This is the dedicated thread for reporting and troubleshooting technical problems with the Affinity suite (Photo, Designer, Publisher). Any posts in the main feed that are technical issues or support requests will be removed.
Use this thread for:
Software crashes, freezes, or installation issues.
Bug reports and unexpected behaviour.
Performance problems (e.g., slow rendering, high memory usage).
Error messages and how to resolve them.
Issues with file compatibility (opening/saving) that seem to be software-related.
Before you post, please:
Search the Subreddit: Your issue may have been reported already.
Search the Official Forums: Serif's Affinity Forums are an extensive knowledge base for known issues.
Be Specific: Provide details to help us help you.
Note: This is not an official Canva forum, so support is limited to what your peers can offer.
This thread is for high-level conversation about the Affinity ecosystem. This is the place for discussion about the software, Canva, Serif, and its direction. Posts in the main feed that fall under this meta-discussion will be removed.
Use this thread for:
Thoughts and feelings about the Affinity suite as a whole.
Discussion about Serif, Canva, and general company news/rumours. (Major news announcements will be allowed on the main feed.)
Speculation about the future of the software and new features.
Broader questions about Affinity's place in the design market.
Comparisons with other software (from a strategic, not a "how-to" perspective).
I'm writing a script, where I want to create several adjustment layers, including a gradient map. However, it doesn't appear to be included in the SDK yet ...
Does it go by another name, or is there a workaround?
Augmentor version 1.0 is releasing soon. To celebrate, I am giving away copies to Affinity community members! Details about v1.0 and all the new features can be found in this dev log on itch.io:
Instead of just giving away a fixed number of copies to the first X people who respond, this will be a raffle-style giveaway where 25% of all entries will win a key. This will give more community members the opportunity to enter and win.
● How do you enter?
Just reply to this thread with answers to these 3 questions:
Which Affinity app(s) do you use?
What kind of work do you do with Affinity (e.g. design for advertising, game dev graphics, book publishing, etc.)?
What one thing about Affinity (V1/V2/V3) would you like to add, change, or fix?
That's it. No email submission. No like, share, or subscribe requirement. Just reply here with your responses and you will be included in the giveaway prize pool. The answers don't need to be long, but they do need to be complete and understandable.
● Why these questions? Why the mini-survey?
Nearly all the features in Augmentor originated from community feedback and requests. These questions help me learn more about the Affinity community and what I might be able to contribute. Augmentor has ZERO data collection functions. It doesn't even have automatic updates. I respect your privacy, and I prefer getting feedback from users directly, through the old-fashioned means of conversation.
● How will winners be selected and receive their keys?
When the giveaway submission period closes, usernames of all respondents will be collected and 25% drawn randomly to choose winners. Winners will be contacted individually via Reddit's direct chat feature to receive their keys. Keys will be official itch.io urls in text format. The key must be claimed to an itch.io account (which is free) to access the file downloads.
● How many copies will be given away?
Currently there is no hard cap. However many respondents end up in the prize pool, 25% of them will win a key. If a need for a cap arises, an update will be posted here.
● When does the giveaway submission period close?
The deadline will be Friday, 10-30-2026. I would like as many community members as possible to have the opportunity to enter, including those who are not on this sub every day. As the giveaway progresses, if there is a compelling reason to close submissions sooner, an update will be posted here.
● When will the keys be delivered?
Augmentor v1.0 is scheduled to release on Monday, 11-02-2026. Once the release is live, keys will be sent to the giveaway winners. Depending on volume, this might require multiple days.
● Additional notes:
Response collection, selection, communication, and key delivery will all be done manually (by me). As this is a solo effort, please be patient with the process or any unforeseen challenges that arise.
I reserve the right to remove respondents from eligibility if necessary (such as incomplete or incomprehensible responses). Hopefully this will not be needed.
To receive a key, winners must ensure their Reddit account settings permit receiving direct chat messages from me.
Any idea if this is an affinity or my computer issue?
The preview is not really an issue, if you open the file, it displays fine. But it happened with one generated PDF I sent for print, so it is a major issue.
It also happens with some videos (Instagram and facebook) and images, not necessarily generated in affinity.
I was just wondering, since we got a non-destructive compound shape now, can we also round it?
I cant seem to find the option or it must be hidden somewhere. Thank you very much! :D
Im sorry if this isnt the place to ask this, but im like really new at this and i dont know how to do it. Can someone please teach me how to do it, or any tips about how to search tutorials for this, my english is pretty bad tbh and affinity tutorials in spanish are very few about specific stuff.
Context: First time making calendars, and I have been trying many different ways to make the layout beatiful but quick to edit, tables have been great for it, but sometimes I just want a simple shape with a text centered on it that I can change the background quickly, the sad thing is that once you convert a shape to a shape text, any attempt to change the shape's fill or stroke only happens to the text.
Hi, I’m a marketer, not a graphic designer, whilst I know my way around a bit of graphic design I have never prepared something for print. Only ever really working in digital design (social media etc).
Our company’s main colour is #EF476F but for print I need to use cmyk.
I have set up the affinity document with a 3mm bleed, 300 dpi and cmyk colour. The cmyk that it shows is 0, 88, 38, 0.
This will sound like a very basic question to those who know but will this colour print correctly because when I use an online converter it shows 0, 71.13, 53.97. 6.27 which looks like a completely different colour.
I’m very confused and would really appreciate some help, thank you.
It’s always been interesting to see what happens when you get used to a feature that worked reliably and everything was fine. Then, at some point, the head of the “Improvements” department returns from vacation and says, “I have a brilliant idea: let’s make it so that when you click ‘Add,’ instead of merging the curves into a single object, they’ll be grouped into a ‘Compound’ and become a group, and you won’t be able to add a raster object inside it.” ... Who’s in favor? Let’s vote! As a result, a new feature was introduced... Guys, add is merging — it’s not about creating a new group 😤
I'm struggling to find how to rotation / scale around a custom point. In photoshop you Alt-click on a picture, set a custom point, and then the rotate happens around that.
On affinity I found several OLD source (forum, YT, etc) talking about a "cross/target tool" that allow to do that, but the graphic of such videos is very old. I can't seems to find anything like that in either of the vector/pixel/layout panel.
I'll preface this by saying I'm super frustrated, but hopefully this doesn't come off as too rant-y, it's a genuine hiccup.
I don't like pulling the "Adobe does it this way" when it comes to Affinity because it is a different software and I want to respect that, but sometimes they pull shenanigans like "Slices Studio" that makes me wonder what the thought process was. In what world is it easier to have the only option for exporting multiple artboards be a whole other "studio", as opposed to just having one more drop down in the normal export menu that lets you pick multiple artboards?
I can understand some use-cases for Slices, on bigger or more complicated files it's nice to be able to pick specifics instead of sifting through a drop down menu of a million nondescript artboards. But for WAY MORE NORMAL use cases, such as exporting a few different file variations for logos, it would be SO much nicer to just say "export artboards 1,2, and 4 as SVG", then do it again for the other file types.
By all means, if y'all have some tips or tricks for slices that help the process be smoother, please let me know. It's definitely new to me and Affinity has already been somewhat of a frustrating learning curve.
Also, why is the "select" UI in Slices the eye instead of the layer highlight?? All other software simply uses the eye to show or hide layers, it's very unintuitive for the eye to represent what's selected instead of using the typical layer highlight UI.
While I was setting up the Pen and Node tool workflow tips I shared with you guys a couple of weeks ago, I came across the new "Show curve energy" feature. This is great for fine-tuning vector artwork and a clear step up from Illustrator. Have you tested this and how does it work for you?
If anyone reading still hasn't found this tool, you can activate it in the Pen and Node tools context settings bar, clicking the cog icon and checking the box.
It's somehow hidden in the context menu, look it up, it is worth it!
If you have some experience in design, you've seen curvature combs before, but it's new in vector design apps. Curvature combs are awesome to keep curves under control, spotting any flat spots or breaks that stop them from flowing as smoothly as possible. I won't dive into G2 lines theory, so keep in mind this is especially useful for everyone who struggles with the Pen tool and want to draw natural curves and polished objects or typography.
This new Affinity tool works live and is fully non-destructive while drawing with the Pen and Node tools. However, if you are using quick shapes (ellipse, heart, donut, etc.) or text, the comb lines only pop up after you convert them to curves. I recommend duplicating before moving on. 👍
I played around a bit. I drew a perfect-ish circle with the Pen tool and dragged a perfect ellipse into the artboard. Any differences are almost invisible.
A new book idea: Where is Wooble? :)
I converted the quick shape to curves and toggled the "Show curve energy" checkbox on to compare both objects. Looking at the comb teeth around my Pen tool circle, the wonky bit stands out at once. I hope it's easy to see on the screenshot that step-down in the outer line, above the node.
That step-down in the curve reveals the curve isn't perfect
I had a look at the nodes and handles to find the problem. And there it was, on the right side node. Even though I held shift to keep the handles perfectly at 180º while drawing, the length is wrong. That's the detail that needs fixing.
As I adjusted the handles, the step-down disappeared. If you have Snap active, the node you are editing lights up when the curve is flowing without any visible wobbling.
I had to adjust handle length to fix the curvature
Comparing both objects, it all looks much better after this assisted fine tuning.
I also took a shot at the heart shape, to check how smooth the curves were by default. As you can see below, there are small wobbles on the larger curves before the sharp corner at the bottom.
This allows us to check the curves on built-in or imported shapes. Cool, right?
The fix is the same. Adjust the handles keeping an eye on the comb teeth and outer line. When everything is looking balanced and aligned, you are there!
Honestly, I still think it doesn't replace the squinting and head tilting 100%, but it's valuable help for drawing and tracing with the Pen tool.
It's fun, try this yourself!
If you're reading one of my posts for the first time, I'm Daniel Walter Scott, professional designer, founder and instructor at Bring Your Own Laptop. Hope you are all having fun with Affinity!
I recently discovered G'MIC and added it to Affinity. I find that the incredible number of filters is overwhelming. I'm asking for recommendations for some of the most useful filters. Also, do most Affinity users even use G'MIC?
Just recently, possibly since the last upgrade, I find that when I have the picture frame selected, placing an image opens the dialogue set to default txt.
Obviously this is annoying, and it didn’t used to happen. I see there used to be a problem with this back in 2020: has anyone else had the same problem? As I say, I have the picture frame selected, ready to drop the image into it.
Is anyone else experiencing frequent system-wide freezes with Affinity 3.3.1?
The app keeps freezing my entire PC, forcing me to hard restart my computer. I have already disabled hardware acceleration, but that has not solved the problem.
At this point, Affinity has become practically unusable for me. I cannot work reliably when the entire system freezes so frequently.
Is this a known issue with version 3.3.1? Has anyone found a fix or workaround that actually works?
I'm trying to be a grafic designer, a brand designer. I'm learning how to use affinity design (It's driving me crazy), that's probably not my biggest problem. Is not thaaaan hard. Im looking for some graphic design courses (FREE COURSES ≈/), in Spanish or English idc. I would greatly appreciate any help.
Trying to make the shift from adobe to affinity cause well f*ck adobe but I ive got this one issue thats nagging me. Why does zooming in and out do this to images. This is a admittedly low rez image thay im applying a halftone layer to but why does the program change the look so much when zooming in and out. I get its not actually changing the look but its hard to make design choices when the composition keeps changing.
Ive messed with as many setting as I could find, looked on fourms, and tried everything. Ive never had this problem with adobe and am hoping someone has a fix.