@QuirkneyArt's post on Artfol
Since doing the iPad art app experiment I have kept using Affinity Designer and Photo and I’m going to rant about them. I really like the artboards feature in Designer which is the main thing keeping me playing with it.
Basically through artboards you can have multiple canvases in one file and work on them side by side which also works in Photo as long as you set up a template in Designer first that you can open in Photo. Then you can duplicate artboards as needed from the layers panel without going back to Designer. It’s kind of like the page manager in Clip studio but more of an infinite canvas design where you can seamlessly pop from canvas to canvas without needing to switch ‘page’ Which gives it an edge over Clip studio in that regard and I like it alot.
I never used Photo before even in the v1 days on my PC when Designer was my daily driver. But since I trialed it I found Photo has a few things Designer doesn’t (since it’s more raster oriented) like liquify, blur brush, and a bunch of image editing tools like removing white backgrounds into transparency.
The two apps are so similar with so much overlap that I really feel like they should just have been one Affinity program. If you could only get one I say Designer since it has artboards and still has a raster persona that does almost all Photo also does, minus those aforementioned features. Also the vector persona sets Designer apart from other art apps moreso than Photo since theres not many good vector apps that aren’t subscription based, especially on mobile.
Overall both Affinity programs do almost everything the other does but theres a few things only one does vs the other, which just feels redundant. Like… just consolidate it into one. After all, Clip does pretty much everything from both (w a few vector exceptions) plus full on animation and it works imo much better (less bugs, better and changeable UI, more assets and brushes, etc).
Some people use Publisher to make Photo and Designer work as one (you can use a Designer and Photo persona within Publisher to get access to both programs from Publisher, assuming you also own them each). But the problem is you don’t get the full range of both programs features within Publisher [edit: correction! I have found those features! It does have liquify, for instance, those things are just under the adjustments window rather than also in their own separate persona. So I have indeed started using publisher as a makeshift consolidated Affinity suite]
The other issue is sometimes any of the three Affinity programs crash. Probably a couple times a day, they all have this issue even if it’s not a huge file and I’m on a m1 ipad pro so it’s not a hardware issue. I have my autosave set to 30 seconds but that hasn’t always worked either and lost work is unacceptable.
Theres also some clunkiness to the UI and you can’t edit it, move it, customize it, or even just simplify it at all (like hiding icons for features you never or rarely use). But the actual act of drawing and range of available features is very comparable to Clip Studio (almost, and specifically referring to non-animated art) and I like that I get to own Affinity Photo/Designer since mobile Clip Studio is subscription only.Jul 22, 2024
Basically through artboards you can have multiple canvases in one file and work on them side by side which also works in Photo as long as you set up a template in Designer first that you can open in Photo. Then you can duplicate artboards as needed from the layers panel without going back to Designer. It’s kind of like the page manager in Clip studio but more of an infinite canvas design where you can seamlessly pop from canvas to canvas without needing to switch ‘page’ Which gives it an edge over Clip studio in that regard and I like it alot.
I never used Photo before even in the v1 days on my PC when Designer was my daily driver. But since I trialed it I found Photo has a few things Designer doesn’t (since it’s more raster oriented) like liquify, blur brush, and a bunch of image editing tools like removing white backgrounds into transparency.
The two apps are so similar with so much overlap that I really feel like they should just have been one Affinity program. If you could only get one I say Designer since it has artboards and still has a raster persona that does almost all Photo also does, minus those aforementioned features. Also the vector persona sets Designer apart from other art apps moreso than Photo since theres not many good vector apps that aren’t subscription based, especially on mobile.
Overall both Affinity programs do almost everything the other does but theres a few things only one does vs the other, which just feels redundant. Like… just consolidate it into one. After all, Clip does pretty much everything from both (w a few vector exceptions) plus full on animation and it works imo much better (less bugs, better and changeable UI, more assets and brushes, etc).
Some people use Publisher to make Photo and Designer work as one (you can use a Designer and Photo persona within Publisher to get access to both programs from Publisher, assuming you also own them each). But the problem is you don’t get the full range of both programs features within Publisher [edit: correction! I have found those features! It does have liquify, for instance, those things are just under the adjustments window rather than also in their own separate persona. So I have indeed started using publisher as a makeshift consolidated Affinity suite]
The other issue is sometimes any of the three Affinity programs crash. Probably a couple times a day, they all have this issue even if it’s not a huge file and I’m on a m1 ipad pro so it’s not a hardware issue. I have my autosave set to 30 seconds but that hasn’t always worked either and lost work is unacceptable.
Theres also some clunkiness to the UI and you can’t edit it, move it, customize it, or even just simplify it at all (like hiding icons for features you never or rarely use). But the actual act of drawing and range of available features is very comparable to Clip Studio (almost, and specifically referring to non-animated art) and I like that I get to own Affinity Photo/Designer since mobile Clip Studio is subscription only.Jul 22, 2024
#affinity
#designer
#photo
#app
#review
Comments
I know I type too much. I just get too excited and obsessed with art things like this
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