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Me too - hitting space is usually what turns a plain-text link into a hyperlink (like in Word), so that's the muscle-memory at work. I have to remind myself to hit enter in the forums - or maybe typing something after the space avoids it? Experiment below:
https://www.daz3d.com ;
^Just space
https://www.daz3d.com with added text
https://www.daz3d.com
^Just enter
Edit: Yep - just hitting space then enter mucks it up, the other 2 work fine.
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Back on topic - not sure how I feel about Affinity being sold to Canva. At least it's not Adobe so less likely to have subscription-only incoming. But it's always a question of whether the new owners have the same vision for the software.
I joined the Affinity club! The current version does something the old version never did: Loads and runs on my computer. So, victory! And now I can see about EXR file fun.
I did too... well I mean I bought the Photo and Publisher apps yesterday since they had that whole 50% off deal. I kind of messed up because I wanted the one that did slices so I should have gotten Designer instead of Publisher. Maybe I'll get it today. But if I get all three then I should have gotten them all at once so I could get the discounted price for the bundle. Maybe I'll be able to use Publisher for something. Maybe I shouldn't have bought any of them. I don't know yet.
@nylongirl I went for the bundle. Maybe if you contact affinity customer support, they can help you out. You already have 2 of the programs. I think they want happy customers. It's worth a try.
Designer is very good for vector drawing and has built in pixel art capabilities to get a more natural looking illustration, though it requires sending your picture to a dedicated window. I want to see how that is.
Designer lacks the very useful auto trace feature found in Inkscape. Since Inkscape is free, the usual advice is to use both. I've used Inkscape for a long time, so that's fine.
Publisher looks like a sensible alternative to Adobe InDesign. Not sure I need it, but I'm thinking about uses for it.
I should note, Inkscape has slicing operations using the division tool. Here's an article about that: https://logosbynick.com/slice-objects-in-inkscape/
Occasionally I do use GIMP, also I use paint.net https://www.getpaint.net/index.html
Paint.net is not complicated to use, I can switch to either with GIMP, being this a bit more complex and not so intuitive.
Apart from these, I don't know any other free alternatives.
Inkscape and Krita are free applications for illustrations, this was mentioned before.
They did eventually sort it out. I haven't tried to do much with Designer because I’m not much the tablet drawing type. I was mainly looking at Affinity Photo as an alternative to Photoshop, and as something like Fireworks but more modern than the ancient version I have. I like how Affinity has the ability to type numbers to set the size and position of the pictures, which is one of the things I like about Fireworks. Probably the most impressive part is the Live Filters. Maybe Photoshop has that by now, but my old version doesn’t. The linked files would be amazing if they updated properly. It seems like a file built from other linked files just retains a blurry version of all the linked files until you move them around and they suddenly update to the high resolution version. File export is nice. Slices are a downgrade from my old Photoshop because Affinity doesn’t automatically generate the HTML that goes with the slices.
I know this was all coherent.
Agreed! I understand what you're saying, anyway. Glad you got it sorted out
The linked files probably have to update. re: image slices: With current (and even somewhat outdated) approaches to web page and site design, I wouldn't want the generated html, anyway - IME, such code is usually awful.
another vote for the affinity suite. It is excellent!
Also an Affinity Suite user. It works and in the past year every app in the suite has really improved. So far Canva has kept their commitment. I know the announcment was in March of 2024.
It seems Canva wants a chunk of the Adobe global makretshare and giving former Serif a large funding injection will massively speed up development. Canva has money and needs to figure out ways to demonstrate expansion and growth for its shareholders. Canva was new and growing fast but in technology industry they are mature. A success in more Affinity users and a more competitve alternative to Adobe products may not be a huge cash injection for Canva but it looks good in an investment reports to demonstrate forward thinking as to how Canva can leverage technology and learning it has gained by helping former Serif grow. They have to start now to get ready for their IPO in 2025/2026.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/entrepreneurship/bigger-than-telstra-canva-s-valuation-doubles-in-five-months-to-55-billion-20210915-p58rq1.html
So the bottom line is Affinity Suites is going to get MUCH better over the next year. It won't just be absorbed and dismantled for its technology.
Taking the time to learn the Affinity Suite is worthwhile and the skills will be transferable to other graphics software.
At its most basic I use Affinity photo to punch up my renders because I can more quickly render quick and dirty then run a series of steps in Affinity to clean up the image much faster than just running high quality renders.
This guy has some advice:
I found this overview some time ago.
Every adobe program has a lot of alternatives.
Depends on the platform one is.
For Mac I would highly recommend:
- Pixelmator/Pixelmater Pro (50$)
- Affinity Photo (Cross-Platform) (approx $35 or $90 in bundle with vector/DTP tools)
Both are not free but absolutely affordable and worth it.
That is the jumping off point for the video in the post above.
It's also worth noting that Affinity has excellent tutorials for complete beginners (covering many of the most used features in Affinity) right on their page, and they have Creative Sessions channel on Youtube to show how pros use Affinity suite in their work. They make learning from scratch or transistioning from other software much easier.
I've noticed some of their own help pages are outdated. For instance, at the time I'm typing this message, this page says the Resource Manager is accessed through the Document menu, but on my current version of Affinity Photo, it's accessed through the Window menu. I've run into quite a few situations in which it took me longer than it should to find what I need because the interface changed and the documentation didn't.
I've also just noticed the title of the thread says "free". Was that always there?
I just got a notification that Affinity is trying a generous 6 month free trial.
and was just reading Affinity site
https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/trial/
All software and add-ons 50% off!
Not ready to buy? Get a six-month free trial.
Get a six-month free trial of our award-winning photo editing, page layout, graphic design and illustration software – even if you’ve tried it before!
We know it’s daunting to switch your creative software, so we want to give you plenty of time to test out Affinity before you commit. And for those of you who may have tried it before but didn’t buy for whatever reason, we’ve reset all trials so you can give it another go for a longer period of time.
No obligation to buy, no payment details required to sign up.
LOL I was just about to post about that.
+
I am so glad I followed this thread. Thanks for the heads up, I'm downloading now.
It was always there. We jumped the shark some time ago and started discussing affordable as well as free.