Affinity Photo - worth a try

[DavidAllen]

I’m an amateur photographer & photo restorer. I work with photos from 30 to over 100 years old, attempting to return them to something resembling the original print.
I’ve used Photoshop for many years, starting with version 7 right through to the current release. Since it is the industry standard photo editing application I’ve persevered with it but lately I’m becoming increasingly disenchanted.
Over the years it has become bloated and consequently slower to load and perform. There are now so many ‘features’ that I have no use for such as video, 3D, art work, Cloud, Stock photos & I rarely use Lightroom or Bridge.
Some of the features can be better implemented with other, far cheaper, sometimes free applications.
The final straw is the subscription model – renting software grates with me, especially since I’m paying for a load of stuff I neither want nor have use for.
So, I’ve been looking for alternatives & I’ve tried quite a few but until recently I failed to find anything suitable.
Then I discovered Serif‘s Affinity Photo. It’s far cheaper and when you do buy it you own it. If you’re familiar with using PS then there’s not a great learning curve, in fact, many procedures are far easier to perform.
Now in the past I’ve avoided Serif software because it always seemed to me to be of the very basic, bargain-basement variety – maybe I’m wrong about that but that was my view.
However, Affinity Photo is of a totally different order. It’s fast, very fully featured in comparison to PS & in some areas it is better (live blend modes, live adjustment layers & layer effects, PSD format fully supported…). Inpainting is Serif’s version of the Spot Healing & Healing Brush & it’s excellent. Raw editing is as great and, even at this early stage (ver. 1.5) it supports many cameras. There are a number of features (that you can probably do in PS after jumping through several hoops) that in Affinity are only a couple of clicks away.
I downloaded the 10 day trial version & within half that time I was convinced that it gives PS a serious run for it’s money. Support is pretty good with a large amount of short video tutorials and a responsive forum. If like me you’re beginning to feel that Adobe is fast becoming a bit too big for its boots then this certainly worth a try.

[chauncey]

Perhaps you might display a side-by-side comparison between the two programs.

[DavidAllen]

Perhaps you might display a side-by-side comparison between the two programs.

There's a whole pile of videos online under Affinity Photo vs Photoshop - some positive, some negative.

[JohnRostron]

I'm a convert to Affinity Photo for the same reasons as David. So far, there are only a few things I can do in photoshop and not in Affinity (importing from a scanner and auto-exporting files from a stack). It also works with most (but not all) Photoshop plug-ins. For me, it ticks all the boxes.

In the current Digital Camera magazine, in an article on Alternatives to Photoshop, Affinity Photo was awarded five stars and a joint Gold Award as well as best value for money award.

I made a similar comment in a thread in the Post-processing sub-forum (which is where I think this thread belongs).

John