The next major release of Affinity is out. Affinity Photo v2, Affinity Designer v2 and Affinity Publisher v2 for Mac, PC and iPad just have been released.
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Affinity v2 is released
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I'm surprised this isn't on the front page of MacRumors. It certainly belongs there.
I definitely agree. So strange since it's called MacRumors and when the great teaser video was released by Affinity last week announcing something big is coming Nov. 9th (today), what better thing to have rumours to circulate. ? no? I'm looking for a place to see some comments about what people think? I took a boo at Publisher for Mac and nothing is there that I was hoping for. I find it interesting that when Adobe was trying to take over Quark there was a choice in InDesign to use Quark shortcuts yet Affinity must be so small they are afraid to touch Adobe by having InDesign shortcuts. I'd like to see more customized tool pallet choices to make my Affinity Publisher more like InDesign. So? I've stuck to InDesign so far. I'm so used to my workflow and don't really want to learn a new one. When I switched from Ready Set Go to Indesign I tried to make it as much like Ready,Set,Go as possible. Same should be done by Affinity in my opinion. Also I have not looked at Affinity Photos yet to see if making a photo larger smooths and upgrades the resolution like Photoshop does. As for Illustrator I was hoping Affinity Designer had a good trace feature. I haven't looked yet.
They must have been too busy making sure they got the monthly Nanoleaf press release posted. 🤣
I bit the bullet about three years ago and gave up InDesign for Publisher. It took about 6 months before I was comfortable with the switch, and am now fully satisfied with Publisher as a replacement.
I updated in a heartbeat, and have been playing with them since. I love going back and forth between my Mac and my iPad, though the mask editing in Photo on my 10.5” iPad Pro is a bit slow. Still happy, though!
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From Affinity Photo help:
Version 2 didn't mention different resize features like Ai resize. However, I can recommend SmillaEnlarger as a free image resampling tool.
Vectorizing is not on the new feature list and Illustrator still is a valuable tool for that.
$120 one-time payment (with discount) for all three apps on all platforms? That's a bloody steal!
The individual prices went up, but are still a lot cheaper than the competition.
The individual prices went up, but are still a lot cheaper than the competition.
Yeah I must admit I’m tempted to drop the €120 on the Universal license, all three applications for all platforms, despite the fact that I don’t have a professional need for them at the moment.
What I do is my photo’s (and I’m only an iPhone photographer, so pretty casual) and occasional graphics for my website. So a pro suite like Affinity would be overkill for me, and I only consider it because I am an ex graphic designer, but it would be nice to have, and its a good deal.
Hmm, something to mull over…
What I do is my photo’s (and I’m only an iPhone photographer, so pretty casual) and occasional graphics for my website. So a pro suite like Affinity would be overkill for me, and I only consider it because I am an ex graphic designer, but it would be nice to have, and its a good deal.
Hmm, something to mull over…
Affinity is great value for the money. I think there target market is a little different then Adobe. If you are a pro user the monthly fee is not expensive especially considering all the benefits that come with knowing everyone else in your field is using the same software and same version. I remember the days before CC and it could be a real headache at times. One designer on one version, print on a different. So many headaches gone thanks to Adobe CC, I would not go back to a perpetual license. If I was working from home on my own as a side business I would go with Affinity for the savings and features are amazing for the price.
I was part of the beta tester group for Affinity V2, unfortunately just got to busy to get deeply involved into what was new coming out, still have V2 betas sitting in my dock!
I wish Serif Labs / Affinity had a DAM sort of like Adobe Bridge to work with.
It's on their site: https://affinity.serif.com/whats-new/
And when you have it installed: Help > New in Affinity Photo 2
Here are all new features according to Serif with some of my favorites marked in green:
Affinity Designer 2
General UI
- Redeveloped UI, tool and button icons
- New monochromatic iconography via Preferences (User Interface)
- High-contrast UI settings
- Drag document tabs to new windows (Mac)
- Restyled Studio panels via the Window menu (for desktop only)
- Redesigned Export dialog offers “always on” export preview
- Command Controller for improved modifier-driven workflow (iPad)
- Quick Menu for context-sensitive access to commands (iPad)
- Compact Mode for Layers and Brushes Studios (iPad)
New document dialog redesign
- Easier preset management plus preset previews and favorites
- In-dialog access to new document presets, templates, samples, and your account details
- Recent documents (grid or list) are searchable and support pinning (for desktop only)
- “Always on” Document summary panel (for desktop only)
All new Layers panel
- Much clearer drop zones for masking, clipping and reordering
- Parent bar to easily collapse parent items and drop layers above/below current parent group
- Unlimited levels of cropping/masking layers
- Identify layer types by icon (curves, shapes, text, pixel, mask, adjustment)
- Hide/show all other layers
- Copy layer effects (FX) from one layer to another
- Hover-over lock icon toggle (for desktop only)
- Drag-down Visibility icon to turn on/off multiple selected layers
Content link
- All Affinity apps on a device can now share brushes, styles, assets, application palettes and more
- Avoids unnecessary exporting/importing of content between apps on the same device
- Migration of custom 1.x content on upgrade (for desktop only)
- Link custom content to share with other apps
New tools
- Vector Warp applies a mesh warp to any vector object non-destructively
- Shape Builder Tool for interactively adding and subtracting shapes and curve segments
- Knife Tool for cutting up shapes, curves and text
- Measure Tool displays scaled distances between any two points
- Area Tool shows the area and perimeter length of objects and constructions
- Style Picker Tool offers a dropper-based transfer of object styles (for desktop only)
Selections
- More Select Same/Select Object options with modifier support for multi-object selections
- Select Next/Previous/Top/Bottom/Parent via right-click menu (for desktop only)
- Move Tool option for automatically selecting inside groups
- Align multiple objects to a nominated Key Object
Graphic design essentials
- Drawing scale for real-world projects (different scaling per artboard)
- Pencil Tool creates auto-closed or straight-line pencil strokes
- Change stroke width with [ and ] keys; Shift key increases/decreases by an absolute amount
- Scale multiple objects’ stroke widths using formula input (e.g., 200%)
- X-ray (Wireframe) view mode shows semi-transparent fills to inspect document construction and aids hidden object selection
- Multiple shadow, outline and overlay layer effects per object
- Force scale of stroke width, layer effect radii, corner radii and text frame content on object resize
Redeveloped Boolean operations
- Accurate results
- Divide can use an open curve to slice a shape or split another open curve
- Divide will punch out holes using a fully overlapping object
- Nominate a Key Object to subtract from using the ALT key
- Fill holes and remove inner curves
Curve drawing and editing
- Red line indicator on all curve selections shows winding direction
- Node Tool offers Split Curves, adding a new node in the geometric midpoint of a selected curve segment
Placing content
- Resource Manager for controlling placed image and document resources (iPad)
- Repeating objects in a grid
- Layer visibility override for placed files (PDF/DWG/DXF)—turn off layers you don't need
- Place linked web images using their URLs via ctrl+drag-and-drop (for desktop only)
- Dropbox API integration to retain placed resource linkage across multiple devices
Raster brush improvements
- Improved raster brush quality and accuracy
- Distance controller changes brush characteristics with stroke length
- Brush tip interpolation for improved tip quality
- Wet edge support for more brush-based tools
- Recently used brushes can be seen and reselected for each raster layer
- Paint Brush Tool now has its own B keyboard key shortcut
- Brushes panel can display brushes as either nozzle thumbnails or strokes
Import/export/packaging
- AutoCAD DWG/DXF import, place and edit (maintaining layer structure and scaling)
- HIF file import (HDR 10 bit PQ encoded) produced by newer Canon cameras
- Drag/drop stock photos for new document (for desktop only)
- PDF export will export hidden Affinity vector layers that have child layers as invisible layers
- Save packaged document changes back to original folder
Some important extras…
- Import Affinity and Adobe® Swatch Exchange (.ase) palettes (iPad)
- Drag-and-drop bitmap fill creation with intelligent scaling
- HSL Color Wheel has ‘box’ wheel type and offers recent colors and hex code readout/input
- Convert artistic text to frame text, and vice versa
- Paste Style support for copied text selections
- Isolation (Solo) mode offers better group control
- Rasterize selected layers simultaneously
- Normals adjustment for editing normal maps from material and texturing workflows
- Preference to Limit initial zoom to a maximum of 100% for icon designers
Affinity Photo 2
General UI
- Redeveloped UI, tool and button icons
- New monochromatic iconography via Preferences (User Interface)
- High-contrast UI settings
- Drag document tabs to new windows (Mac)
- Restyled Studio panels via the Window menu (for desktop only)
- Redesigned Export dialog offers “always on” export preview
- Command controller for improved modifier-driven workflow (iPad)
- Quick Menu for context-sensitive access to commands (iPad)
- Compact Mode for Layers and Brushes Studios (iPad)
New document dialog redesign
- Easier preset management plus preset previews and favorites
- In-dialog access to new document presets, templates, samples and your account details
- Recent documents (grid or list) are searchable and support pinning (for desktop only)
- “Always on” Document summary panel (for desktop only)
All new Layers panel
- Much clearer drop zones for masking, clipping and reordering
- Parent bar to easily collapse parent items and drop layers above/below current parent group
- Unlimited levels of cropping/masking layers
- Identify layer types by icon (curves, shapes, text, pixel, mask, adjustment)
- Hide/show all other layers
- Copy layer effects (FX) from one layer to another
- Hover-over lock icon toggle (for desktop only)
- Drag-down Visibility icon to turn on/off multiple selected layers
- Rasterize selected layers simultaneously
- Merge selected layers via right-click (for desktop only)
- Empty group created from single object
- Collapse parent layer/group from its child
Content link
- All Affinity apps on a device can now share brushes, styles, assets, application palettes and more
- Avoids unnecessary exporting/importing of content between apps on the same device
- Migration of custom 1.x content on upgrade (for desktop only)
- Link custom content to share with other apps
Selections
- Select Next/Previous Layer (alt+[, alt+]), and Select Top/Bottom/Parent Layer via Select menu (for desktop only)
- Select by group or layer content
- Disable auto-selection with Move Tool
- Freehand Selection Tool (Polygonal and Magnetic) automatically pans if you drag beyond document bounds
Placing content
- Resource Manager for controlling placed image and document resources (iPad)
- Repeating objects in a grid
- Autoflow of multiple images and multi-page PDFs
- Layer visibility override for placed files (PDF/DWG/DXF)—turn off layers you don't need
- Place linked web images using their URLs via ctrl+drag-and-drop (for desktop only)
- Dropbox API integration to retain placed resource linkage across multiple devices
Photo Editing essentials
- Non-destructive development of linked/embedded raw images
- Layer states to experiment with design options and versions (for desktop only)
- Non-destructive Live Mesh Warp filter
- Perspective transforms: tool and filter have rotate and flip options
- Normals adjustment for editing normal maps from material and texturing workflows
- Drag-and-drop bitmap fill creation with intelligent scaling
- Pixel grid displays when zoomed in beyond certain level
Non-destructive professional masking
- Non-destructive compound masks for combining multiple mask layers using Boolean operations (Add, Subtract, Intersect, Xor)
- Create non-destructive Live masks based on targeted hue ranges, luminosity ranges or frequency (band-pass)
- Group contents remain editable when part of a mask
Raster brush improvements
- Improved raster brush quality and accuracy
- Distance controller changes brush characteristics with stroke length
- Brush tip interpolation for improved tip quality
- Switch to a crosshair cursor on all brush tools using caps lock
- Wet edges on more brush tools
- Recently used brushes can be seen and reselected for each raster layer
- Paint Brush Tool now has its own B keyboard key shortcut
- Brushes panel can display brushes as either nozzle thumbnails or strokes
Import/export/packaging
- HIF file import (HDR 10 bit PQ encoded) produced by newer Canon cameras
- Drag/drop stock photos for new document (for desktop only)
- PDF export will export hidden Affinity vector layers that have child layers as invisible layers
Some important extras…
- Import Affinity and Adobe® Swatch Exchange (.ase) palettes (iPad)
- Force scale of stroke width, layer effect radii, corner radii and text frame content on object resize
- Displace filter offers Sobel (Affinity) and Red/green offset (Photoshop) load methods
- Support for additional spare channels in TIFFs
- Fill Opacity for ‘special 8’ blend modes
- Redeveloped Boolean operations and compounds
- Change stroke width with [ and ] keys; Shift key increases/decreases by an absolute amount
- HSL Color Wheel has box wheel type and offers recent colors and hex code readout/input
- Multiple shadow, outline and overlay layer effects per layer
- Create pattern layers from any raster layer content (including image layers)
- Easier Quick Masking of pixel selections in Channels panel
- Isolation (Solo) mode offers better group control
- Transform attribute for linked layers
- One-step undo/redo of complex assistant actions
- Updated lens correction database
- Paste Style support for copied text selections
- Editable EXIF data
- Preference to limit initial zoom to a maximum of 100%
Affinity Publisher 2
General UI
- Redeveloped UI, tool and button icons
- New monochromatic iconography via Preferences (User Interface)
- High-contrast UI settings
- Drag document tabs to new windows (Mac)
- Restyled Studio panels via the Window menu (for desktop only)
- Redesigned Export dialog offers “always on” export preview
- Command controller for improved workflow (iPad)
- Quick Menu for context-sensitive access to commands (iPad)
- Compact Mode for Layers and Brushes Studios (iPad)
New document dialog redesign
- Easier preset management plus preset previews and favorites
- In-dialog access to new document presets, templates, samples and your account details
- Recent documents (grid or list) are searchable and support pinning (for desktop only)
- “Always on” Document summary panel (for desktop only)
All new Layers panel
- Much clearer drop zones for masking, clipping and reordering
- Parent bar to easily collapse parent items and drop layers above/below current parent group
- Unlimited levels of cropping/masking layers
- Identify layer types by icon (curves, shapes, text, pixel, mask, adjustment)
- Hide/show all other layers
- Copy layer effects (FX) from one layer to another
- Hover-over lock icon toggle (for desktop only)
- Drag-down Visibility icon to turn on/off multiple selected layers
Content link
- All Affinity apps on a device can now share brushes, styles, assets, application palettes and more
- Avoids unnecessary exporting/importing of content between apps on the same device
- Migration of custom 1.x content on upgrade (for desktop only)
- Link custom content to share with other apps
Book creation and management (for desktop only)
- Pull together multiple Publisher files as chapters for a book
- New Books panel lets you add, open and edit chapters directly from panel
- Intelligent updating of page numbers, TOCs and indexes
- Synchronize text styles, table formats, swatches and master pages
DTP essentials
- Footnotes, sidenotes and endnotes via new Notes panel
- Style Picker Tool offers a dropper-based transfer of object styles (for desktop only)
Placing content
- Quick grid for text frame/picture frame layouts (for desktop only)
- Autoflow of multiple images and multi-page PDFs
- Layer visibility override for placed files (PDF/DWG/DXF)—turn off layers you don't need
- Place linked web images using their URLs via ctrl+drag-and-drop (for desktop only)
- Dropbox API integration to retain placed resource linkage across multiple devices
Import/export/packaging
- AutoCAD DWG/DXF import, place and edit (maintaining layer structure and scaling)
- Drag/drop stock photos for new document (for desktop only)
- PDF export will export hidden Affinity vector layers that have child layers as invisible layers
- Resave packages with auto-update of resources
Artistic and frame text
- Paste Style support for copied text selections
- Convert artistic text to frame text, and vice versa
Selections
- Select Same / Select Object (picture frames, tables, groups, color and many more) with modifier support for multi-object selections
- Select Next/Previous/Top/Bottom/Parent via right-click menu (for desktop only)
- Move Tool option for automatically selecting inside groups
Some important extras…
- Import Affinity and Adobe® Swatch Exchange (.ase) palettes (iPad)
- Scalable bitmap fills with drag-and-drop support
- Force scale of stroke width, layer effect radii, corner radii and text frame content on object resize
- Statistics (word, line, paragraph and character counts) for current selection or document
- Create hyperlinks to section start pages
- Improved memory management of multiply-placed large documents
- Change stroke width with [ and ] keys; Shift key increases/decreases by an absolute amount
- Scale multiple objects’ stroke widths using formula input (e.g., 200%)
- Isolation (Solo) mode lets you better work within groups, adding and removing items
- Rasterize selected layers simultaneously
- Preference to Limit initial zoom to a maximum of 100%
- Redeveloped Boolean operations
- HSL Color Wheel has box wheel type and offers recent colors and hex code readout/input
- Multiple shadow, outline and overlay layer effects per object
Don’t underestimate being an iPhone photographer. That’s all I use now.
As to the suite being overkill, you’ll quickly find yourself digging deeper and doing more and becoming more creative.
Oh, and you can take the person out of graphic design, but you can’t take the graphic design out of the person 😊.
Similar for me. Retired after 34 years. Everything from production artist to production manager, designer, creative director, ending as supervisor of graphics and design for a nation-wide food manufacturer. The Affinity suite gave me back so much I thought was lost, and v2 is just super!
That’s exactly right, I find myself still sometimes slipping back into graphic design mode when looking at a folder or a magazine, the habits do not leave you. And it’s such a fun and creative job. I was freelance, working mostly on illustrated books, sometimes doing illustrations as well as design. But then money got tight and I moved into software development. I’m glad you’ve found that having the tools to hand sparks your creativity.
Thanks a lot: very comprehensive !
I would add to
- HIF file import (HDR 10 bit PQ encoded) produced by newer Canon cameras and Sony
I'm not a professional - far from it - but I bought Affinity Photo to do some light retouching on a few personal projects and came to really appreciate Serif as a company. Then last week I get an unobtrusive e-mail (practically apologizing for bugging me!) regarding version 2 and their 40% off deal for existing customers. Now I don't utilize 95% of Photo's capabilities as it is, but I'm tempted to buy version 2 if only because Serif is the polar opposite of Adobe, and they deserve to be rewarded for that. 
I did, pretty much for that reason. I'm older, and can afford to spend $100 on a good cause.
I'm not a professional - far from it - but I bought Affinity Photo to do some light retouching on a few personal projects and came to really appreciate Serif as a company. Then last week I get an unobtrusive e-mail (practically apologizing for bugging me!) regarding version 2 and their 40% off deal for existing customers. Now I don't utilize 95% of Photo's capabilities as it is, but I'm tempted to buy version 2 if only because Serif is the polar opposite of Adobe, and they deserve to be rewarded for that.
I am a fan of Affinity but would never just buy from them because I don't like that a Pro app is not geared towards casual use. Adobe is made for people who make their living with their software. The monthly cost is covered easily through a single job and really not something noticeable when it comes to monthly bills. Technically it is cheaper this way then if you were upgrading to every paid update release from Adobe before CC came about. If they were going after Affinities target audience they would of course price their software differently.
I understand, but I'm not talking about the price of the software. I've never been on the creative side, but as a software developer (in my prior life) I've worked alongside the artists and have been around Adobe products for a long long time. I just feel like the company's attitude towards their software is very different today than how it used to be. Obviously it's irrelevant as I'm not Adobe's target market, but it feels good to give money to a company that still seems to give a **** about what it's doing.
I've got the feeling that Serif should focus on their available software palette for now. There are so much great video editors already on the market like Apple Final Cut Pro, Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere and additionally some Open Source Software. Maybe, after some more years, I'm with you.
Besides the software license model that Adobe chose, they often were not really interested in debugging their software to a level, I have been expecting. I can imagine that they didn't care so much about some developers support requests. Serif seems to be more open minded to the voice of their community, if I read their answers in their forum.
I'd call myself some kind of professional, at least I'm earning my living with design. I do own two Adobe CS 6 licenses. My first Adobe software came with a flatbed scanner and was Adobe Photoshop 3. I was a long time Macromedia user and therefore had a Freehand license, later on an Adobe Acrobat 5 license and then a Macromedia studio license. For me it wasn't affordable to spent $4k for the whole Adobe Suite at once, but I could upgrade and sidegrade step by step until I had two complete licenses over the years.
Then in 2013 Adobe was switching to subscription for most of their products. For big advertising agencies that probably was a good deal and like you said, really easy to manage. For me as a self-employed exchanging open data files almost never happens as I'm sending my PDFs to the printing store or to newspaper publishers and that's it. If data exchange happens, we always find a simple way through IDML or Illustrator CS6 files (yes, still in 2022). No headaches or problems, it just works and is accepted by most people I work with. Sometimes I get an Adobe Illustrator CC file that doesn't want to open in my CS6, but hey - it often opens fine in Affinity Designer ;-). If even that doesn't work, there is QuarkXPress or Markzware OmniMarkz that is helping me out.
I would have paid Adobe's subscription fees, if it just had been a newspaper license. That is a license you can use as long as you want. For getting upgrades, you'd need to renew your subscription or buy a new license. The main reason for me, not to subscribe to Adobe CC is, that my work would be tied to a system that needs at least every few month a connection to an activation server and that is really bugging me. I simply don't want to be in the situation that I can't or want to afford a new computer system with a valid subscription or my work is getting inaccessible and thus mostly worthless.
Besides still running a backup of Freehand on a Mac PPC G4, Adobe CS5.5 gives me access to my old Freehand files, that Adobe CS6 and higher won't open. A perpetual license gives me the feeling, that my work stays my work, not something dependent on an internet connection or a monthly fee. With the latest move from Adobe not so much time ago to ban PS Type 1 fonts from their products, I bet that many old designs won't be accessible anymore over the next years as Adobe showed us before that it's is not really manageable to run older CC versions under any circumstances and that would make me serious headaches.
The Affinity apps are fine to get professional work done and they're giving me the same good feeling, like Adobe did back in 2012. I know that might all sound a bit irrational. However, Adobe simply didn't care about clients like me 10 years ago and lost them as their customers. At that time they were rendering my two software suite licenses, that I had to save up for years, somehow valueless, at least they decreased the value, by not giving any more acceptable upgrade options. I wasn't pleased about that. Now 10 years later, I probably saved around $10k in subscriptions and got my work always done over the past years just like before without needing any new features from Adobe.
I gave up my hope that Adobe would change their mind, giving back their customers the freedom of handling their intellectual property in a save manner by letting them at least choose between perpetual license and subscription. I'm really happy that there is a new toolset from Serif on the market to get professional print publishing done. That said, I have to admit that I still have a recent Adobe Acrobat Pro perpetual license in my toolchain that I don't want to miss right now. Please don't get me wrong, Adobe products are great, but till this day I hope I can avoid them, as far as I can.
It absolutely is. I've been using Adobe's apps since Illustrator 88 and Photoshop 1.0, and the change began when Warnock & Co. retired and the bean counters took over. It's clear, to me, that their focus now is solely on customer subscriptions, and they don't have the patience to develop good software in house any more. We've been through three WYSIWYG website tools in under 10 years, with Adobe developing two and abandoning them within two or three years of launch. Now they've bought Figma, and I'm curious to see if it lasts more than three years before they lose interest.
Using CC today is just one small insult after another. The latest, for me, is they changed the way you can paste formatted table cells from one to another. You used to be able to cut/copy from one table and just pop the data into another so long as you had the right number of rows. Now the two tables have to have exactly the same number of rows and columns, which have to be formatted the same way. Why? This change makes no sense. It just makes my life harder.
At home I've switched over to Affinity's tools, Pixelmator Pro and PDF Expert. At work we still use CC, because it's the standard. But it's the standard not because Adobe makes the best, easiest to use software, but because everyone uses it.