Canva has bought Affinity, Designer, Publisher and Photo.
I have Affinity Photo 1 but I saw nothing of value in Photo 2.
It will be interesting to see what happens now.
It's a wait and see situation with Affinity. The version 2 release was not received well by Affinity users, only the fan boys speak with enthusiasm and that's BS. I downloaded V2 Photo twice several months apart after the V2.4 update and Uninstalled it, I keep V1 installed. There was nothing in V2 that I already didn't have, the V2 interface, in my opinion took a few steps backward and hard core users complain of bugs.
I had hoped Affinity could make a significant contribution to my toolbox but being acquired by Canva is not instilling me with confidence. Inexpensive Affinity is but to pay and go backward does not make sense. Affinity Designer is still not a prime time program and I do nearly zero high page count documents so Affinity Publisher has no use for me.
My photography and client image editing is changing and while the 4 base applications that I use work well for low to medium ISO settings and reasonably exposed images, my desire to move to high ISO low light exposures and the devolution of client images I receive are forcing me to either add another application set to my work flow or replace AfterShot Pro 3, which will then also allow me to discontinue use of Affinity Photo V1.
Unfortunately Corel has made no improvements to AfterShot Pro 3 so its future on my system is up in the air. It's heading down to DXO Photolab 7 or Tapaz filters. Topaz will work well with AfterShot Pro 3 but DXO Photolab 7 will eliminate the need for both ASP and Affinity Photo.
The 2024 release of CDGS has had little for me, all I got was significant improvements in speed for handling PDF files with transparency from clients and overall speed improvements with text, large drawings and image editing. Photo-PAINT has seen significant improvements with NVidia studio drivers.
hywelharris said:And lets remember Corel had to row back on its subscription model, simply because it doesn't have the traction that Adobe has. If Canva is as stupid to go Subscription only with Affinity it too will suffer and I will vote with my feet.
At this time, at least, they are explicitly stating that they will not go subscription-only:
The Affinity and Canva Pledge.
Things always change! I believe that Canva will learn how low the profits truly are with Affinity in a year or so.
Yeah, I received the email containing that pledge. I can't put much faith in it considering Canva's development was funded by private equity firms. Those types of "vulture capitalists" are notorious for going back on their word. It's all part of chasing after the biggest short term gains possible. If there are no short term gains to be had then it's all about cutting costs to the bone.
Serif has an excess of 45 million pounds over the last 3 years. Not bad for what they charge, eh? Especially since they took near 10 years before the first paid version 2.