long tail features that makes it hard for me to switch away.

Re: Affinity 2

#132

Post by mhd »

Is there any improvement on how Affinity Publisher 2 handles multi column layout? This was one of the neat things that InDesign finally imported from Ventura Publisher etc. who did this in the early 90s: You can have a paragraph style span columns. Without that, the interaction of sections and columns often gets rather tedious.

AP1 was a lot closer to the PageMaker style of things. (I don't have a use case for vector graphics, and my limited bitmap needs are more than served by Pixelmator, Gimp, ImageMagick and Paint Shop Pro 7 via wine)

Re: Affinity 2

#133

Post by stevenkkim »

I migrated from Adobe to Affinity years ago and have absolutely loved it. In particular the abiilty to use both vector and raster graphics in Designer is a game changer.

$99 for the universal license is an amazing deal. Well done Serif!

Re: Affinity 2

#135

Post by jjtheblunt »

drcongo wrote: post #71
dr_faustus wrote: post #13

Serif's Affinity suite has probably the greatest value for money in the whole software industry. I mean 119 bucks ONE-TIME for three pretty comprehensive graphics apps which are polished and get constant updates is very hard to beat. For people making their living with graphical work (designers, photographers, etc.) Adobe is probably still the way to go (even if just to keep using the muscle memory). However for the…

Amazingly there's people moaning at them about the price in their Twitter announcement.

I wonder if people forget the joke in Twitter's name, that those writing are "twits".

You just reminded me of it.

Re: Affinity 2

#136

Post by regular »

Pulcinella wrote: post #131

Thank god it looks like they finally fixed the slider UI on iPad. Previously the slider for something like a a stroke size appeared radially which was awkward. Worse, it didn’t actually function radially. You could not drag the slider around the circle. Instead dragging to the right increased the value and dragging left decreased the value; also dragging up increased the value and dragging down decreased the value. B…

I wonder if they fixed the defect that repeatedly and incrementally blurs your images in Photo when you merge layers. I mean... how can you use a product that degrades your images continually as you work with your compositions?

Does Photo finally have a "transform selection" option, which lets you resize the selection marquee? Yes, it was released without a way to adjust the selection... and has stayed that way for years.

Does Photo finally have a crop tool that actually crops the image?

Does Designer finally have a function to trim the canvas to the objects on it?

Do the apps finally have a "do not print" option on layers?

It doesn't appear that Serif has fixed profound UI defects that have hobbled the suite from the beginning...

The gradient-fill dialog hasn't been revised at all; it is still baffling and dysfunctional, and lacks any way to control gradient angle: https://i.imgur.com/OUh5Ase.png And there's only one color well.

The eyedropper's functionality is still backward... or I should say eyedroppers', because they're all over the place. You can have three or four on the screen at once. Why?

You still can't set things to be the same size by selecting them all and then entering dimensions in the transform panel. It irritatingly resizes THE SELECTION BOX around the objects to the size you enter, mashing the objects to unintended sizes within it. WTF?

This is not looking good. Historically they've had a smug, shitty attitude toward defects and sure enough, they persist for years.

Re: Affinity 2

#137

Post by drcongo »

technothrasher wrote: post #126
innocenat wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought all 3 apps at 50% discount earlier this year. I paid 9,900 yen for it. The new universal license cost 15,800 yen. That's 50% price increase for me. I don't need apps for other platforms. I can afford it, and I will probably buy it. But I can't help but compared to what I paid not even a year ago.

I just bought photo a month ago at $50 and was annoyed at first that suddenly I have to pay more if I want the latest version, but then at $100 and I get a universal license to all three products, I’m still way ahead of having an Adobe subscription.

If you only bought a month ago, drop them a line, there's a good chance they'll discount further for you.

Re: Affinity 2

#138

Post by hoistbypetard »

jevgeni wrote: post #127
netr0ute wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't been to poorer countries where the equivalent of $10 is a lot, so good luck getting a market for $119 software there.

Cynically: why would one want a market there then?

If one could sell software there in such a way that only people in that market could buy it at that price, the answer is obvious... software has effectively zero marginal cost per copy.

So if you could practically limit your market at a specified price in such a way that that offer doesn't spread to other markets, then every copy you sell in such places is still beneficial to you.

There are less cynical answers to the question, but you asked cynically.

Re: Affinity 2

#139

Post by leeches »

keyle wrote: post #5

I migrated to Affinity after Adobe put the last nail in the coffin for me. I have to admit that even with some experience, Affinity doesn't get close to Photoshop in terms of shortcuts and ease of use ("getting in the flow"). Sometimes I even resort to using photopea web, rather than open affinity. That said, I really appreciate their pricing model and hope they stick to their guns.

I also migrated a few years ago, after having used Photoshop and Illustrator professionally for a long time.

The underlying features are there, but the lack of “flow” is the main source of frustration. A lot of common or frequent actions require needless extra steps, or simple actions require convoluted workarounds.

They would benefit from starting an in-house creative studio, to get constant feedback from professionals using it for daily production. That or just start copying Adobe workflows verbatim, these are already solved problems.

Good product and good business model.

Re: Affinity 2

#140

Post by 65 »

It's great Serif added the shape builder tool to Affinity. It's one of the most useful tools in Illustrator. Now that Affinity has it, I don't see any reason to keep using Illustrator.
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