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Kudos for NOT creating another open-source copy of a commercial application, but for offering a fresh take on 2D graphics. Many times, I've wished that Photosh

Kudos for NOT creating another open-source copy of a commercial application, but for offering a fresh take on 2D graphics. Many times, I've wished that Photoshop would have nodes instead of layers, as it would make some things much simpler. Or that Illustrator and Photoshop would be combined into a single app. I'm really impressed. Node-based compositing is not a feature that Adobe can easily add to Photoshop, as that would change the core workflow.

pabl0rg 3y ago
Adobe used to have an app called Fireworks that was great for non-artists. They got it when they bought Macromedia. Too bad they killed it. I hope Graphite will replace it.
- Maken 3y ago
  Adobe killed almost everything they bought from Macromedia.
- knewter 3y ago
  Fireworks was the closest thing to figma we got before figma. It was the very best webdev design tool before adobe bought and murdered it. I remember being excited that Photoshop was going to start to work more like fireworks when they bought it. What a naive dummy I was.
- zigzag312 3y ago
  I remember it. Fireworks was intended for UI design (like Figma or XD). It had both vector and raster tools, but they were quite basic. Graphite looks like it could become the jack-of-all-trades app, since its foundation looks very flexible (i.e. the node graph). But, it is in its early development phase and adding necessary features is going to take many years.
13years 3y ago
> Or that Illustrator and Photoshop would be combined into a single app This is why I have been using Affinity. Very well done integration of vector and image capabilities. However, their development has slowed significantly in recent years despite having a great product. I hope that Graphite can be something new and become the blender of 2D image editing. There is nothing really out there right now that has the professional features of paid applications.
- benterix 3y ago
  > their development has slowed significantly in recent years despite having a great product. Did they comment on why this happened?
  - 13years 3y ago
    They have not, although I expect it is simply a matter of expanding their products over the years, technical debt and they probably have not generated enough revenue to grow the team. They are now working on the most important feature in my opinion for the life of Affinity products. They are finally adding built in scripting support that will also enable development of 3rd part extensions. Hopefully this will bring new life and excitement to Affinity.
- junon 3y ago
  Affinity is mismanaged and their developers have posted very publicly about being miserable there. The applications are buggy on a good day, unusable on bad days. The premise sounded nice when I first started using them but I cannot in good conscience recommend either of them to anyone at this point.
  - jansan 3y ago
    Can you give a source for that? I thought they are doing fine.
    - 13years 3y ago
      They are doing fine for the casual user and you can't beat the price. However, as I started using it more professionally a few years ago, there are some real problems with long standing bugs in some areas. My biggest complain at the moment is Art Boards. I use them for almost all my work. Allows me to work much faster when working on a suite of related projects. However, they are the most broken of all features. Probably half of all the Affinity photo live effects are broken in art boards. Also, not sure which is worse, Affinity or the users. I've opened so many bugs on art boards, to have users push back and say it is not a bug and then Affinity ignores it. They say it is not a bug because most don't use art boards as they never grasp the use case.

pabl0rg 3y ago

Adobe used to have an app called Fireworks that was great for non-artists. They got it when they bought Macromedia. Too bad they killed it. I hope Graphite will replace it.

Maken 3y ago
Adobe killed almost everything they bought from Macromedia.
knewter 3y ago
Fireworks was the closest thing to figma we got before figma. It was the very best webdev design tool before adobe bought and murdered it. I remember being excited that Photoshop was going to start to work more like fireworks when they bought it. What a naive dummy I was.
zigzag312 3y ago
I remember it. Fireworks was intended for UI design (like Figma or XD). It had both vector and raster tools, but they were quite basic. Graphite looks like it could become the jack-of-all-trades app, since its foundation looks very flexible (i.e. the node graph). But, it is in its early development phase and adding necessary features is going to take many years.

13years 3y ago

> Or that Illustrator and Photoshop would be combined into a single app This is why I have been using Affinity. Very well done integration of vector and image capabilities. However, their development has slowed significantly in recent years despite having a great product. I hope that Graphite can be something new and become the blender of 2D image editing. There is nothing really out there right now that has the professional features of paid applications.

benterix 3y ago
> their development has slowed significantly in recent years despite having a great product. Did they comment on why this happened?
- 13years 3y ago
  They have not, although I expect it is simply a matter of expanding their products over the years, technical debt and they probably have not generated enough revenue to grow the team. They are now working on the most important feature in my opinion for the life of Affinity products. They are finally adding built in scripting support that will also enable development of 3rd part extensions. Hopefully this will bring new life and excitement to Affinity.
junon 3y ago
Affinity is mismanaged and their developers have posted very publicly about being miserable there. The applications are buggy on a good day, unusable on bad days. The premise sounded nice when I first started using them but I cannot in good conscience recommend either of them to anyone at this point.
- jansan 3y ago
  Can you give a source for that? I thought they are doing fine.
  - 13years 3y ago
    They are doing fine for the casual user and you can't beat the price. However, as I started using it more professionally a few years ago, there are some real problems with long standing bugs in some areas. My biggest complain at the moment is Art Boards. I use them for almost all my work. Allows me to work much faster when working on a suite of related projects. However, they are the most broken of all features. Probably half of all the Affinity photo live effects are broken in art boards. Also, not sure which is worse, Affinity or the users. I've opened so many bugs on art boards, to have users push back and say it is not a bug and then Affinity ignores it. They say it is not a bug because most don't use art boards as they never grasp the use case.