@CLCanadyArts good idea Cassandra! And easy to implement 
āI got a discount for Affinity Designer, but even at $19.99, itās a very worthwhile tool and Iāve barely scratched the surface.
If I knew how to add tags to an existing post, I would definitely tag Affinity Designer. Thank you so much @Adriana-Bergstrom for mentioning this software!
@Erin-Cortese another few questions Erināif my saved file is editable, can the print house easily change the black to whatever color might strike the clientās fancy for scales and/or text? Iām thinking I donāt want to open the color can of worms...
Should I preserve all layers and group them according to visual element or combine/flatten layers so that all features of the scale (finial, center pole, horizontal balance, chains, bowls) and dogs (body, head, paws, shadows) are simplified?
As a person who had to do pre-press work, which made your job easier, more underlying detail or simplified elements? Thanks!
@BichonBistro So is this job officially done now? Is it time to release the balloons and throw confetti? 
@Erin-Cortese 
I wish! There is that minor detail of ādeliverablesā...but at least now itās the tolerable frustrations of a learning curve. Now I am testing what a PDF file exported from Affinity Designer looks like in Adobe Illustrator. I still have a basically unused copy of AI CS5, so at least I have a rough idea of what things look like.
My initial impression is too many layers is error-prone, so thinking I should flatten layers that I donāt want edited: for example, merge the dogās parts (including shadows) before I export as an editable PDFādoes that seem logical?
The export as an editable PDF produced some unexpected output: a missing head 
, thick pen lines for the scale bowl highlights and less than crisp text for āScale & Balanceā when printed (I exported ātext as outlinesā). I am troubleshooting those. I hope I can meet my Aug 5 deadline 
I see some errors in the lack of precision when I joined objects (base of scale with vertical pole, for example) when I print on a larger scale (6x6 inches) so I have some additional cleanup to do.
I think I probably made a mistake creating the initial vector document with defaults (144 dpi, rgb color space, document sized as a 2.5 x 3 business card). The total file size on export is surprisingly small (between 500-900 KILOBYTES), so I am a worried about implications of that, although that is supposedly the reason for vector. I am accustomed to file sizes in the mega-megabytes when I scan watercolors for printing.
I need to make sure I understand unfamiliar export options like resampling and ICC profile options and the impact of exporting as CMYK a file I created as RGB. These are the things I am looking at for the PDF export. I think the SVG, PNG and JPG export options should be easier to decipher.
@CLCanadyArts good idea Cassandra! And easy to implement āI got a discount for Affinity Designer, but even at $19.99, itās a very worthwhile tool and Iāve barely scratched the surface.
If I knew how to add tags to an existing post, I would definitely tag Affinity Designer. Thank you so much @Adriana-Bergstrom for mentioning this software!
