Let’s get technical

All Platforms

• Stroke Width Tool for freehand pencil and pen drawing:
  • Edit pressure profiles on the page
  • Works in unison with Pressure chart
  • Locking of line widths and pressure points
  • Optional snapping control
• Variable fonts
• QR Code Tool
• Pencil tool improvements:
  • Smoother drawing results
  • No node clean up or reshaping needed
  • A sharp corner node is added when the stroke changes direction sharply
  • Auto Close offers proximity-based visual indication of closure
• Easier updating of modified text style
• Visual indication of rescaled text frame
• DWG polylines import improvements

Desktop only

• Native Windows ARM64 support
• Set grid preset as default
• Typography dialog becomes a dedicated Typography Panel
• Transform by absolute sizes using Transform Objects Separately

iPad only

• Mask to Below and Release now added to Layers Panel

• Layer states for controlling design variations (for desktop only):
  • Create show/hide queries based on layer tagging, type, name, lock status and/or visibility
  • Make layer selections based on current query
  • Capture current layer visibility states
  • Set a scope to be your document, selected artboard or layer selections
  • Dedicated States Panel for states management
• Set selection box for rotated multiple selections
• Double-clicking (tapping) an object switches from the Node Tool to Move Tool

• Lock insertion targets
• Use Spacebar as keyboard modifier for Lock Children
• Space horizontally/vertically considers key object
• Size or rotate objects to same
• Import/export 32-bit HDR PNGs
• Use filename variable in path and output file naming in Export Persona (for desktop only)
• Export DWG/DXF

All Platforms

• Spiral Tool:
  • Choice of styles including Linear, Decaying, Fibonacci and Plotted
  • Optional straight-line edges
• Place and export password-protected PDFs, including the ability to individually allow:
  • Document printing
  • Content modification
  • Content copying
• Export PDF files to PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000-2) standard, with optional password-protected AES-256 encryption
• Optionally deselect pencil strokes after creation
• Pixel grid as design aid for UI/icon design (can be switched on/off and coloured)
• Change Assets Panel background colour

iPad only

• Optionally deselect shapes after creation

Desktop only

• Move data entry enhancements:
  • Scale option to resize by a given percentage
  • Insertion Mode options to insert duplicates in front of or behind the original object
  • Edit object properties as you transform
  • Improved Number of copies slider behaviour
• Brush names show by default on the Brushes panel
• Create new documents from assets by dragging from panel to title bar
• Create shapes of same type and properties from an existing shape selection

All Platforms

• Greyscale and Hide Effects options for view modes
• Holding a tool shortcut temporarily activates the tool^*
• Change guide colour
• Divide Boolean operations can be performed inside groups
• In-dialog renaming of brushes
• Use numeric keyboard keys to set brush flow, hardness and strength^*
• Add selections to new layer
• Optionally prompt for group and layer names on creation

iPad only

• New Settings (Preferences):
  • Decimal place control for measurement unit types
  • Keep or clear selection after delete
• Shift-drag on RGB/CMYK sliders to change tint/intensity only^**
• Scrolling Studio panels and context toolbars (except 12.9" Pro)

• ^*For iPad, use hardware keyboard
• ^**For iPad, use Command Controller or hardware keyboard

Desktop only

• Object data entry for creating precise shapes and artboards
• Move data entry for moving/duplicating objects
• When editing curves, delete a node via right-click
• When deleting node(s), optionally retain curve smoothness
• Select All On Current Layer via the Select menu
• Create Symbol via the Layer menu
• Add (+) cursor indicates continuance of pencil stroke when sculpting
• Vector Brush Tool offers a crosshair cursor when using caps lock

Vector Flood Fill Tool

• Flood with solid colour, gradients and bitmaps
• Drag-and-drop swatches from Swatches panel (for desktop only)
• Flooding with assets or stock images
• Takes stackable semi-transparent fills and bitmap fills with alpha
• Intelligent flooding to visibly contrasting edges or object outlines/paths

Vector warp junction snapping

• Global snapping aware
• Snap options to align intra-group junction(s) when dragged
• Lasso/polygon selection with Alt modifier

Enhanced Brushes panel

• Show brush names
• Show brushes as thumbnails
• Highlights the active brush
• Indicates modified brush settings
• Auto-scroll to last used brush when reusing brush tools (intra and inter-category)
• Alt-click on a new brush keeps your current brush width^*
• Update Brush and Reset Brush if modified

Assets panel

• Expand All/Collapse All subcategories (for desktop only)
• Sort assets by name
• Modifier-free reordering of asset subcategories (for desktop only)

Layers panel

• Alt-click to Expand/Collapse All (child layers)^*
• Step-through renaming of layers and export slices with Tab key (for desktop only)
• Rename layers via the Layers menu, with shortcut (for desktop only)
• Hide layer type icons

Guides improvements

• Double-click any guide to open Guides Settings
• Drag distance (delta) shows in on-screen readout
• Drag a guide from rulers will switch on guide visibility (if set to off)
• Clone guides with ⌘-drag (Ctrl-drag)^*
• Delete guides with Alt-click^*
• Snap guides to ruler units based on the spread origin with Shift-drag^*
• Snap guides to drag distance (delta) based on ruler units with Shift-Alt-drag^*
• Snap to original guide position when moving guides
• Snap to original guide when cloning guides
• Nudge guide values with mouse wheel/arrow keys^*
• Link margin or X/Y spread origin values in Guides Settings

^*For iPad, use Command Controller/hardware keyboard

• Distort placed images and documents using non-destructive Live Mesh Warp or Perspective filters
• Rename artboards directly on the pasteboard
• Disable auto-selection with Move Tool, plus ⌘-click (Ctrl-click) override^*
• Keyboard shortcuts for layer and brush blend modes
• Adjust stroke width using Node Tool or shape tools using [ or ] keys
• Balanced dashed lines plus more dash pattern sequences
• Clear arrowhead settings
• PDF document properties (metadata) are retained on import
• Show special characters
• Search Bar for searching add-on content in your Account
• V5 PANTONE^® Solid, Process Coated and Uncoated update
• One-click bitmap fill creation from assets or stock images
• Create bitmap fills by drag-and-drop from Finder/File Explorer to Colour or Swatches panel (for desktop only)
• Paint with bitmap textures drag-and-dropped to Colour or Swatches panel (for desktop only)
• Close All to close multiple open documents plus Apply to All option (for desktop only)

Designer iPad

• Style Picker Tool offers a dropper-based transfer of object styles
• Rulers
• Reset canvas rotation in Navigator Panel with double-tap
• Double-tap Zoom option to Zoom to 100% in Navigator Panel
• PDF passthrough
• PDF Options offered on opening PDF files
• Create compounds via long press on Geometry menu options
• More hardware keyboard shortcuts:
  • Select Next, Previous, Top and Bottom
  • Opacity
  • Zoom options and other design aids
• More select options added to Quick Menu
• Command controller modifiers/keyboard support for Select Object
• Apple Pencil: double-tap to open Quick Menu
• Show in Files on the Home screen (Live Docs) locates your saved file
• Disable brush preview for Apple Pencil Hover and peripheral devices
• Edit warp groups more easily by tapping warp group layer thumbnail
• Workflow improvements:
  • Drop-down menus with checkable options no longer auto-close
  • Less tapping needed for menu navigation
• Lock or rename layers, plus swap compound type, via left-swipe
• Double-tap to reset Opacity and Blend Mode to 100% and Normal, respectively (Layers panel)

General UI

• Redeveloped UI, tool and button icons
• New monochromatic iconography via Preferences (User Interface)
• High-contrast UI settings
• Drag document tabs to new windows (Mac)
• Restyled Studio panels via the Window menu (for desktop only)
• Redesigned Export dialog offers “always on” export preview
• Command Controller for improved modifier-driven workflow (iPad)
• Quick Menu for context-sensitive access to commands (iPad)
• Compact Mode for Layers and Brushes Studios (iPad)

New document dialog redesign

• Easier preset management plus preset previews and favourites
• In-dialog access to new document presets, templates, samples, and your account details
• Recent documents (grid or list) are searchable and support pinning (for desktop only)
• “Always on” Document summary panel (for desktop only)

All new Layers panel

• Much clearer drop zones for masking, clipping and reordering
• Parent bar to easily collapse parent items and drop layers above/below current parent group
• Unlimited levels of cropping/masking layers
• Identify layer types by icon (curves, shapes, text, pixel, mask, adjustment)
• Hide/show all other layers
• Copy layer effects (FX) from one layer to another
• Hover-over lock icon toggle (for desktop only)
• Drag-down Visibility icon to turn on/off multiple selected layers (for desktop only)

Content link

• All Affinity apps on a device can now share brushes, styles, assets, application palettes and more
• Avoids unnecessary exporting/importing of content between apps on the same device
• Migration of custom 1.x content on upgrade (for desktop only)
• Link custom content to share with other apps

New tools

• Vector Warp applies a mesh warp to any vector object non-destructively
• Shape Builder Tool for interactively adding and subtracting shapes and curve segments
• Knife Tool for cutting up shapes, curves and text
• Measure Tool displays scaled distances between any two points
• Area Tool shows the area and perimeter length of objects and constructions
• Style Picker Tool offers a dropper-based transfer of object styles (for desktop only)

Selections

• More Select Same/Select Object options with modifier support for multi-object selections
• Select Next/Previous/Top/Bottom/Parent via right-click menu (for desktop only)
• Move Tool option for automatically selecting inside groups
• Align multiple objects to a nominated Key Object

Graphic design essentials

• Drawing scale for real-world projects (different scaling per artboard)
• Pencil Tool creates auto-closed or straight-line pencil strokes
• Change stroke width with [ and ] keys; Shift key increases/decreases by an absolute amount
• Scale multiple objects’ stroke widths using formula input (e.g., 200%)
• X-ray (Wireframe) view mode shows semi-transparent fills to inspect document construction and aids hidden object selection
• Multiple shadow, outline and overlay layer effects per object
• Force scale of stroke width, layer effect radii, corner radii and text frame content on object resize

Redeveloped Boolean operations

• Accurate results
• Divide can use an open curve to slice a shape or split another open curve
• Divide will punch out holes using a fully overlapping object
• Nominate a Key Object to subtract from using the Alt key
• Fill holes and remove inner curves

Curve drawing and editing

• Red line indicator on all curve selections shows winding direction
• Node Tool offers Split Curves, adding a new node in the geometric midpoint of a selected curve segment

Placing content

• Resource Manager for controlling placed image and document resources (iPad)
• Quick Grids (for desktop only)
• Layer visibility override for placed files (PDF/DWG/DXF)—turn off layers you don’t need
• Place linked web images using their URLs via Ctrl+drag-and-drop (for desktop only)
• Dropbox API integration to retain placed resource linkage across multiple devices

Raster brush improvements

• Improved raster brush quality and accuracy
• Distance controller changes brush characteristics with stroke length
• Brush tip interpolation for improved tip quality
• Wet edge support for more brush-based tools
• Recently used brushes can be seen and reselected for each raster layer (for desktop only)
• Paint Brush Tool now has its own B keyboard key shortcut
• Brushes panel can display brushes as either nozzle thumbnails or strokes

Import/export/packaging

• WebP file import and export
• JPEG XL file import and export
• AutoCAD DWG/DXF import, place and edit (maintaining layer structure and scaling)
• HIF file import (HDR 10 bit PQ encoded) produced by newer Canon cameras
• Drag/drop stock photos for new document (for desktop only)
• PDF export will export hidden Affinity vector layers that have child layers as invisible layers
• Resave packages with auto-update of resources (for desktop only)

Some important extras…

• Import Affinity and Adobe® Swatch Exchange (.ase) palettes (iPad)
• Drag-and-drop bitmap fill creation with intelligent scaling
• HSL Colour Wheel has ‘box’ wheel type and offers recent colours and hex code readout/input
• Convert artistic text to frame text, and vice versa
• Paste Style support for copied text selections
• Isolation (Solo) mode offers better group control
• Rasterise selected layers simultaneously
• Normals adjustment for editing normal maps from material and texturing workflows
• Preference to Limit initial zoom to a maximum of 100% for icon designers

It’s Fast—Really Fast

• Pan and zoom at maximum refresh rate (ProMotion support for latest Mac displays)
• Live previews of transforms in the correct Z-order
• Real-time gradients, effects, blend modes and adjustments
• Always fast, whatever the complexity or size of your artwork
• 64-bit multi-core optimisation and hardware acceleration

Display support

• Regular, Retina and expanded gamut DCI-P3 (Mac)
• Wide colour gamut (Display P3) (Windows)
• HiDPI
• EDR (Mac)
• HDR (Windows; >400 nits recommended)

Beautiful By Design

• Built from the ground up for creative professionals
• Designed by designers… stylish and uncluttered interface

Highly Customisable

• Light or dark user interface (for desktop only)
• Create and save your own custom keyboard shortcuts
• Create your own toolbars and toolbar layouts (for desktop only)
• Reorganise on-screen panels, float or dock as preferred (for desktop only)
• Create and save Studio Panel (and toolbar) presets (for desktop only)
• Tweak UI tool size and choose monochrome or coloured buttons (for desktop only)
• Use Preferences to set up Affinity Designer to your taste
• Work in pixels, points, picas and physical document units

Naturally Easy to Use

• Follows industry conventions for the most popular shortcuts
• Use generic multi-button/wheeled mice and graphics tablets (for desktop only)
• Check the Hint Line and Context toolbar for help with current actions (for desktop only)
• Quickly hide all tools and panels for a bigger design preview
• Work with multiple designs and multiple displays
• Document presets or save your own custom document setups
• Create new documents from delivery-ready presets
• Create custom document setups and templates

Mixed Discipline Design

• Task-focused design spaces create a clean, efficient environment
• Switch between vector, pixel, and export modes
• One Affinity file format is compatible with all Affinity suite apps

Over 1,000,000% Zoom

• Zoom way beyond 1,000,000% — smoothly and quickly
• See a reassuringly CAD-like level of precision
• Instantly switch between favourite zoom levels

Rich History

• Instantly undo/redo over 8,000 History steps
• Store document states as Snapshots
• Save History so you can undo steps later even on different computers
• Undo actions performed in other Affinity suite apps
• Cycle Futures feature prevents history loss after editing from undos
• A seamless AutoSave protects against unexpected shutdowns

Professional Samples

• Peek into the minds of other illustrators with professional samples

Learning Made Easy

• Access our video tutorials on our YouTube channel - created by our dedicated Product Experts and inspirational pro users
• Comprehensive in-app product Help
• ’At hand’ Hint Line for help with current actions (desktop only)

No Subscription

• No subscription charge! Designed for pros, priced for everyone
• Buy through Affinity.store website, Mac App Store or Windows Store
• Updates available as we improve

Licence Activation, Registration and Account Access

• Single licence or multi-app cross-platform Universal Licence
• In-app activation of licensing using your Affinity Store’s Affinity ID^*
• Create Affinity ID and account during in-app purchase
• In-app purchase and registration (optional) via Mac App Store, iPad App Store and Microsoft store
• In-app access and viewing of your Affinity account
• Affinity Store content synchronisation
• Auto-install of free and purchased Affinity Store content (brushes, assets and more)

^*An internet connection is required for licence activation.

Registration and Account Access

• In-app registration (optional)
• In-app access and viewing of your Affinity account
• Affinity Store content synchronisation
• Install free and purchased Affinity Store content (brushes, assets and more)

Languages

• English (US and UK)
• German
• French
• Spanish
• Portuguese (Brazilian)
• Japanese
• Italian
• Chinese (Simplified)

Rock Solid Pen Tool

• Instinctively and quickly create what you want with fewer clicks
• Change node types on the fly without interrupting your flow
• Switch between Pen and Node tools with a key press
• Apply pressure, scaling, drawing, mitre and line end settings for organic strokes
• Create single polycurve from multiple curves
• Snap control handles to geometry, node, grid or guide
• Arrowheads (and tails)

Curve and shape editing

• Multi-node selection using polygon/freehand lasso drawing
• Align/distribute multi-node selections
• Transform multi-node selections using Selection Box
• Match active node’s geometry to that of another curve’s node geometry (for desktop only)
• Construction snapping for finding control handle’s angles and distances (for desktop only)
• Straighten or delete a curve’s segment
• Set precise straight line lengths using Transform Panel (for desktop only)

Tool and Mode Switching

• One tool flexibly selects, moves, rotates, scales, and skews
• Switch to the Move tool any time with a key press (for desktop only)
• Toggle between popular tools and temporarily change modes (for desktop only)
• Intuitively edit objects within groups without ungrouping
• Optionally move parent objects without their child layers

Artboards

• Create multiple artboards within one document
• Use separate canvases for different versions of icons and other web/UI elements
• Create stationery variants all in one design
• Output artboards as separate pages in exported PDFs
• Name artboards (including using emojis)
• Apply custom grids and guides per artboard
• Print artboards on separate sheets

Symbols

• Simultaneous and automatic editing of repeating design elements
• Create symbols via easy access Symbols Panel
• Replicate symbols as individual symbol instances
• Synchronisation across instances by default
• Switch off synchronisation for isolated edits
• Edit distinct object properties independently of each other

Constraints for UI Design

• Avoids time-consuming design rework
• Auto-layout on differently sized device artboards
• Scale and/or anchor design elements to their ‘parent’ container
• Select object edges to be constrained
• Max/min fit for fixed aspect ratios

Corner Tool

• Neatly round and soften corners on shapes and lines
• For single and multiple nodes

Pencil Tool

• Draw lines with an intuitive balance of accuracy and smoothing
• Adjust weight automatically based on velocity, pressure, or use fixed width
• Use stabiliser for super smooth pencil strokes
• Sculpt mode for repeating and continuing strokes
• Arrowheads

Live Gradient Fills and Transparencies

• Draw gradients live in your design, instantly and smoothly
• Apply colour and transparency gradients to fills and outlines
• Easily adjust the nodes and rates of change for gradients
• Use solid, linear, elliptical, radial, conical gradients and apply bitmaps
• Aspect ratio control (bitmap fill/transparency only)
• Linear and radial gradients respond to object scaling/shearing with skewed fill handle editing

Textured Noise

• Add noise to object fills and outlines, also as a gradient

Live Boolean Geometry

• Join, intersect, subtract, divide and combine shape outlines
• Boolean operations are editable (Compound Shapes) without using Undo

Editable Shapes

• Regular shapes are naturally smart with unique editing nodes
• Easily customise shapes, achieve neat results with snapping geometry
• Create perfect squares and circles by constraining primitives
• Apply special and rounded corners as absolute or % values
• Customise cogs, stars, arrows, pies, and 14 other smart shapes
• Presets for shapes or save your own shapes (for desktop only)

Advanced Layers and Masks

• Organise using layers, groups, stacks and layer naming
• Seamlessly mix vector and raster layer types
• Thumbnail sizing - Small, Medium and Large
• Isolate, rename, lock, hide and merge layers with easy shortcuts
• Unlock all locked objects simultaneously
• Show all hidden objects simultaneously
• Clip and mask by dragging and dropping, masks remain editable
• Apply multiple masks for complex transparencies
• No limits on number of layers, masks, groups, or hierarchy of layers
• Limit the affect of adjustments and layer effects by drag and drop
• Auto-scroll jumps to selected object in Layers Panel
• Colour tagging (retains PSD layer colours)

Clipping

• Add artwork within shapes and layers using Insert Inside and Paste Inside
• Also Insert Behind and Insert Above the current layer

Convert to Curves

• Convert primitives, imported vectors, and text to editable curves
• Optionally convert some objects to curves at export time

Multi Stroke and Fill

• Appearance Panel for all multi stroke/fill management
• Stack strokes and fills like layers
• Any stroke can have its own stroke width
• Any stroke or fill can have its own blend mode and colour gradient
• Save as custom Style for later use
• Place stroke in front or behind fill

Expand Stroke

• Detach outlines from vector objects to create new shapes
• Add new outlines to expanded strokes

Contour Tool

• Offset a curve or shape’s outline and stroke
• On-page radius control
• Fill control: Auto close, Force open or Force close

Power Duplicate

• Duplicate objects and repeat transforms all in one go
• Create geometric patterns or repeating, scaling, rotating designs

Layout Grids

• Create standard square and rectangular grids
• Create axonometric grids (isometric layouts and more)
• Isometric Panel (desktop) or context options (iOS) for easier grid creation, transforms and plane switching
• Transform objects directly onto grid planes
• Custom grids (Triangular, 2-axis and 3-axis)
• Cube mode for custom grids from transformable cube
• On-page draggable grid origin with grid axis scaling and angle adjustment
• Snap grid to object angles to reconstruct useful grids from finished artworks or sketches
• Snapping and constraining axis (for desktop only)
• User-definable axis subdivisions for intermediate angles (for desktop only)
• Change grid colour and opacity
• Snap to standard and custom grids for accurate designing
• Presets for Grid & Axis Manager or save your own grid

Selecting, Aligning and Distributing

• Drag-over marquee selection
• Easy selection of overlapped and grouped objects
• Select multiple objects by type, colour, stroke weight, transparency, and more
• Align to left, centre, right, top, middle, bottom
• Works to selection bounds, spread (artboard), margins, first/last selected
• Automatically distribute objects horizontally or vertically
• Distribute to your choice of spacing
• Alignment handles for precise alignment of a selection to a position on page
• Change object Z-order

Transforms

• Accurately position and scale objects to specific values
• Use functions like +50% to scale objects (for desktop only)
• Apply transforms about an anchor point selected in the Transform panel
• Rotate using dedicated lollipop handle
• Set a custom centre of rotation
• Reposition objects by their custom transform origin
• Skew using on-screen controls or the Transform panel
• Flip objects with handy buttons
• Point Transform Tool scales and rotates about a chosen point
• Transform selected objects separately

Assets for easy access to stored design elements

• Dedicated panel for asset storage
• Store any object to a custom subcategory
• Import/export assets

Styles

• Save combinations of fill, line and effects settings for reuse
• Apply styles for design consistency, e.g. your favourite letterpress
• Optionally scale styles with objects
• Search for styles by style name

Embed and Place Artwork

• Embed PSDs, Affinity Designer files and others as part of larger designs
• Double-click to open and edit embedded designs and PSDs
• Place regular artwork and edit in-situ as normal
• Use embedded document’s artboards selectively
• Maintain embedded contents as vectors on export

Program Defaults

• Apply your preferred object settings as defaults

Work the Way You Want

• Tailor tool behaviours and UI settings in Preferences
• Zoom, select, nudge and more the way you like

Snapping

• Better snapping performance with complex geometries
• Snap to grids, guides, canvas edges, margins, gaps and more
• Tailor for different use cases or choose task-based presets
• Force Pixel Alignment snapping option for UI and web design
• Snapping candidate control (last six selected or layer based)
• Dynamic alignment works smoothly on snapping candidates
• Save favourite snapping settings as new presets (for desktop only)
• Snap to pixel selection bounds

Ruler, Ruler Guides and Column Guides

• Switch on vertical/horizontal rulers that use document measurement units (for desktop only)
• Create guides in any measurement unit or by percentage
• Spread origin repositioned from ruler intersection
• Multi-column guide support
• Customisable bleed and margin colours

Misc Design Aids

• Inter-object measurement guides
• Clip to page/artboard canvas

Live Pixel and Outline Views

• See in standard and retina qualities in Pixel view—while still editing
• Wireframe Outline view distils your shapes and line art

Live Split Screen

• Split the screen to show Regular and Pixel or Outline views together, live
• Drag the splitter across your design in real time
• Continue designing, the view is totally live

Switch Views

• Save favourite view settings in the Navigator Panel
• Quickly switch from one part of a document to another at different zoom

Multiple Views (for desktop only)

• See the same design, live, with different pan, zoom, or view modes
• Work on objects close up separately from the parent design
• Work on website and UI elements as part of a larger mock-up

Canvas Rotation

• Rotate the page like you would when using paper to sketch
• Maps to popular graphics tablet and keyboard controls (for desktop only)
• Disable canvas rotation to prevent accidental use
• Rotate document view (canvas) with ⌘/Ctrl+mouse scroll wheel

Apply Raster Techniques to Vector Art

• Switch to the Pixel persona, select a brush, and start shading or texturing
• Finesse artwork with Dodge, Burn, Smudge and Sharpen brush tools
• See a live preview at the brush tip before you apply your stroke (for desktop only)

Pixel Selections

• Isolate parts of your design to constrain raster retouching
• Use regular shapes, pixel-width regions, freehand lasso, and selection brush
• Select regions based on colour and tonal ranges
• Grow, shrink, feather, smooth and outline selections

‘Magic Wand’ Selection Brush

• Create selections quickly using a smart selection brush
• Automatically grow regions to detected edges, whether raster or vector

Refine Selections

• Select fine detail like hair and fur with advanced refining
• Set refinement border width, smoothness, mode, and feather size
• Output refinement as a selection, mask, new layer, or new layer with mask

Add External Content to Your Designs

• Stock Panel to access free and royalty-free image resources
• Place content and scale non-destructively
• Treat images as objects or as pixel-based layers
• Multi-file placement click-by-click (for desktop only)
• Linked resources (for desktop only)
• DPI/scaling control for placed images and documents (for desktop only)
• PDF passthrough for absolute output fidelity (for desktop only)

Packaging (for desktop only)

• Share projects easily
• Original document remains unaffected
• Include fonts and linked images
• Show restricted fonts on package opening

Resource Management

• Missing resource alert on document load
• Linked/embedded placed image policy at document setup
• Dedicated Resource Manager for image/document management
• Display placed image (or document) status
• Convert resources from embedded to linked (and vice versa)
• Recursive resource links are honoured
• Collect linked resource into a ‘sidecar’ folder for project portability
• Relink multiple missing ‘same folder’ images in one operation

Pro Font Support

• Create elegant text with OpenType, Type 1, and True Type fonts
• Use advanced OpenType features including Ligatures
• Insert placeholder text while constructing designs
• Insert special characters and symbols
• Copy and paste style between objects
• Font fallbacks

Live Font Previews

• Fonts are previewed instantly while creating or customising text
• Access fonts by collection for efficiency (for desktop only)
• Browse recent, used or your favourite fonts (for desktop only)

Live OpenType Feature Previews

• Typography Panel shows live feature previews
• Easily select the right Stylistic Set every time
• Preview Ligatures, Contextual Alternates, Swashes and more

Glyph Browser

• Quickly insert special characters into your text
• Display in glyph or Unicode order
• Filter by font subset, e.g. cyrillic
• Search for phrase, glyph value or Unicode value

Character and Paragraph Panels

• Style text with on-screen panels you can dock, move, and resize
• Adjust kerning, tracking, shear, baseline and other character attributes
• Easily set leading, indents, tab stops and justification
• Optical character alignment (hanging punctuation)
• Comprehensive bullets and numbering (for desktop only)

Art and Frame Text

• Adding scalable art text is perfect for quick headlines and callouts
• Add body text to designs using frames as containers
• Create containers of any shape
• Control alignment, justification, character and paragraph settings
• Optionally scale text content when scaling the parent text frame
• Vertically align frame text
• Fit text frame to contained text
• Live spell checking

Text-on-a-Path

• Type text along a custom curve or shape
• Control start and end points
• Set text on both or either side of lines
• Convert shapes to text paths
• Control all the normal text attributes including baseline

Text Styles

• Ensure text appears consistent
• Apply character and paragraph styles
• Easily update styles cross-document
• Design from scratch or from text selection
• Style hierarchies
• Style groups

Professional Colour

• CMYK professional workflows
• RGB, RGB Hex, LAB, CMYK and Greyscale colour models
• PANTONE^® colour swatches
• ICC colour management profiles supported
• Seamlessly jump between colour modes
• Lock to prevent colour mode switching (for desktop only)

Pantone^® Colour Matching

• PANTONE^® Goe^™
• PANTONE^® GoeBridge^™
• PANTONE^®+ Formula Guide Solid (V2)
• PANTONE^®+ CMYK
• PANTONE^®+ Color Bridge (V2)
• PANTONE^®+ Metallic, Neon, and Pastels
• Coated and uncoated variants

PSD Support

• Accurate opening/saving of Adobe® Photoshop® PSD files
• Open very large PSB files
• Maintain layers, groups, gradients, blend modes, paths, masks and more
• PSD flattened image representation

Open Files from Other Apps

• Open PDFs, Adobe^® Illustrator^® files containing a PDF stream
• Edit objects in their native form—shapes, text, images
• SVG and EPS supported for vector designs
• Illustrator objects, groups and effects maintained where possible
• Open and edit Adobe^® FreeHand^® files (versions 9-11)

PDF and PDF/X compatible

• Save designs as PDF for sharing
• Edit and save PDFs for round-trip app compatibility
• PDF passthrough for absolute display/output fidelity
• Create and edit CMYK PDF/X files for pro printing
• Compatible with PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, and PDF/X-4

Professional Printing

• Full CMYK handling and ICC profiles
• Spot colours (for desktop only)
• Overprint controls (for desktop only)
• Trim, bleed and crop marks
• Bleed preview

Open and Save SVG and EPS

• Open, edit, and output industry standard EPS and SVG files

Smart Colour Picker

• Dedicated Tool for Designer and Pixel Persona
• Accurately pick colour using a magnifier over any part of your display
• Point or colour averaged sampling
• Sample from current or all layers
• Grab in the source colour space including CMYK, RGB and LAB colour
• Simple panel-based Colour Picker as alternative

Palettes and Swatches

• Use colours and palettes based on all the available colour models
• Automatically create palettes based on document colours
• Import Adobe® Swatch Exchange (.ase) files
• Display palettes created in other apps using Apple System Colour Palettes (desktop macOS only)
• Create complementary, analogous and other colour chords
• Generate palette from any image (for desktop only)

Global Colours (for desktop only)

• Update objects in your document when their base colour changes
• Tint levels are retained when base colour updates
• Use as solid colours or in gradients

Advanced Rendering

• Blend ranges (Blend options)
• Per-object gamma blending
• Per-object hierarchical antialiasing
• Use some adjustments across colour modes
• Live wireframe and pixel views
• Split screen views

Full Open or Import List

• Adobe^® Photoshop^® PSD
• Adobe^® Photoshop^® PSB
• Adobe^® Illustrator^® AI (containing PDF stream)
• PDF
• SVG
• EPS
• Adobe^® FreeHand^® (versions 9 to 11)
• PNG
• TIFF
• JPG
• GIF
• EXR (Open EXR)
• HDR (Radiance)
• Affinity Photo native file
• Affinity Publisher native file (includes page navigation)
• Extensive RAW import library (auto-process on import)
• DNG
• HEIF with depth map (as separate layer)

Full Save or Export List

• Affinity template (.aftemplate)
• Adobe^® Photoshop^® PSD
• PDF
• SVG
• EPS
• TIFF
• PNG
• JPG
• GIF
• EXR (Open EXR)
• HDR (Radiance)
• Affinity common file format

Export document

• Export as entire document or current selection
• Exclude background from selection
• Resampling
• File size calculator

Retina @2x/@3x Web and UI Assets

• Output standard and retina resolutions in one go
• Retina versions are auto-named with @2x and @3x suffix
• Create complete icon or sprite sets within one document
• Prototype whole web pages or create individual web graphics
• Deliver UI asset designs easily
• iOS Application/Universal icon presets
• Batch Builder for multi-slice imagesets (Xcode asset JSON) (for desktop only)
• Xcode path templates (for desktop only)
• JSON export for Spine
• Export to absolute sizes (for desktop only)

Export Presets

• Create your own export presets for consistency across projects
• Use popular presets that are supplied with Affinity Designer
• Set your default export format

Slices

• Output individual pages/artboards, objects, groups, layers as slices
• Draw custom slices from scratch or modify from object slices
• Automatically create slices from layer contents
• Auto-name exported files using layer/slice names
• Slice presets for popular image formats and for UI design (for desktop only)
• Apply slice presets to selected slices (for desktop only)
• Multiple export setups, formats and resolutions per slice (for desktop only)
• Hide layer contents during export process
• Exclude layer content from export
• Export at multiple resolutions in one operation (for desktop only)
• Output all slices at once, just one slice, or selected slices
• Export image sizes individually (for desktop only)
• Copy/paste export setups and formats between selected slices (for desktop only)

Advanced Scaling and Resampling

• Optionally scale content when resizing documents
• Mixed format artwork scaled intelligently for highest quality
• Lanczos 3, Bicubic, Bilinear and Nearest Neighbour resampling methods

Efficient Affinity File Format

• Compact and fast native file format
• Fully editable in Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher

16-bits per Channel Support

• 16-bits per channel mode for accurate colour processing
• Works on all supported hardware and macOS versions without limits

Non-Destructive Editing

• Apply to any object, layer, group—whether vector or raster
• See effects, blend modes and adjustments instantly with no lag
• Completely finish designs without switching to another app
• Edit any time—all effects, adjustments, and blend modes are non-destructive
• Set blend modes for strokes, layers, objects, groups, and masks
• Blend modes work on masks and adjustments
• Selectively recolour artwork and designs without laborious reworking

Live Adjustments

• Levels
• White Balance
• HSL (with hue colour ranges and colour picker)
• Recolour
• Black and White
• Brightness and Contrast
• Posterise
• Vibrance
• Exposure
• Shadows/Highlights
• Threshold
• Curves
• Channel Mixer
• Gradient Map (with global colour support)
• Selective Colour
• Colour Balance
• Invert
• Soft Proof
• 3D LUT (3D Look Up Table for complex adjustments)
• Lens Filter
• Split Toning

Live Effects

• Gaussian Blur
• Outer Shadow
• Inner Shadow
• Outer Glow
• Inner Glow
• Outline
• 3D
• Bevel/Emboss
• Colour Overlay
• Gradient Overlay
• Layer Effects (with global colour support)

Live Blend Modes

• Normal
• Darken
• Darker Colour
• Multiply
• Colour Burn
• Linear Burn
• Lighten
• Lighter Colour
• Screen
• Colour Dodge
• Add
• Overlay
• Soft Light
• Hard Light
• Vivid Light
• Pin Light
• Linear Light
• Hard Mix
• Difference
• Exclusion
• Subtract
• Divide
• Hue
• Saturation
• Luminosity
• Colour
• Average
• Negation
• Reflect
• Glow
• Contrast Negate
• Erase

Paint and Design Professionally

• Give curves, lines and outlines a natural weight with graphics tablet support (for desktop only)
• Create paintings at any size, you’re not limited to HD, 4K, 8K etc.
• Use tablet shortcuts and controls to switch tools and control Affinity Designer (for desktop only)
• Control size, pressure, and speed interactivity with live brush settings

Stroke stabilisation

• Enable Stabiliser for super smooth brush strokes
• Rope or Windows mode for different smoothing behaviour

Edit Pressure Profiles

• Add style to lines manually with a built in pressure graph
• Store pressure profiles for reuse

Flexible Vector Brushes

• Natural media vector brushes include watercolour, ink, paint and pastels
• Edit vector brush strokes, pen lines and pencil lines any time
• Separate head, body and tail sections, plus corner treatments
• Change path, weight, colour, fill, pressure gradient, opacity, and blend mode
• Non-pixel aligned head/tail offsets when dragging

High Quality Raster Brushes

• Brushes are responsive and natural, whether painting with a pen, mouse or pad (for desktop only)
• Add easy shading and highlights using a standard pixel brush
• Paint with added depth using photo-quality scalable nozzle textures
• Pick up brush colour as you paint
• On-page brush preview sets width, hardness, nozzle spacing and rotation
• Customise opacity (accumulation), hardness, spacing, flow, shape, rotation, luminosity, and texture scale
• Pressure responsive (Jitter) to above brush properties
• Wet edge support with customizable ramp profiles
• Multi-brushes
• Brush symmetry (up to 32-way) and optional brush mirroring (up to five-way reflections)
• Brushes with multiple nozzle textures can set their own nozzle controller/ramp
• Wet edges and accumulation now on colour brushes/brushes with HSL variance
• Nozzle rotation using left and right arrow keys (before and during stroke application)
• Paint straight strokes constrained to X or Y axis
• Create image brushes from any pixel selection
• Create intensity brushes from any mask’s pixel selection

Custom Brushes

• Create completely custom vector and raster brushes using your own textures
• Choose behaviour for pressure and velocity variance, corners, repeating areas and many other controls

Combine Raster and Vector Art

• Seamlessly mix vector and raster design and art techniques
• Apply blend modes, opacity and colour changes to achieve a perfect finish
• Drag and drop in the Layers Panel to control where and how brushwork is added to your vectors
• Preferences let you fine tune how vector and raster techniques behave
• Resize documents with or without resizing your artwork

Fill and Erase Tools

• Solid colouring regions is simple with a raster flood fill tool
• Create shapes for smooth gradient fills
• Erase selectively without destroying vectors

Incredibly High Quality

• Native vectors and gradients are output at any size with no loss of quality
• Mixed media artwork is intelligently scaled and resampled

OS X/macOS

• Pressure-sensitive graphics tablet and pen
• Force Touch and regular Trackpad
• Touch Bar
• Mac keyboards
• Magic Trackpad and Magic Trackpad 2
• Magic Mouse and Magic Mouse 2
• Generic multi-button and wheel mouse
• Dictation offered by OS X

Windows

• DirectX 11 and Direct 2D rendering with Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP) fallback
• Hardware accelerated for smooth panning/zooming and rendering
• Optimised for Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book (including support for detachable screen)
• Surface Studio with Surface Pen/Surface Dial
• Generic multi-button and wheel mouse
• Wacom (and other WinTab devices) support
• Uses Microsoft Concurrency Runtime to fully utilise/scale across modern CPUs
• High DPI support across multiple monitors