Are you looking to convert your brushes from Photoshop to Affinity Designer? Well look no further as this tutorial will talk you through the process, step by step. You can also use this tutorial if you want to make a brand new raster brush and/ or just want to know how to make a brush in Affinity Designer.

1. Affinity Designer Export To Photoshop
2. Affinity Designer Vs Photoshop
3. Affinity Designer Vs Photoshop Drawing

Affinity Photo is Photoshop’s fiercest competitor. Some advanced features are missing from Photo that Photoshop has, and vice versa. I think that Affinity Photo is the only professional-level. With a one-time cost of only $49.99 each for Affinity Photo or Affinity Designer, it is gaining momentum with the graphic community. They also have an iPad version for $19.99. They also have an iPad version for $19.99. Nevertheless making use of our system, you can easily match the features of Affinity Designer and Adobe Photoshop CC together with their general rating, respectively as: 8.8 and 9.6 for overall score and 100% and 97% for user satisfaction.

Things to know: Affinity Designer can open most ABR. brush files. However, sometimes .ABR brushes are not compatible in Affinity. This article will show you how to convert non-compatible Photoshop brushes for Affinity.

If your .ABR brush loads as expected in Affinity, you can skip ahead to Step 8: Exporting the brush as an Affinity .AF brush file.

Step 1. Prepare your brush

• Open Adobe Photoshop.
• Create a document with your brush stroke isolated on it. Make sure your brush is black and keep the background transparent.
• Save your brush swatch as a PNG and select the highest quality.

Step 2. Choose the right artboard

In Affinity Designer you have 3 different Personas- Vector, Pixel (aka Raster) and Export. These are located in your top panel and please note, Affinity Designer will always default open in the Vector Persona.

• Open Affinity Designer.
• Click on the icon next to the Affinity Designer logo (Looks like a series of squares) so that you are now working in Pixel Persona.

Step 3. Import your brush.

• Click the options icon in your right side panel that looks like a tower of 4 horizontal lines (this is called a ‘burger menu’), as seen below.
• Select New Intensity Brush. This will then open your computer files.
• Select your brush PNG you prepared in Step 1:.
• Your brush will now appear in brushes panel.

Step 4. Side by side brush test.

This is an optional step but it can be helpful to be able to match up your Affinity brush’s appearance to your original, by comparing them side by side.

• Open Photoshop.
• Create a simple brush stroke with your Photoshop brush and save as a PSD file, PNG or JPG.
• Open Affinity.
• Place your saved brush stroke file in Affinity.
• Draw a brush stroke using your new Affinity brush next it so that you can compare their appearance, and see any differences.

Step 5. Edit your brush.

• Right click on your brush in your ‘Brushes’ tab and select edit brush or double click to open the General editing options.
• Experiment with the sizing, spacing and any other options that you want to get your Affinity-created brush stroke looking as close to your original Photoshop brush as possible.

Tip: Adjusting the spacing is typically a good starting point to ensure your brush behaves as expected, as shown below.

Step 6. Edit your brush dynamics.

Now you are ready to play with the dynamics options of your brush.

• Click on your ‘Dynamics’ editing tab.
• The dynamics settings allow you to adjust things like jitter, rotate, flow and luminosity via the sliders. There is a degree of trial and error required. In the example below, we’re adjusting settings to give a more authentic smokey, chalky appearance.

Step 7. Add Texture to your brush.

It’s time to add texture to your brush.

• Click on your ‘Texture’ editing tab.
• Click ‘Set Texture’.
• Choose the Texture you previously used in your original photoshop brush from your computer files.
• Change your texture Mode if required. For this brush example, we have selected the Nozzle Mode. It adds more of a noisy look throughout the brush.
• Draw a brush stroke next to the original brush you imported previously to compare the two. You can then play around with it further if needed.

Tip: The more you play around, the more comfortable you will get with the different options.

Step 8. Export your brush.

When you’re happy with your brush, you’re ready to export!

• Click the burger menu in your brush panel, as shown below
• Select Export Brushes
• ‘You have now exported your brush as an Affinity .Brush file. Great job!’

Tip: If you would like to export multiple brushes in one go, populate your Brush Category with all of your chosen brushes, and then export using the steps above.

Thank you and good luck with your brush ventures. If you enjoyed this tutorial and have other suggestions for future tutorials, please let us know in the comments below!

It’s been more than three decades since Adobe introduced us to Illustrator. All this time, Illustrator has been the go-to software for vector graphics design.

Ask any expert designer and they’ll tell you how they can’t even think of switching software. Illustrator is now part of their workflow and career. Adobe used this loyalty to their advantage, by converting their software licensing to a subscription plan.

You now have to pay a monthly price to keep using the software. For some people, it’ll still be a great deal. But for others, you’ll likely ask yourself if it’s still a good investment. That’s why you’re here, right?

Affinity Designer is everything that you want a graphic design software to be. Needless to say, it’s the best Illustrator alternative available today.

But, is it powerful enough to provide all the tools you need to do your work? Does it have all the essential features of Illustrator? To answer these questions, we compared Affinity Designer against Adobe Illustrator. Let’s find out which software is best.

What is Adobe Illustrator?

Since it’s initial launch in 1987, Adobe Illustrator came a long way to become the industry-leading software for vector graphics. It’s now used for all types of vector design work from logo design to stationery design, poster design, and much more.

The latest version of Illustrator CC packs quite a lot of amazing features and tools that make it powerful enough to serve all types of creatives from freelance designers to Hollywood movie poster designers and everyone in between.

What is Affinity Designer?

Affinity Designer, initially released in 2014 exclusively on Mac devices, arrived on the Windows platform in 2016 with a promise of a better alternative to Illustrator. It was quite a bold approach to compete with an industry leader such as Adobe with decades of experience. Somehow, Affinity made it possible.

Affinity Designer offers all the essentials you need for vector graphics design and possibly more. One of the reasons it became so successful is not just because of the affordable price, there are even free Illustrator alternatives out there, but because of the quality of the app.

Affinity Designer Vs Adobe Illustrator

Let’s take a closer look at the tools and features offered by both software.

Ease of Use

If you’ve ever gone to any sort of a design school or even learn graphic design online watching tutorials, you’ll notice that they all use Adobe software to teach you the ways of design. That’s mainly because everyone uses Adobe software. But also because of their ease of use.

Adobe Illustrator, on the other hand, has a very complicating user interface. It’s really difficult to find your way around the software without watching some tutorial videos.

The same goes for Affinity Designer. But, it has a simpler user interface than Illustrator. Probably because it lacks some of the more advanced tools offered in Illustrator, like the mesh tool, blend tool, knife tool, and the large collection of filters and effects. They are slated to be added in future updates. But of course, they are non-essential tools you can certainly learn to live without.

Unique Tools

Adobe had decades of research and development to fine-tune all its software, including Illustrator. It’s now a complete package that offers everything you need for any kind of design work. Especially the CC versions are much more advanced than it used to be.

Clearly you can’t expect that same level of tools and functionality with Affinity Designer, which is fairly new in the market. However, the software has a tool palette with all the necessary tools to make it a vector editor suitable for professionals. In a way, Affinity Designer is at a stage where Illustrator was at when the CS5 was released.

Artboards

Artboards quickly became an essential part of Illustrator. It’s especially a useful feature creative designers used to easily organize their work in one place. Illustrator has a dedicated tool for creating artboards on the fly and customizing them to your preference.

Affinity Designer falls short in this area. You have the option to enable artboards when creating a new document. However, the software doesn’t have a dedicated tool or options for better artboard management.

Drawing Pad (Tablet) Support

While vector editing apps aren’t the best option for drawing and artwork creations, many designers still use drawing tables to craft various graphic designs such as logos, typography, and hand-drawn icons.

If drawing pad support is essential for your work, Illustrator is the best choice. Adobe has made sure it supports all popular drawing tablets.

Drawing tablet support in Affinity Designer is still a work in progress. While it works well with popular tablets, many users have expressed their frustrations of tablet compatibility issues on popular forums such as Reddit.

File Types and Compatability

When it comes to supported file types, Affinity Designer is way ahead of Illustrator. Especially because of the shared file type used by Affinity Photo and Designer software. This allows you to easily edit and customize the same file on both software. In addition to all the other popular file formats, the software also supports Adobe Illustrator AI and Photoshop PSD file formats.

Affinity Designer also has a feature called Personas. Which lets you switch between vector and pixel designs. Like for working on shapes and images at the same time. It’s like having Photoshop and Illustrator in the same place.

Needless to say, Illustrator also supports all popular file types. However, having to keep both Photoshop and Illustrator opened at the same time to work on the same file can be frustrating at times.

Pricing Difference

The pricing difference is the main reason why many users lean towards Affinity Designer. It only costs a one-time price of $49. And you get to use the software for the rest of your life and get all future updates for free.

Adobe Illustrator comes as a part of Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. You have to pay $20,99 every month to use just the Illustrator software. It would cost over $250 to use Illustrator for a full year. If you want access to all Adobe software, you have to subscribe to the $52.99 per month plan.

Templates and Resources

You’ll find resources in abundance for Adobe Illustrator. There are thousands of templates, UI kits, icon packs, vector graphics available in various design marketplaces.

Affinity Designer assets and resources can also be found in abundance. But not as much as Illustrator. Since the community is still growing, we’ll surely see more support for the app. On the plus side, all Illustrator files are compatible with Affinity Designer. So you can still use those Illustrator templates in Affinity Designer as well.

Undo Mistakes

If you tend to make a lot of mistakes or prefer to have a backup plan in case something goes wrong, Affinity Designer will have you fully covered. It lets you undo your changes for up to 8,000 times. And it includes history snapshots as well.

Illustrator has a limited amount of Undo’s allowed by default. You can change this in settings.

Clearly, no one would be crazy enough to spend hours clicking the undo button for 8,000 times. But, it’s nice to know you have the option.

Affinity Designer Export To Photoshop

Which Vector Editor is Better?

Affinity Designer Vs Photoshop

Even though we absolutely love everything about Affinity Designer, we still have to award the crown to Adobe Illustrator as the best software in the vector design industry.

In terms of usability, tools, features, community support, development, and overall functionality, Illustrator is still way ahead of all other vector design apps. For professionals, it’s the best app to use and to build a career around it.

However, you can still use Affinity Designer without all those unique traits of Illustrator. It will take some time to get used to the new environment and shortcuts, but Affinity Designer is a great alternative that’s worth giving a try. Especially if you’re new to graphic design, you should get started with Affinity Designer instead of Illustrator.

A free trial is available with all Affinity software. Give them a try to see if it’s worth the investment. And be sure to read our Affinity Photo vs Photoshop comparison as well.

Affinity Designer Templates

Affinity Designer Vs Photoshop Drawing

We're covering the basics of Affinity Designer, helpful tutorials, comparisons with other apps, and the best templates and assets to use.