[Design Software] Serif Affinity (by Canva) Designer/Publisher/Photo now free

[Kirean]

Canva just released Affinity product suite completely free: https://www.affinity.studio/

Has a paid sub for AI related features.

Needs a Canva account.

Haven't found a good breakdown on what else might be new compared to V2. If you had bought V2, you can still access those purchases / downloads.

I'm positively surprised it didn't go full subscription model.

I still don't know how I really feel considering distrust against Canva in the long run and if "free" is a ruse for something else.

I hope Adobe is at least slightly soiling themselves though.

Edited 4 hours ago by Kirean

[The Dispossessed Orangutan]

Affinity deprecated their forums last month and told folks who wanted to learn workarounds for the lack of basic features or the pernicious bugs that seemed to take forever to fix to sign up on a Discord server.

I frequently use Affinity Designer v2 and prefer it to Illustrator because it feels more comfortable and less like an engineering program. Still, most of the time, I wished it were being maintained and developed by a small operation of go-getters rather than a 12-tone styled bureaucracy of professional irresponsibility representatives.  The rate of tangible improvement via periodic updates was glacially slow, and, like so many org-chart-developer software products, bugs seemed to be introduced more frequently than fixes.

Despite the product's decade-long existence, many basic features are still missing.

I doubt Canva's AI subscription system will address any of the down-and-dirty workflow hindrances that humans who want to work with vector art face while using Affinity products.

I guess it is time to start learning the arcane ways of Vectorstyler and hope for the best.

 

Edited 3 hours ago by The Dispossessed Orangutan

[aidan o driscoll]

@Kirean Just downloaded, not installed yet. Saw this was the case elsewhere.

Straight away when I saw the new "deal" I thought of our Bandlab and Cakewalk experience. 

At the moment the subscription is for extra Canva AI tools if thats your thing:

"With Affinity, you’ll get all the professional tools you need for your design, photo editing, and page layout projects, free of charge. If you’re on a Canva premium plan, you’ll also be able to unlock Canva AI tools directly in Affinity for a super-powered workflow."

How long this will lastv will be interesting AND how long with the "Standard" Affinity suite be updated.

ALSO - they seem to have wound Photo, Designer and Publisher into ONE APP rather that 3 seperate apps.

On this page further down they detail difference tween Affinity and Affinity + Canva AI

https://www.affinity.studio/get-affinity

 

Edited 3 hours ago by aidan o driscoll

[aidan o driscoll]

Just installed it alongside Affinity 2 which was already on the system. Didnt ask any questions about older version. Added a new Affinity icon to desktop. Its Affinity V3

[aidan o driscoll]

OK installed and running - indeed all three apps from the traditional affinity suite are rolled in together now:

Vector is Affinity Design
Pixel is Affinity Photo
Layout is Affinity Publisher

My old Affinity 2 suite still works fine

 

Edited 3 hours ago by aidan o driscoll

[aidan o driscoll]

Might be worth downloading the latest V2 updates & store away, they are still there ..

[Brian Walton]

45 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said:

@Kirean Just downloaded, not installed yet. Saw this was the case elsewhere.

Straight away when I saw the new "deal" I thought of our Bandlab and Cakewalk experience. 

At the moment the subscription is for extra Canva AI tools if thats your thing:

"With Affinity, you’ll get all the professional tools you need for your design, photo editing, and page layout projects, free of charge. If you’re on a Canva premium plan, you’ll also be able to unlock Canva AI tools directly in Affinity for a super-powered workflow."

How long this will lastv will be interesting AND how long with the "Standard" Affinity suite be updated.

ALSO - they seem to have wound Photo, Designer and Publisher into ONE APP rather that 3 seperate apps.

On this page further down they detail difference tween Affinity and Affinity + Canva AI

https://www.affinity.studio/get-affinity

 

For anyone that owned all 3 it felt like one app (other than a few limitations on the photo side) for years due to the studio link functionality.  If you opened publisher you could switch between all 3 in the same way they have done here.  

 

vs the new interface:

The announcement video claims they are going with the "free model" forever on this.  Time will tell, but at least I'm glad the update wasn't another money grab.  This is going to take some getting used to though with the interface changes.  

[Kirean]

Yeah. Everything is fine and dandy now, but I feel like there's an incentive to block "pro" features down the line unless you cough up for a sub. Best case scenario though, is that it irritates Adobe. 

The lack of bug fixes, (slow or non existent) feature updates was always weird. Serif really had/has a great set of tools, but instead of steamrolling on and pushing forward, it almost feels like they got too content too fast. I wouldn't have minded paying quite a bit more every few years for monumental improvements.

But we'll see. I'm glad nothing disastrous happened yet, but can't shake the uneasy feeling.