Making music artwork. Alternatives to Adobe?

[chk071]

Could be Aero, for sure. The system requirements state that you have to have Aero enabled for the Affinity apps.

[wardores]

Spring Goose, check this out: https://www.canva.com

I have not used it before, but it looks pretty flexible with lots of templates to customize.

Canva plus Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/) can take you a long way!

[starflakeprj]

Not that I want to start another discussion about that, but, I'd recommend Affinity Photo for 28 € a thousand times, before I'd recommend GIMP. No competition IMO.

I'll have to agree on that. GIMP is pretty crappy tbh. I'll have the Adobe Photographer subscription with Photoshop and Lightroom, but I also have Affinity Photo, Publisher and Designer, and they are all three very competent. I tend to use Inkscape more than Designer though.

[pekbro]

I've used Twisted Brush Pro for years, probably it would work with embedded graphics. There is a free version, the pro version has a lifetime upgrade somewhere, I have that. Not as fancy as adobe or serif stuff, but very good nonetheless.

https://www.pixarra.com/pro_studio.html

[Spring Goose]

Spring Goose, check this out: https://www.canva.com

I have not used it before, but it looks pretty flexible with lots of templates to customize.

Canva plus Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/) can take you a long way!

I joined Canva, but then i was put off by their asking for my card / paypal details before i'd hardly had a chance to know what i was signing upto and how much it would cost etc. I might take another look another day. Thanks for the Unsplash recommendation, i'll have a look at that now..

[wardores]

I joined Canva, but then i was put off by their asking for my card / paypal details before i'd hardly had a chance to know what i was signing upto and how much it would cost etc.

Oh, weird. I haven't had to put in my payment details, and I'm on the free tier (5GB storage). Maybe it's because I've had an account for years (probably before they started asking for card info to get into the freemium plan).

[Spring Goose]

1/ Has anybody tried the Affinity hardback books? Share your experience please!

2/ Does anybody know which if any of the Affinity products can wrap text around or avoiding an "object"? It looked like Adobe InDesign can do it very easily. I assume that it should be possible to do it with Affinity Publisher but i haven't figured it out yet.

Not that I want to start another discussion about that, but, I'd recommend Affinity Photo for 28 € a thousand times, before I'd recommend GIMP. No competition IMO.

I'll have to agree on that. GIMP is pretty crappy tbh. I'll have the Adobe Photographer subscription with Photoshop and Lightroom, but I also have Affinity Photo, Publisher and Designer, and they are all three very competent. I tend to use Inkscape more than Designer though.

My first impression of Gimp was positive. I quickly made something "better" (i was happier with) than i had managed with simply Paint.

[Spring Goose]

I joined Canva, but then i was put off by their asking for my card / paypal details before i'd hardly had a chance to know what i was signing upto and how much it would cost etc.

Oh, weird. I haven't had to put in my payment details, and I'm on the free tier (5GB storage). Maybe it's because I've had an account for years (probably before they started asking for card info to get into the freemium plan).

I'm sure it is trustworthy, but i was a bit wary. BTW that Unsplash is great, first impression. Should be very useful, thank you very much!

I've used Twisted Brush Pro for years, probably it would work with embedded graphics. There is a free version, the pro version has a lifetime upgrade somewhere, I have that. Not as fancy as adobe or serif stuff, but very good nonetheless.

<a href="https://www.pixarra.com/pro_st ... o.html</a>

Thanks pekbro, i'll have a look at that.

Actually it looks like neither Adobe or Affinity would work with my computer. I think i would need a graphics card. I'll try the freebies tomorrow.

Not trying to change your mind, but Affinity doesn't actually require a "Direct3D level 12.0-capable card"; that's only for hardware-based acceleration. They also list a "DirectX 10-compatible Graphics Cards and above" in the same "Tech Specs" list. While they probably should have broken these out into "Recommended" and "Required" columns for clarity, it doesn't appear you actually need a beefy video card.

And I haven't checked Adobe's requirements in a year or so, but last I checked, Photoshop would run on an integrated graphics "card" -- you may just want to allocate more RAM to it in your BIOS, if you have that option. (The same would go for Affinity, obviously.)

Humble Bundle's Corel options are pretty good, too -- though you don't necessarily get updates. Even when I had CorelPAINT! (as part of the Corel suite), I still used Photoshop because I found it considerably easier. But CorelPAINT! is a fairly robust image manipulation app, and it's been around for many years.

Of course, hardware-based acceleration is very helpful, but it's rarely "required", unless you're using high-end image manipulation apps...or you have no patience for rendering.

Steve

Affinity works fine for me so far. Thankyou very much Steve.

[e@rs]

Never used Adobe so...

It's an older machine (2008) I usually test software on. Win7 x64 with an 8800GTS GPU with 640MB of memory. Could it be that I didn't have Aero enabled?

Maybe you need to "Run as Administrator..." (right-click option)? Been a while since I've worked with Windows 7, but I remember that being necessary sometimes.

I tried that immediately after the first failure. Didn't solve anything.

Could also be that it requires .NET Framework 4.8, which I'm not sure I have installed. Also the Platform Update For Win 7, but I think I installed that one for Studio One 4.

Could be Aero, for sure. The system requirements state that you have to have Aero enabled for the Affinity apps.

Will try enabling it. Cubase also wants it, so I already have a preset for it.

[bagpipe200]

Are you sure you selected the Free account? I just signed up for that one and didn't have to provide any credit card/Paypal info.

I joined Canva, but then i was put off by their asking for my card / paypal details before i'd hardly had a chance to know what i was signing upto and how much it would cost etc. I might take another look another day. Thanks for the Unsplash recommendation, i'll have a look at that now..

[Spring Goose]

Are you sure you selected the Free account? I just signed up for that one and didn't have to provide any credit card/Paypal info.

I joined Canva, but then i was put off by their asking for my card / paypal details before i'd hardly had a chance to know what i was signing upto and how much it would cost etc. I might take another look another day. Thanks for the Unsplash recommendation, i'll have a look at that now..

Apparently i am on. I went to Canva and it remembered my design and it let me download my design. Thanks for reminder, pal.

[e@rs]

Managed to install Affinity suite (not up-to-date .NET Framework was to blame), but every single app crashes on launch (fault module: KERNELBASE.dll).

[chk071]

The apps are rock solid here. Never crashed a single time for me.

[handoman]

GIMP for sure is amazing. I make all my graphic design on there. https://www.deviantart.com/unclehando
like The only reason to have photoshop and adobe is if you are a professional. they expect you to know adobe cs. I'm tryna get more into freelance for graphic design and GIMP + Inkscape is just as good for stuff as Photoshop + Illustrator

[pekbro]

gimp is actually pretty good, but you have to know how to use it. lotta studios use it because you can customize it as much as you like because you have access to the code base.