Possibly Big News For Digital Artists…

[Jim_Campbell]

TBH, if I didn’t have a couple of regular clients who insist on live AI files, I’d probably move over to Designer. I know if a couple of letterers doing paying jobs with it.

[mightybren]

I'm noticing more companies and agencies move away from Adobe Products for Graphic and Web Design. Where I work currently we're using Sketch as a cheaper (and better) alternative to Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator for UI design.

[IndigoPrime]

I’m genuinely excited by this. Designer is the only viable alternative to Illustrator that I’ve found for lettering, so i’m very much looking forward to seein how this turns out. They showed a short video of it running on an iPad at least a year ago — the wait has been killing me!

The ambition is insane. But Photo was easily the iPad app of the year, and I've no doubt they can pull of the same magic with Designer. Adobe suddenly looks very flat-footed with its strange approach to mobile. ("Take bits of Photoshop/Illustrator and repackage them, because no-one wants to do REAL work on an iPad!" Yeah, Microsoft finally realised that was a bad idea, and if even Microsoft can realise… Mind you, CC is such a mess of code, it's hard to see how it could be ported to iOS or Android without basically starting from scratch.)

Oh, and I assume everyone saw Serif's preview of the new DTP app?

okay, so a quick look at Affinity designer tells me that it's a one-off payment and includes future Updates. for £38.99- which is a bloody good price.

20% off at the moment. The usual price is a shade off 50 quid. It's worth noting that Serif's business model is traditional, and so people shouldn't expect free updates forever – I suspect at some point you will get an 'upgrade' version.

I'm noticing more companies and agencies move away from Adobe Products for Graphic and Web Design. Where I work currently we're using Sketch as a cheaper (and better) alternative to Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator for UI design.

To be fair, Sketch is on a subscription, albeit one cheaper than Adobe offers (about 80 quid vs 240); it's odd Adobe only offers a high-value subscription for Photoshop (a tenner a month) and not other single-use apps, like Illustrator.

As for moving away, I don't know anyone heavily using Adobe for web design. That market is lost. UI design is wobbly. Comics too. They more or less have a lock-in with DTP though.

[mightybren]

Photoshop is probably the worst tool I ever used for web design.

Less Adobe the better for everyone I think. I'm still waiting for an alternative to Lightroom, which is still head and shoulders above the competition in terms of an all-in-one photography solution. Affinity Photo is a big step up from Photoshop for photography, but it's missing the asset management functionality that Lightroom has and the RAW processing capability isn't quite as good.

[NeilFord]

Aye , PS is pretty clunky for web layout - Sketch feels like a lot better fit for that these days. Dunno, I'd miss PS though... all my plugins etc.

...still miss Macromedia Fireworks though, ha ha!

[Jim_Campbell]

I just saw an email from Affinity that their vector illustration software Affinity Designer will be coming to the iPad next year

Just re-visiting this thread to update now that Designer is out for iPad Pro (don't think it'll run on any lesser-specced kit, plus I can't really see the point without the Pencil).

As mentioned in previous discussions, Designer is the only credible (IMO) Illustrator alternative… if you don’t need to supply live AI files to any of your clients, then you can already definitely letter using the desktop version. There are people doing pro work with it already.

I’ve downloaded the iPad version and had a quick play. You can set up comic size pages in CMYK, place art, add layers. Type controls seem good, including Opentype options. Autoligs work by default. Art, fonts, etc, can be pulled in from iCloud/Dropbox — I copied a selection of .OTF fonts to a Dropbox folder and the app installed them fine.

Default save is local, but iCloud Drive is also offered. You can export to iCloud/Dropbox/Files in all the important formats. Export options are extensive, and include EPS, PDF, TIFF and PSD.

Initial verdict: I could absolutely letter on my iPad using this.

(It's looking like this, Affinity Photo, and the very impressive port of Clip Studio to iOS has finally got Adobe worried, since they've now announced a full version of Photoshop is in development for the iPad.)

[IndigoPrime]

The Photoshop announcement was an entertaining clusterfuck. Something had clearly been happening. Someone senior at Adobe tweeted, then denied, and then the PR came. Looks like they're spooked, but Serif has a long lead and a TON of goodwill. I also suspect Adobe will make this – as per all their other mobile apps – part of Creative Cloud. By contrast, the Serif apps are currently 14 quid each on iPad, which is ludicrously cheap.

There are some really great touch elements in the app too, which you may have already spotted. When exporting, you can drag the format buttons to other apps (including Files or Mail). Multitouch is well supported, with additional fingers used to adjust options for the current tool. Dragging over panels often performs actions, such as increasing stroke sizes. There's real attention to detail.

Now fast forward a year or so and imagine when Publisher is on iPad too. It's going to be nuts.

[Jim_Campbell]

I imagine the steady stream of pro artists working heavily, some exclusively, on iPad Pros now must be making Wacom quietly shit their pants, too. No way this isn’t putting a hole in their horribly-expensive-with-unspeakably-crappy-drivers hardware business.

[IndigoPrime]

Stroke of genius making the bog-standard iPad Pencil-compatible too. Not suitable for all pros, and not as powerful as the iPad Pro, but still a decent machine and good for people who'd like to dip a toe in the water. I'm not keen on the screen (which is more iPad Air than iPad Air 2), but for 320 quid, it feels like something approaching a bargain (rare for Apple). And desktop-grade creative apps are increasing in number and quality. (Procreate also recently got a major update, and continues to impress. I'm now waiting for the semi-inevitable announcement at some point about the iPad more smartly supporting external displays for artists, sound editors, video editors, etc. You know it's coming within the next year or two.)

So, yeah, Wacom finally have a proper rival, and Adobe's strategy is now looking decidedly dodgy. Right now, you can buy Affinity Photo and Designer for Mac and iPad, for a one-off total (all four apps) of 96 quid. So that's under two months of Creative Cloud, or three months of Photoshop/Illustrator on Creative Cloud. And of course, they only work on the desktop – not the iPad. If you want Photoshop and Illustrator for iPad… you basically buy the Serif apps!

[mightybren]

Just re-visiting this thread to update now that Designer is out for iPad Pro (don't think it'll run on any lesser-specced kit, plus I can't really see the point without the Pencil).

AWESOME! Thanks for the update Jim, and the review! I'm really excited to give Designer a go on my IPad. Support for Open Type is a real plus.

I've been working exclusively with my iPad Pro for about 6 months now. It's replaced my laptop for pretty much everything, and it's great to know there's a full vector app that can produce print ready artwork.

[Jim_Campbell]

Not strictly art-related, but seems appropriate to add it here…

Affinity Publisher (DTP challenger to InDesign) goes into public beta today. You can download it here: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/

I've not had time for more than a cursory glance, but if it's as solid as Photo and Designer, then it should be worth a look. This is the desktop version (Win/Mac) but there's an iPad version planned somewhere down the line.

[IndigoPrime]

Probably also worth noting that Affinity apps have a common file format. That means you can open it in any of their apps and carry on working. No faffing about converting things between various formats and losing things to rendering and such like.

It'll be very interesting to see Publisher on an iPad. There are very few holes in pro-oriented iPad land now, but DTP is one. (CAD is another, beyond the basics.)