Just downloaded the 10-day trial and worked through the first tutorial. Much more intuitive than Inkscape and way more affordable than Illustrator. (On sale at the moment, too.)
Very cool — thanks for the tip!
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I’ve always sort of wondered what the ratio of Mac to Windows users are Glowforge owners, as well as the same ratio of at least just the regulars on this forum. I’m betting that Windows people are the more prevalent. I’ve never owned or tried Illustrator, so I’d be interested in hearing how Affinity compares…in addition to you mentioning that it’s more intuitive. Yes…the cost was a definite factor in my purchase, too.
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I know that you folks discussing Affinity Design are all Mac users and I’m a Windows user, but I went to their site anyways just to see what it was about, and discovered that they have started a beta program on a Windows version! It’s free to sign up and try it out so that’s what I did; I’ll download it tonight and see what it looks like!
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…there’s also a couple of Linux users. Not many.
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I have a lot of pictures with my toes in them too. Not as nice shoes though. This is a great idea, and I can’t wait to try out with the Glowforge. If your wife likes odd manhole covers, try Nashua, NH. They are triangular.
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Where’s that one?? Its awesome…
I’m surprised people aren’t going OMG thats so horrific, it needs to go because its promoting aligators eating children…
even though it looks like a money bag head on a man
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They can eat all the Bankers and Lawyers they like.
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It is at MetroTech Commons in downtown Brooklyn, near my grandma’s place.
“Alligator” (1996) by sculptor Tom Otterness. The work depicts an alligator emerging from a manhole to bite down on a man with a dollar sign on his head and a mock lamppost crowned with a globe.
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I do this all the time - fuss with Photoshop to enhance contrast, then auto-trace in illustrator and clean up anything that didn’t work. Tony’s much faster at manual tracing so he tends to jump right to that approach. It depends on the source material and what kind of fussing you enjoy more. 
I don’t remember the exact numbers, but Windows and Mac are close, with Windows ahead. Very few Linux users.
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Very cool designs! There are some cool manhole covers there. At one point I’d considered doing some sword hilt designs for coasters, but haven’t gotten around to it yet 
Also, Ikea has cork placemats at 4 for $4 that work very well for laser etching an cutting into coasters. I can get 15 3" coasters out of each sheet usually. I was really surprised how well cork can capture the detail in a laser etch.
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Great to hear @dan! Photoshop has always been my go-to program 
@macphee thanks for the tip about the Ikea cork placemats!! Oh man, that is going to be such an awesome resource.
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This map of Seattle is on the corner of First Avenue and Pine Street (north west corner).
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SPOR… XD… Mr. Lyman Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and so many other wonderful books and short stories wrote about a Kingdom called “Spor” in his book, “The Enchanted Island of Yew.”
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Can’t wait until I get to make a coaster… or anything engraved with one of my photo mandalas: http://ebalance.deviantart.com/art/Green-Mandala-157040837
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I can believe that ! Just doing simple designs and cleaning up fonts in Silhouette software ( adjusting nodes, playing with bezier curves, etc.) is very time consuming, but It can be relaxing as well ( I think) except for the staring at a screen part. It is the most time consuming part of when I sand blast or cut vinyl stickers.
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Agree. Time consuming, but somewhat satisfying and even relaxing. Just spent a good amount of time editing and welding parts for some stick figures that someone wanted customized. No stock figures for a kid who is into soccer and archery.
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I wonder if anyone has done this yet to those manhole covers…
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Those look awesome! What a fun and simple idea.
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Wow. That is cool.
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