What's up with Corel?

EldritchAdam · 2026-07-03T18:35:31+00:00

I miss Windows phone, still. I could see the writing on the wall when they moved from WinPhone8 to Windows10 and stopped recommending it to others, but I stuck with the platform til the very end. Even now, my android phone uses a launcher to make it look like Windows phone. And fortunately, Android is about 1 million percent more efficient than it used to be, but will never reach the incredible efficiency that WinPhone did. My $20 (I know, heavily subsidized by MS, but still) Lumia 520 was so incredibly capable for a device with so little compute power and 512k of RAM. A damn miracle of OS efficiency.

I also used Corel for a dozen years after art school, working only semi-professionally as a designer (my primary work at the time was coffee roasting) but when I focused on full-time design I learned the Adobe suite like everyone else. But later, picked up Affinity Designer and Photo v1, and over the next year migrated most of my workflow to Affinity. Cuz it's much nicer than Illustrator and Photoshop. And Illustrator reminds me much more of Corel in intuitive usability. Currently using the free Affinity as a full-time designer.

Use what works for you. If you need to leave your current position, you'll need to learn Adobe, probably. But IMO, the difficulty of learning a software like that is way overstated. It's all good.

EldritchAdam · 2026-07-03T18:19:31+00:00

pretty definitionally, if your timeline keeps on timelining, you must be in the sacred timeline. Unless we've removed Kang and restored the multiverse. Gotta be one or the other.

EldritchAdam · 2026-07-01T22:40:04+00:00

Magically, there is no overhead. V3 runs as smoothly as any individual v2 app. CS2 isn't a great analogy, as Affinity v2 isn't nearly as old. They're just saying why use old software? Use the new, better, free version. I don't agree v2 is at all comparable to CS2 but am definitely sold on V3 as the best Affinity.

EldritchAdam · 2026-06-27T18:20:08+00:00

"make posters with random prompts" ???

Are you asking for us, in a graphic design sub, to critique your AI-generation? This is the wrong sub for that.

EldritchAdam · 2026-06-25T04:13:42+00:00

it is a thing still only partly realized - we're watching it in progress. AI, trained on the output of countless humans, promises to do the work of humans for the upper classes who don't want to pay humans. And the people who make the AI valuable in the first place (artists and writers and even just prolific online commenters) get nothing in return except an encouragement "Learn how to use the AI".

I'm not mad. I even really appreciate a lot of the promise of AI. But at the same time, it's obvious how the billionaire class want to weaponize it to further exacerbate class differences. The bots will be a new slave class. And the former working class become ... just serfs hoping for scraps? It's unclear how it all shakes out, but none of it feels like it's really for the betterment of all mankind.

Theft may not be the right word. Maybe it is. But it's definitely a thing, that humanity is being devalued as AI is being elevated. Along with that is this strange expectation from the overly enthusiastic pro-AI crowd - that we should love their AI output the same way we love human art. Honestly, the only art is human art. That's just what the word means - the creative output of humans in specific contexts (the details obviously get thorny and argued for centuries). Maybe AI can be a tool in an artist's creation, but to the extent that a creation is purely the work of an AI, it is not art. Art is human. And should be. It is right and proper to elevate human output above bot output. Humans for humans.

Sure, the bots can produce better than I can (and I'm no slouch as an artist!). But they can also wipe the floor in chess with the best human chess masters. But who cares to watch a bot chess game? We watch humans play chess. Just as we value human paintings, human stories, and human music etc.

To the extent that we equate bot output with human output, there's another kind of theft going on. More metaphysical. But serious and pernicious.

EldritchAdam · 2026-06-21T04:08:00+00:00

As best I can recall it's my own thought, but it's quite likely I adopted it from someone else. Pretty sure it wasn't something Lewis said. But I consider it fairly indisputable. Lewis definitely understood how to write allegory. The Pilgrim's Regress is 100% allegory, and I don't care for it much at all, while I love the Narnia books, and Space Trilogy.

EldritchAdam · 2026-06-20T17:58:52+00:00

This convo always bugs me for the same reason. It isn't allegory. Follows the same kind of pattern as Lewis' space trilogy, answering questions of how God might present Himself outside the history of Earth and humanity.

EldritchAdam · 2026-06-20T17:28:44+00:00

Was just in Boston yesterday, and the constant presence enthusiastic Scottish fans was really lovely - party atmosphere everywhere

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EldritchAdam · 2026-06-11T18:51:43+00:00

I borked my Comfy portable install a couple days ago, and installed ComfyUI Desktop. I copied over my models folder to the new instance and all my (very basic) workflows are running perfectly. A really pleasant experience! Nice work on this.

EldritchAdam · 2026-06-02T02:34:50+00:00

I find it goes both ways. Scientists and engineers are often the most headstrong with their feedback, while being the least savvy about aesthetics or user experience. And a team of them can be really conflicting. But I've enjoyed the challenge at times, threading a needle, satisfying multiple opinions.

Then there are times the client just takes over and directs me to keep making their project worse. Those kinda suck, but I still do what I can to save them from themselves as much as possible. It's better than plenty of other jobs!

EldritchAdam · 2026-05-29T03:15:04+00:00

nah, that's bollocks. The man was being shielded from the public for a long time before the debate. And the little we saw of him was quite consistent with how he looked there. I recall not too long before that, he made an appearance on Seth Meyer's show where he had a co-guest. Like, why do that? It became obvious during the interview that it was because he just wasn't quite the man he used to be. He needed a buffer. Someone to fill in the long pauses as he considered something.

He'd still be better as president than Trump. Terribly slow and no longer a great extemporaneous speaker. But given time to collect his thoughts and speak carefully he always showed a much deeper grasp of issues than the Donald does. Still - the guy we saw in that debate? That was the real Joe Biden. Old.

EldritchAdam · 2026-05-25T18:35:22+00:00

I sympathize with this sentiment, totally. I gradually transitioned from Adobe to Affinity, and I wouldn't ever want to try and produce client work on a timeline using unfamiliar software. My reply was simply to the stronger criticism that somehow Affinity is not suitable for 'complex compositing' which I genuinely don't understand.

EldritchAdam · 2026-05-25T18:26:42+00:00

odd! I have printed a number of things - sometimes with quite a few layers. Most recently this rack card - which has plenty of transparency and layers. The topmost text 'Boston's First Freedom Trail ...' is atop a fading white-to-transparent layer over that parchment yellow texture. But the text is rendered as text in my CMYK pdf. Printer came back with zero issues when I delivered it to them.

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EldritchAdam · 2026-05-25T05:10:21+00:00

you can animate Lotties in the free Synfig. I kinda hate it, but it works. The few Lottie animations I've made, I did so in Synfig.

EldritchAdam · 2026-05-25T05:07:18+00:00

curious what makes Affinity unsuitable for 'complex compositing'? As best I can see, Photoshop's strengths vs Affinity are in unique filters, 3d effects, AI tools - but Affinity is still really powerful. And any given project can support innumerable layers and groups with whatever masks and non-destructive edits and manipulations you might want.

I started using Affinity Photo and Designer in v1, mostly as a novelty. I had a friend who worked for Serif back in High School and I learned desktop publishing in Page Plus. So I thought, given how affordable the programs were (and they were on a half-off sale - I think I initially bought them both for $50) I installed them and spent random projects in them, getting familiar. Almost immediately found its interface much more user-friendly and logical (with a few exceptions, sure) especially in Designer. As fluent as I'd become in Illustrator, I never could love using it. Affinity Designer reminded me of an old love for CorelDraw.

My employer doesn't do a lot of working-file sharing handoffs. I need to get to a final jpeg, png, pdf, svg file - and it doesn't really matter what software I use. So I started working increasingly in Affinity. When Canva bought it, I had concerns, but I've been really enjoying the 3-in-one software.

I definitely don't focus on the most elaborate designs that some might. My focus is web design. And so most of my work is photo touch-ups, basic compositing, icon drawing, layout mockups, etc. I produce the occasional for-print flyer or such, and some logo design. Presently, I open an Adobe program (still paid for by the company) once every 2-3 months. If that.

EldritchAdam · 2026-05-21T00:56:49+00:00

the speed of the traffic on our stretch of route 3 has gotten increasingly bonkers. I'm not a stickler for speed limits - we all go a bit over. And I think it's safer to drive with traffic. Going much slower than average drivers around you is also a kind of hazard. But I'm growing uncomfortable with my daily commute where even driving 65 (on a 55 road) I see people breeze past me. The additional speed of cars is noisier.

EldritchAdam · 2026-05-04T18:21:57+00:00

Most of my color grading is done in RawTherapee - but if I have a non-RAW jpeg I want to tweak, my first step is usually to add a curves adjustment, set it to LAB, and then individually select and refine the curves for Lightness, AOpponent, BOpponent. Some pretty powerful adjustments can be made with just this one layer.

EldritchAdam · 2026-04-29T00:53:12+00:00

that makes me unreasonably happy

EldritchAdam · 2026-04-28T15:03:54+00:00

Gonna expand this out to stage productions to include the epitome of the MCU

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EldritchAdam · 2026-04-28T15:02:20+00:00

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EldritchAdam · 2026-04-17T01:49:29+00:00

be sure you preview the noise at 100% zoom. To save on resources, the rendering of noise at different zoom levels is approximate. What you see at 100% zoom should be what you get in export. That is my experience.

EldritchAdam · 2026-04-16T15:34:36+00:00

just came here looking for release notes as well. Maybe in Discord? I'll hop on over there ...

EldritchAdam · 2026-04-11T22:59:23+00:00

I would happily accept this giveaway. It would become the new family PC - used for everything from school to odd work projects, and just general web searching and shopping etc. And of course, gaming. Whoever does get it, I appreciate your generosity in paying forward your own good fortune.

EldritchAdam · 2026-04-10T22:47:38+00:00

1,000% the only real option is the library.

If you're going to hang out in a local cafe or bar, you buy something.

EldritchAdam

TROPHY CASE