Affinity, The Gen AI Academy & Cinematic Zooms

Hello Friend,

Welcome back to the Generative Path, your weekly infusion of AI-powered creativity curated by ZenRobot to keep you ahead of the curve with the latest tools, trends, and techniques.

Introducing The Gen AI Academy! Your subscription-based hub for mastering cutting-edge creative AI. Get weekly hands on lessons, unlimited how to videos and constant updates, everything you need to create standout work and stay ahead. Check it out!

Back to the program… This week is all about creative control at speed. We’re spotlighting Affinity’s relaunch inside Canva, a big shift that puts professional-grade tools, and generative AI features, into the hands of everyone. You’ll learn how to create cinematic zooms in seconds using MidJourney’s new editor trick, meet visual storyteller Kelly Boesch, and explore Niroko Radio for deep focus flow. Let’s dive in.

Feature of the Week: Affinity

Affinity is a free powerhouse creative suite that unites vector design, photo editing, and layout tools in a single, high‑performance app. It’s built for precision, speed, and full creative control, letting designers freely mix and match tools across pixel, vector, and layout workflows. Whether you’re illustrating, retouching, or building complex layouts, Affinity adapts to how you like to work.

Under the new model, core design features remain free, while optional AI tools (like generative fill, expand & edit, and background removal) are unlocked via a Canva Premium subscription. Affinity emphasizes user privacy, stating that your creative files won’t be used to train AI. This move not only makes a professional-grade tool more accessible but also bridges traditional desktop design with Canva’s broader ecosystem.

Creative Hack: MidJourney Cinematic Zoom

This week’s creative hack is all about speed: using MidJourney’s Editor to create a simple two-frame setup that MidJourney Video can turn into a smooth, cinematic zoom-in animation. Here’s how the trick works:

1. Import your main image into MidJourney Editor. This will be your final zoomed-in frame.

2. Create a zoomed-out version. Open Move/Resize and lower the Image Scale. MidJourney will shrink the image and fill the extra space, creating a wider view. This becomes your starting frame.

3. Export both images:

   • Frame 1: Zoomed-out version

   • Frame 2: Original close-up

4. Use MidJourney’s Animation feature and upload both images as keyframes. The tool will generate a smooth zoom-in between them, like a cinematic camera move.

It’s fast. It’s clean. And it gives you professional, cinematic movement with almost no effort. Perfect for reels, music visuals, storytelling beats, or dramatic opening shots.

Community Spotlight: Kelly Boesch

This week, we’re looking at Kelly Boesch, a creator with seventeen years in film production, marketing, and design who brings an AI powered approach to visual storytelling. Working across healthcare, branding, music videos, and digital campaigns, Kelly uses tools like Midjourney, RunwayML, Pika, and the Adobe Creative Suite to craft polished, emotionally focused visuals.

From AI animated music pieces to branded narratives and executive presentations, Kelly blends design craft with emerging technology to push ideas forward and explore new creative possibilities.

This Week’s Flow State: Niroko Radio

Slide into the smooth, atmospheric groove of Niroko  Radio on Spotify. With its mellow beats, warm ambient textures, and understated electronic layers, this playlist creates a relaxed yet focused backdrop perfect for work or quiet moments. Whether you’re deep in thought, sketching ideas, or simply easing into your day, let Niroko’s sound guide you gently forward. Press play and settle into the flow.

New & Noteworthy: Canva Meets Affinity

Affinity is now a part of Canva, it has been relaunched as a single professional-grade app for photo, vector, and layout work, and is now free for all users. It’s a clear signal that the paywall around studio-level design tools is falling, opening high-end creativity to more people.

The shift is reshaping the creative landscape, merging disciplines into one fluid workflow and expanding what’s possible at scale. For AI-enabled creators, it means generative pipelines can plug directly into a full suite of visual tools, making the entire process more seamless, adaptive, and ready for impact.

AI vs. Reality: Can You Tell the Difference?

This week, we’ve got a brand-new pair of images to test your perception again. Think you can tell which is AI-made and which is the real deal? Take your guess and we’ll reveal the answer in the next issue!

Last week, we kicked off our AI vs. Reality face-off with fire, and now for the moment of truth, if you guessed the right one was the real deal, you got it right. The left image was created with MidJourney.

Join the Conversation! AI is constantly evolving, unlocking new creative possibilities every day. What caught your attention this week? Hit reply and let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

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Stay curious,
David and Ross