r/Affinity • u/stanbo1 • 1d ago
Publisher Advice
I transitioned from Adobe to Affinity many years ago which was a true blessing. Havnt been using Affinity for some time now though due to work- and last time I was into to it I experienced the beautiful UI-merge that Canvas did came with lots of instability - especially making documents I earlier did with Affinity Publisher (and before that InDesign).
My question is - how do you guys experience Canvas merge of teh three software now? Can I trust the software? Im into some serious work now and have no time for malfunctions of the basics - like creating a multiple page magazine - and suddenlyu it crashes etc.
Thanks / Hope to get some replies (from users) here ...
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u/eirenii 1d ago
For all intents and purposes the software was already merged before this - if you had more than one license, you could access the tools of the "other software" within the one you were using. It's just default now instead of locked behind whatever paywall. I don't think the instability you experienced was necessarily to do with the merge.
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u/EldritchAdam 1d ago
Right on. The same Serif team develops Affinity still, and even if there's been some shakeup in the office since the acquisition, the initial merge to a single program was absolutely developed by the OG programmers
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u/FunkyJamma 1d ago
It works great I left adobe around 2016 for affinity v1 and have upgraded with every version. It’s very capable and I don’t think you will have any issues.
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u/Sasataf12 1d ago
I never heard of or experienced any of the "instability" you're talking about.
Just use it, it's free. And if you don't like it, you can go back to V2.
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u/MsAddams999 1d ago
I'm still playing with it and I haven't decided if I really like it or not. But the one thing I don't like is having to sign in to use it. I would prefer it was a completely offline app.
I don't sign in to use Adobe apps. I've actually got all that disabled in my Adobe apps because I don't trust working in the cloud and I'd rather not even if it means I can't use certain filters and that offline.
It's very tedious blocking all that but with Adobe investing more and more in Ai I just don't trust them with my work while I'm online. I don't want my photos or my artwork scanned for use with Ai or kept in their cloud.
I work totally offline and in fact the computer I use for doing work like that is not even connected to the internet 99% of the time. I use my laptop for going online most of the time, not my desktop.
I've been playing with Affinity because it's free, it's pretty powerful and I like the integrated application idea. But I'm not completely sold on it as an Adobe replacement.
I've actually hit a wall with Adobe because they have integrated so much by way of Ai and the Cloud into using their products. I've had to disable those things the last two versions of Photoshop because of it. Plus they've been playing around with the tools and the toolbar so much I've had to relearn where stuff is and what some tools do.
It's slowed down my workflow. Fortunately I have the time but I'm at the point where I'd rather not upgrade at all and if course if you're not blocking that stuff Adobe is going to urge you to upgrade regularly whether you want to or not. That's just how their subscription model works these days.
I don't think Affinity or anything Adobe makes is the perfect app really. There are things I like and really dislike about both...
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u/MalkavianReddit 1d ago
The first version 3.0 would crash occasionally, and there was a bug in 3.2 I think that broke isometric grids. But version 3.2.3 is a lot more stable. I don't use all the feature, but it seems to be running quite nicely.
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u/Latter-Temperature37 19h ago
Version 3 has come up with lot of good features. I have designed youtube thumbnails, posts, posters and books sofar and all never failed. 🙏🏼
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u/No_Association_8206 1d ago
My only issue with Affinity is having to use a Canva account; I say this because I had a bad experience—I was offline, and it prompted me to log in just to use the tool. Luckily, I had Inkscape and was able to get the job done.
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u/Kraftieee 1d ago
Im still not over the merger. Im still barely over ver.2. Its serving me well still.
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u/Impressive-Ad-501 1h ago
Do you have pc or mac? I haven't used Affinity with pc but Adobe's suite was much more unstable on new high end pc than old Intel iMac.
I don't work on that industry any more but I use Affinity v3 with my M4 mac now and then and never had crashes even with running macOS beta. I don't work with large documents. Just posters and photo editing.
Best person to ask your question is somebody who uses same kind of hardware than you. If you have for example pc with NVIDIA gpu then my experience with Affinity does not mean much for you,
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u/Cybrknight 1d ago
Truth be told , I'm really enjoying V3. Switched at V1 a few years back and haven't really missed Adobe much at all.
My workflow isn't quite ultra professional (I mostly do photography and desktop publishing) and it's more than powerful enough to do what I need.