Transition from Affinity Designer 2 to Canva Studio 3.2

 

After quite a long period of hesitation I upgraded from Affinity Designer version 2.0 to version 3.2. I admit that I was not exactly thrilled by the way in which the acquisition of the Affinity suit by Canva had taken place. In addition to which I dislike the AI component subscription model that the 3.2 version is included. After testing it however, I decided to implement the upgrade anyway. The transition was handled in quite a logical way, I must say; The vector, pixel and DTP modules are now combined into a single program, about which I was often puzzled why Affinity had not done that when they still owned the entire suit, particularly since most of the necessary conditions to make an assembly work, were already in existence. I have fiddled with the Canva version for a day or two and I admit their Studio version makes a lot of sense and speeds up the time to complete a file or document significantly, regardless if it is a vector or pixel file or a DTP document.

Canva Studio logo

I still think Serif (the company that originally built the Affinity suit) could have done a similar thing by themselves. But now we will never know if that would at some point have taken place. Around the time that the acquisition took place Affinity's technical head honcho wrote that there will be no subscription model, but that strategy did not emerge. It is one of the things that bothers me most, simply because it went on to the subscription path anyway. That could be expected to be honest, but it would show dignity if the buy and own the program would have been extended. But Affinity is of course much smaller than Canva and they would probably not have a feasible opportunity to continue what they seemed to have in mind. Outside of that, smaller companies get overtaken by bigger ones all the time when they have developed interesting programs. But that could have been shared with the Affinity user base in a more honest way, which explains my hesitation to upgrade. It just shows that in modern times it requires to take promises of the smaller business before the acquisition with a grain of salt.

First file created in Canva Studio.
The black & white photo of Carl Jung
was coloured with Canva's AI module.

However, the upgrades that are implemented under the Canva flag are too effective to ignore. Users must obviously accept that the overtaking of a small company's project by a larger player is what today's business world reflects. The dog eat dog mantra just whacks good intentions and leaves users with no choice then to deal with the result of an acquisition, if they want to profit from regular updates of the program they chose to use. In this article I am not going into the details of the improvements of functionality; I need more time to make a sensible effort in that direction and may do so in a not too distant future. I wrote this post mainly because I felt the urge to express what bothered me about the events surrounding Canva's acquisition against the promises made by Affinity around the take over.

Second image edited in Canva Studio,
after having created it in Affinity
Designer version 2.0 many years
ago. The dragon's colours were
made vibrant and saturated.

I am not pleased by the way the acquisition went, but I am satisfied with the functionality of Canva Studio and rather displeased with the subscription model aspect of it. But the newly introduced function upgrades allow me to work faster and better, partly because of an increased AI integration, while offering a suit that includes functions that give Adobe a pain in the rear end. Since 3.2 is significantly improved over version 2.0, I am curious what the future of Canva Studio will bring; will they go head on against Adobe and just keep adding functions that makes the more attractive for graphic designers or have they a few surprises that will surprise the future of graphic design and DTP. Bearing in mind how relatively fast Canva Studio introduced the upgrades to compared to Affinity Designer, we will most likely not have to wait a long to find out, I would guess.

Oh and by the way, I think Affinity and Canva have created a program that absolutely is going to destroy the shamelessly greed ridden Adobe empire. The software design and price are infinitely better what Adobe offers, that besides the huge subscription cost, has created a frustratingly complex path to get rid of Adobe products. Once users join Adobe, they are in a prison. Perhaps joining forces was the modestly concealed objective of the Affinity and Canva teams, that witnessed all of Adobe's competitors being bought over the years and then disappeared by the strategy of the (soon to be former) design market behemoth. The Affinity Canva Studio program's fantastic functionality - integrating vector, pixel and DTP in a single environment without ancient algorithms and UI like many Adobe programs have - already is well on its way to accomplish Adobe's much needed obliteration. In addition many Affinity processes take place in real time, so that users can actually see (unlike Adobe) what the result of their effort manipulation will actually look like while doing it. In the next blog entry I have made a simple exclusively vector modification to Benda's Napoleonbob motorcycle tank, that was entirely created in Affinity Canva Studio. Go take a peek and check it out.

View to a kill - Jaguar vs caiman vector drawing

 

Recently I discovered a stunning photograph shot by Justin Black, showing a view to a kill; a jaguar catching a caiman in the tropical rainforest of the Amazon. This predator hunt predator moment has a vigorous impact on those looking at the image (this would be a normal person's reaction anyway). Being a witness of a kill, has the tendency to cause neurons to fire a barrage of impulses, generating gamma brainwave patterns in response to perceiving the brutal event, especially when watching the motions in a video that accompanies the photo on the National Geographic website. Such things did occur within my upstairs department, after which I felt compelled to make a vector drawing of it. At the time of the most recent update - January 24 2021, it is still a work in progress, but at this stage it is already visible where it is going. As usual, I created this vector art in Affinity Designer, Serif's magnificent vector drawing program, that can be purchased for just 50 Euro, a one time fee without the rip off recurring subscription payments.

Like I usually do, I changed some features of the image, to enhance its optical affect. I altered some of the jag's facial traits (made its eyes look more leopard like) to make that part of the drawing easier on the eye and will arrange the background in such a way that it does not interfere with the battle of the beasts. Also I placed the jag's tail on the opposite side of its body relative to how it was in the photo to make the composition more balanced. I am still undecided about the cut out format; the photograph is taller, showing more of the scene, but I assume this matter will sort itself out in time or I could simply make more than one version of this work. For the moment I chose a panoramic lay-out, because I may use it as a header image in my website. There you find my portfolio that is distinguished from most vector art collections, by the way, in that I use vector drawing programs to create mainly organic shapes, for which these types of applications are unfit as most 'experts' would say. I am also considering to make both a graphic version and a more realistic version, if I ever get around to draw the latter, which remains uncertain even in times of lockdowns that cause people to become bored senseless.

Upto now, I've exclusively used the mouse to draw (it is a slow tool, but very accurate), but at a later stage I may use my Huion 610 Pro tablet to add the jag's fur texture and perhaps some of the caiman's scales to elevate the image quality and give it a near photo realistic appearance. Before reaching that phase, I focus on establishing the base, which already has some level of detail intricacy. A thing to take into account is that at stage 12 already over 500 layers (curves or objects) have been created, a number that will rapidly increase when using a tablet. It is necessary to give key layers a name and colour code them to keep control over where I am working in Affinity Designer's Layers Panel, and it requires alertness and a logical approach to properly navigate and draw in the complex object hierarchy. When the drawing will be completed, I will add the vector outline image, from which those familiar with vector drawing will be able to get an idea of the power of the Affinity Designer program.

Click the image to see all of them in Google's lightbox, a manually operable slide show. It allows you to swiftly flick through the various stages by turning the scroll wheel of the mouse. This lightbox allows to compare the stages visually like nothing else does and quickly see the changes applied. Unfortunately this function can only be accessed on PC's, Macs or laptops and not on tablets and smart phones (as far as I am aware). Newest stage is on top, oldest at the bottom. Please check in regularly as I continue to post new stages in this article, until the image is done. Text updates will be placed below Stage 1 at the end of this blog entry. Enjoy your visit to this page and feel free to do some more browsing in my blog and if you like it, spread the word and perhaps even blog about this blog. I will of course return the favour. Have a nice day. 

Update February 18 2021

Below you see the next version, edited in RawTherapee, an absolutely brilliant open source image editor, that gives Adobe Lightroom a run for its money. In fact, in many respects it is better than the industry standard, while offered for free. Besides offering outlandishly good and easy to operate editing and batch editing functionality, it allows to catalog images, which are the same functions Lightroom has. Artists chased away by Adobe's wretched subscription model, should definitely give this excellent program a try, most of whom certainly won't be sorry for giving it a test run.

I removed the foreground drawings (the snake and the monkey), because I felt it took the focus of the main part of the image, to which I did some more vector detail editing.

I saved the drawing with history, which should make turning it in to a tutorial in the future somewhat easier. But I still have to familiarise myself with video editing. Plus, as usual, the future remains at least as unpredictable as winning lottery numbers. Which particularly applies to the future in these sinister times. 

Stage 27 - edited with RawTherapee

Stage 21 - graphic version

Stage 15

Stage 14

Stage 13

Stage 12

Stage 11

Stage 10

Stage 9

Stage 8

Stage 7

Stage 6

Stage 5

Stage 4

Stage 3

Stage 2

Stage 1

Stage 16 vector outline

Update January 31 2021

After stage 21, I think I went a little bit overboard, which probably is something many designers recognize. To stop drawing at the right moment, remains a difficult decision (for me at least). Fortunately, Affinity Designer is a non-destructive program that allows to revert to previous stages without problem; layers can be switched on and off at will and the history function allows to remove any step necessary, apart from the 1000 standard undo's. I will therefore leave the design for the time being and later focus on enhancing the textures somewhere in the future. Meanwhile I will start drawing other things.