Crazy good deal on art and design apps

[steelplayer]

If you're looking for a design app, this is one hellova deal! I have a background in 3d animation and had been a Photoshop user for decades -- since PS 1 Beta. A couple of years ago, I canceled my Adobe subscription and bought Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. The regular price of these is a one-time payment of $49.99 US. They're running a half-price sale and again, this isn't a subscription, it's a one-time payment of $24.99 for Designer or Photo.

Photo is a Photoshop replacement and produces raster art, jpegs, png, tiff, etc. It can also read native, layered Photoshop files and can use most Photoshop plugins, notably, Filterforge. Designer is a replacement for Adobe Illustrator and it produces vector-based art, eps, SVG, pdf, etc. It will open most Illustrator files. Each of these apps crosses over somewhat between vector and raster, so it really isn't necessary to buy both. I own both, but if I had to choose one, I'd go with Photo.

So why these apps? First and foremost, they're so damn cheap for how good they are! If you're looking to ditch your Adobe subscription, these are perfect replacements. As for the freebies out there -- I really wanted to love Gimp, but just never bonded with it. Inkscape is good, but for $25 bucks, Designer is a no brainer and has Illustrator functionality without the byzantine vector interface.

To be clear, I'm not affiliated with Affinity in any way, just pointing out a great deal. And yea, I'd like to see these guys succeed by offering killer software at a great price that doesn't lock you into a subscription --like the Adobe mafia's model.


https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/?u...aign=Content_Sale_June_2020&mc=CONTENT0620E02

 

[Robert]

I highly recommend the entire Affinity suite.

I've used Adobe software forever, but the subscription model just doesn't work for me. Last month I decided to start making the transition towards Affinity and couldn't be happier. I went ahead and purchased all three (Photo, Designer, and Publisher) because each one serves a different purpose.

Photo for product images and the usual photo / graphic editing.
Designer for drill templates, wiring diagrams, and mockups
Publisher for build docs

There are a few very minor quirks here and there, but overall they're doing exactly what I need..... in some cases better (and faster) than the Adobe equivalents.

Check out how quickly a drill template can be put together:

Also worth noting all three of the programs launch in a fraction of the time and perform much better than their Adobe counterparts.

Compatibility surprises the hell out of me, so far everything has "just worked" without a hitch.

 

[Gordo]

I'm taking a serious look at this. Thanks for pointing this out. I've been a PaintShop Pro user from the very beginning (used to be JASC and was Shareware back in the day). Since Corel bought them it's been a steady decline in customer support and I get pestered with product beg screens that I'm barely able to get rid of. It's a great product but Corel's approach is pretty heavy handed.

 

[Robert]

I know someone is going to ask what the "quirks" are that I mentioned, so here we go:

Photo

• Doesn't save to BMP format (but can open them) - Not really a deal breaker, if I really needed to save as BMP I can just open/save the image in MSPaint or similar

Designer

• Objects aren't automatically aligned by the origin point - By default objects are positioned/aligned by their top-left corner, even if you set an origin point. You have to click the "Enable Transform Origin" button to position/align by the origin point. This is important for proper positioning of drill template objects. I don't completely understand the logic behind this, why would you ever want to transform by anything other than the origin? If I want to transform by the top-left corner I'd make the top-left corner the origin.... (see below)
  
  
• Doesn't have Image Trace functionality like Illustrator - This is the only function I have found so far that is missing from my usual workflow. When needed I will fire up Inkscape or Illustrator, but it'd be great if Affinity Designer had this function.

All Three Programs

• Certain interface options aren't persistent - Some settings have to be set every time the program is run. For example the "Enable Transform Origin" button mentioned above, or when using tools like the Magic Wand selection tool in Photo the Tolerance percentage or Contiguous options reset to default every time you run the program.

These are all minor annoyances at worst, and for $75 for a perpetual license of the entire suite I can certainly live with them all... and the team is actively updating/improving the software so the issues could all be fixed any day.

 

[steelplayer]

used to be JASC and was Shareware back in the day

Yep! Was a cool app. I bought a shareware seat of that years back. Hate to hear that it's in decline. I'm afraid Adobe really cornered the market and a lot of the smaller companies are gone or on the way out. and I'm actually shocked at how long Corel has survived! I'm hoping Affinity can hang in there, so I try to promote them whenever I can.

Here's a screencap of just how easy it is to mock up a pedal design in Photo after importing the drill template. The Pop-Top I just finished will live in something like this:

 

[Robert]

I'm taking a serious look at this.

They're offering a 90-day free trial on all three right now. Certainly enough time to check them out and see if they work for you.

Affinity – Professional Creative Software

From the smoothest, fastest photo editing and graphic design software to the most powerful publishing software, Affinity apps are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with creative technology.

affinity.serif.com

I started looking for a replacement for Adobe about a year ago and tried everything I could get my hands on... I even considered switching to Apple if they had something that would work. I couldn't find anything that even came close to what Affinity offers, even for 10x the cost.

BTW Affinity is made by Serif, they were pretty popular back in the 90's for Serif PagePlus.

I'm also not affiliated, just overly satisfied with what they offer and hope they do well.

 

[Barry]

Thanks for the heads up, been looking to replace illustrator myself

 

[jubal81]

Wow, thanks for the heads up. This looks like the last piece of the puzzle for me to finally get a little windows box for diptrace and design.

 

[Harry Klippton]

How easy/difficult would a transition from inkscape to designer be? Is there any benefit?

 

[Gordo]

You guys should be getting kickbacks. I picked up Designer and Photo. Very impressed and at this price!!!

Jubal81, ironically the first graphic I did with Photo is The Cliff.

 

[Gordo]

Here's my first Affinity Photo decal

 

[Barry]

I signed up for the trial

 

[steelplayer]

How easy/difficult would a transition from inkscape to designer be? Is there any benefit?

I wouldn't think it would be too difficult to make the jump. I don't know Inkscape well enough to offer any thoughts on benefits. Aside from the super reasonable price, one of the best benefits for me is the interoperability of the whole suite - Designer, Photo, and Publish all work extremely well together and it's super easy moving files between the applications to export for print and the web.

 

[steelplayer]

Here's my first Affinity Photo decal

Sweet! Great looking design!

 

[twebb6778]

I've been using Gimp and Inkscape for a little while now, I've got more experience with Photoshop/Illustrator but couldn't justify the ongoing cost.

My main beef with Inkscape is the UI. It's quite clunky and not very intuitive. I feel like every time I use it I have to google instructions because the functions are never where I expect them. The lack of tracking in Designer sounds like a huge drawback, I much prefer working on vectors wherever possible. But I can always trace in Inkscape and then open the vectors in Designer.

I'll be checking this out, thanks for the heads up!

 

[lcipher3]

looks really interesting. they've come a long way.
I think I'm going to try them out - looks very nice
what sort of license is it in terms of authorization /install? Keycode, etc? How many installs (computers) etc

In "Designer' - how close can it work like a 2D CAD program? I use an old version of AutoSketch - but I'm always looking for something better.

 

[steelplayer]

The lack of tracking in Designer sounds like a huge drawback, I much prefer working on vectors wherever possible. But I can always trace in Inkscape and then open the vectors in Designer.

That's my workflow exactly and tracing is the only thing I use inkscape for these days.

 

[steelplayer]

looks really interesting. they've come a long way.
I think I'm going to try them out - looks very nice
what sort of license is it in terms of authorization /install? Keycode, etc?

They indeed have come a long way. I had a seat of Serif Draw 6 and 8 and in those years, it was clunky and pretty buggy. The Affinity releases are light-years ahead in quality. It's a keycode authorization that's loosely licensed to the person -- I have it installed at work and at home on the same code.

I suppose it could workd like a 2d cad program, however as the admin pointed out up thread, the origin doesn't default to the center of the object. THAT drives me nutz. I've been working for decades in 3d applications and for the life of me I can't figure out why they wouldn't default the origin to the center of an object.

 

[jspake]

i switched from adobe suite to affinity (didn't nab publisher just yet) about a year and a half ago, and i have to say i agree wholeheartedly with the above recommendation. as a long time professional user of photoshop and illustrator it has taken some getting used to, but my opposition to the subscription model is fierce, so the growing pains are worth it to me. to say that the $50 per app is a bargain isn't even close... and to get them both at half price now? you gotta jump on it!

I know someone is going to ask what the "quirks" are that I mentioned, so here we go:

Designer

• Objects aren't automatically aligned by the origin point - By default objects are positioned/aligned by their top-left corner, even if you set an origin point. You have to click the "Enable Transform Origin" button to position/align by the origin point. This is important for proper positioning of drill template objects. I don't completely understand the logic behind this, why would you ever want to transform by anything other than the origin? If I want to transform by the top-left corner I'd make the top-left corner the origin.... (see below)
  
  
• Doesn't have Image Trace functionality like Illustrator - This is the only function I have found so far that is missing from my usual workflow. When needed I will fire up Inkscape or Illustrator, but it'd be great if Affinity Designer had this function.

its almost reassuring to see you mention these two issues because they are my biggest "problems" with designer as well. i had not discovered the "enable transform origin" button, so THANKS for that. i had also assumed that i just didn't know how to find the auto trace function, so i guess i'm not crazy. unfortunately i have not found a workaround, as my latest functioning version of illustrator is too far out of date to work on my current mac OS.

 

[Robert]

i had also assumed that i just didn't know how to find the auto trace function, so i guess i'm not crazy. unfortunately i have not found a workaround, as my latest functioning version of illustrator is too far out of date to work on my current mac OS.

Inkscape will do it, it's free and there's a Mac version. It's not quite up to par with Image Trace in Illustrator, but it's better than nothing... Then you can save as SVG or copy/paste the vector into Designer.