Affinity Photo for Mac - a (cheaper) alternative to Photoshop

[MaxElmar]

Dear Affinity Photo developers:

It's super cool you made this great Photoshop alternative with CMYK and 16bit editing and all. It looks like a fantastic tool for serious pros or people who can't resist the urge to manipulate the crap out of perfectly good photographs. And people who think they can make a silk purses out of a sow's ears. And graphic artists who need to work with raster files.

However, what most photographers really need is a great Lightroom/Aperture alternative. A very different product. (Especially needed now that Aperture is really dead.) Many photographers figured this out years ago, even if they were dinosaurs like me, and took years to make the change in their workflows.

It is a much larger market. Get on it, and when you are ready, come and take my money.

Again - well done! See you soon - I hope.

 

[willie_901]

Yes, that. And, because there are constant problems with Adobe CC.

• Permissions errors (Mac). Error messages about not being able to save preferences. Error messages when trying to use filters. Errors when trying to open documents....

• Sometimes it just doesn't work. I had an issue when the Adobe registration log servers were down for three days. If you didn't already have a particular app OPEN before the server problem, you couldn't open it. I was unable to
use InDesign or Photoshop for three BUSINESS days. I'm a designer, not a hobbyist, and i had deadlines that were missed.... Inexcusable.

• Updates? Who needs them. They had to get us penned in with this rental system, since there's really no room for most of these apps to improve. Where are they going to go with Photoshop or InDesign or Illustrator? Any features they add now are going to be the kind that might seem 'neat' when they show their demo videos, but you won't use them. So, when no one needs to upgrade, the revenue stream dies. Unless you're a captive. I used to love Adobe, but now they're bastids. Fighting for survival in a sea of pirates, i'm sure, but the current system invites piracy and a search for alternatives. I will have to spend a great deal of time converting all my files to something 'neutral'/other app friendly....

Never, ever had a Permissions problem with the OS X Photography CC versions.

Never, ever had a problem with accessing with the OS X Photography CC version... 100% success.
The value of updates depends a great deal on individual needs. For instance the PS or iOS App and upgrades are useful for me. and I can edit or process (I usually just edit) projects anywhere happen to be.

I could never justify the huge upfront cost and annual upgrade expense. But with the Photography CC monthly fee, it's just a manageableThe value of updates depends a great deal on individual needs. For instance the PS or iOS App and upgrades are useful for me. And I can edit or process (I usually just edit) projects anywhere I happen to be.

I could never justify the huge upfront cost and annual upgrade expense. But with the Photography CC monthly fee, it's just an acceptable business cost. business cost.

What I despise about Adobe is customer support is horrifically bad. In every case I have found it to be useless.

 

[DrTebi]

I have been playing around with Affinity Photo for about two weeks now.

I found it quite capable. And despite it's "Beta", it's very stable, so I encourage you to check it out.

Positive Points worth mentioning:
- It's fast, especially when opening large files like scanned TIFF images.
- It has most of the adjustment layers that PS has.
- It opened my RAW files (Ricoh GXR) and has a nice dedicated workspace for RAW files with plenty of adjustments.
- The interface is well laid out, clean, and practical.
- Healing tools, clone stamp, and in-painting work very well.
- You can save any adjustment layer settings as presets.


Negative Points/Things worth mentioning:
- No image rotation by degrees (e.g. draw a line, rotate by degree...)
- No white/grey/black picker in Levels or Curves.
- Awkward separation of snapshots and history.
- No dedicated color picker.
- Some sliders are missing numbers, e.g. the white balance tool shows no Kelvin numbers.


Biggest problem: No Linux version... oh well, what can I expect. Nevertheless, I will probably buy it for my Macbook. Adobe won't let me use my once purchased educational version of CS5 anymore, and I am absolutely not a subscription guy (no Netflix, no Spotify, not even a cellphone plan!).