| » Forum Index » Straight photography and off-topic » Topic: Good news about the Affinity app |
|
Posted on 31/10/25 10:37:19 AM |
|
GKB
Magical Montagist Posts: 4079 Reply  |
Good news about the Affinity app
Hi all I have just received this very interesting message from Affinity about their new app that combines Photo, Illustrator and Publisher in one app. All three apps are very powerful and in many ways give Adobe’s products a serious run for the money. And speaking of money the app is completely free. http://youtu.be/UP_TBaKODlw?si=t_NMrxJf6LvfhTOy _________________ Why is it that all the contestants in the ‘Miss Universe’ contest are all from Earth? |
Posted on 31/10/25 11:07:12 AM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5918 Reply  |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
I've been getting announcements about this for a while now. I don't th!nk I am going to have time to look for a week as I am away all next weeK. I am curious. Dedicated apps mean you only learn what you need for what you want. It will be interesting to see if an all in one app makes life simpler or more complicated. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 31/10/25 11:11:41 AM |
|
Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7087 Reply  |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
It’s fantastic for designers, as you can switch between pixel, vector and layout modes all within the same document. Affinity includes access to Canva’s AI tools for £100 a year, but that’s optional; if you don’t use these tools you don’t need to pay for them. The only reason really to buy the subscription is for the Select Subject feature. |
Posted on 31/10/25 1:48:10 PM |
|
Frank
Eager Beaver Posts: 1815 Reply  |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
Haven't looked yet but I received this from Adobe: The price of the Photography plan (20GB) annual, billed monthly plan is changing from CAD $14.81/month to CAD $22.79/month (including applicable GST) on your next renewal date.  |
Posted on 31/10/25 5:32:13 PM |
|
GKB
Magical Montagist Posts: 4079 Reply |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
Frank Affinity Studio is as good as Photoshop and you get their Illustrator and Publisher as well all for the grand sum of C$Zero per month. Yes, there is a learning curve but you have a long Canadian winter coming up⛄️  _________________ Have you ever noticed that all the instruments designed to detect intelligent life are pointing away from the Earth? |
Posted on 01/11/25 11:36:38 AM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5918 Reply |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
BEWARE ABOUT THE WORD FREE! Hi Michael and Others I took a look and downloaded the new app. It looks excellent if you need it. There is no improvement that I can see to the ordinary tools over the last Affinity individual apps but it's neatly rolled into one. Michael, I think you only use AF Photo so you will get the benefit of all the new vector and layout tools if you need them and want to invest time in learning them. But, here's the rub. If you have enabled the machine learning modules in your existing AF Photo then you will be already benefitting from the basic AI selection tools for example. These are not present in the new AF app. If you want any AI assist in the new Affinity you have to buy the whole premium Canva package. It's a lot cheaper than Photoshop but it's still about 110€ a year here. So go for it and find out! ........ but do keep your existing AF Photo installation if you want to keep the AI selection tools but don't want to buy Canva Premium. Well it's "take it or leave it" but don't let your existing installation go. They will have to supply support for the existing apps for a few years. To those of you who might be thinking of transferring from Photoshop be aware it's only free if you want to give up all AI assisted tools. But, if you are ready to pay by linking your Affinity to Canva premium, you get the equivalent of Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign for 110€ a year. I used the Affinity suite for a long time and still do for my few Vector and Publishing needs. It's truly first class. For Photo compositing, which is what I love best, I still prefer Photoshop's tools and will continue to pay for it. Part of that is, of course, old dog and new tricks. I haven't looked into how long, or in what form, but there is a Canva trial subscription available. I might look at that in a couple of weeks when I am back. I am not going to comment personally but this move has been ill received by many in the Affinity forums who see the entire acquisition by Canva as a move to make the large Affinity user base become Canva Premium AI purchasers. Whatever, there is no doubt that the skill based photo compositing and manipulation that has given us such pleasure is on the way out. New young users aren't going to be interested in investing the time to learn when a few prompts can do the job well enough. From their own point of view the Canva acquisition of Affinity makes perfect commercial sense. It could just be that it does for the users too ............... _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 01/11/25 12:05:32 PM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5918 Reply |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
A liitle bit more info ........ Canva free trial is 30 days. You take out a subscription that automatically starts becoming payable after 30 days if not cancelled. 12€ a month or 110€ a year [One year contract) If you are thinking of transferring from PS, Affinity can import psd and psb files, with layers, masks and adjustment layers all preserved, but non compatible filters and smart objects will get flattened. it works most of the time. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 01/11/25 5:55:05 PM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5918 Reply |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
Well apologies everyone. I've given you a bum steer. I've just been into settings and discovered that I can install the machine learning selection module but none of the others. I think this is probably, because it was already there, it had to be left as, in effect, users had already purchased it in good faith. However, attempts to install any of the other modules produces a request to upgrade to Canva Pro. No time to look any further now. I can hopefully learn more by watching tutorials on my iPad during the journey. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 03/11/25 11:07:57 AM |
|
Frank
Eager Beaver Posts: 1815 Reply |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
Question for Mariner - what's your take on this ? I believe you are an Affinity Photo user. |
Posted on 09/11/25 3:39:40 PM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5918 Reply |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
I just spent most of today playing with new Affinity Studio. I was a very early adopter of Affinity Photo but, in the end, went back to Photoshop despite being unhappy about the move to subscription. I am not going to compare Affinity and Photoshop directly. That would be about as useful as the age old Mac versus PC debate. The key to understanding Affinity and Photoshop is that they are incredibly similar and yet different. If you ever think of migrating from Photoshop (or Illustrator) then Affinity is every bit as good and many areas better. The difficulty is that it is so similar that you expect it to work in exactly the same way. Indeed all the underlying principles of layers, masks, filters adjustments are identical. The difficulty is that their implementation is not! Identical operations can have radically different steps to achieve the same thing. Affinity doesn't have smart objects but almost every single operation and filter in Affinity is non destructive and editable so they are far less necessary. Trying the new Affinity has reminded me, firstly, of just how incredibly good it is and, secondly, how incredibly frustrating. Let me say. immediately, that the fault for the second part of that statement is entirely mine. I have used Photoshop, both professionally and for pleasure, for twenty five years now and my mind and muscle memory are Photoshop hard wired. To learn Affinity Photo involves unlearning many of these. It was this that, in the end, made me return to Photoshop. I had quite simply become too old a dog for the new tricks. If you are open and ready to invest some time there is a truly wonderful app waiting for you. It's free so costs nothing to try! Be aware that if you use any of Photoshop's AI assisted tools (except the select tools) you will need to upgrade from the free Affinity to Canva Pro to get the equivalents. I am also curious to hear from Mariner who made the transition some years ago and has far more Affinity experience than me. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 09/11/25 4:16:57 PM |
|
GKB
Magical Montagist Posts: 4079 Reply |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
That pretty much sums it up for me and I continue to use Photoshop CS6; yes CS6! That doesn’t mean I don’t rate Affinity Photo; it is highly capable but, as David says, I am hard-wired to Photoshop … for the moment. The same does not apply to Illustrator. I use Affinity Illustrator for all that kind of work. _________________ Whatever you do in life do it with the enthusiasm of a 4-year old in a Batman suit. |
Posted on 09/11/25 6:48:44 PM |
|
GKB
Magical Montagist Posts: 4079 Reply |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
When Affinity sent me a message about a surprise announcement I had hoped for a competitor to After Effects but, alas, it was not to be. If you’re reading this Affinity …. _________________  |
Posted on 11/11/25 2:12:57 PM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5918 Reply |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
One other caveat: Affinity is very fussy about plugins. If you use plugins then check carefully whether they will work with Affinity. One example is PixelSquid. I think quite a few of us use this. There is no PixelSquid plugin for Affinity. If you have a subscription you can go to the PixelSquid website and pick an image and rotate it on the website page and then download it in that one rotated position to your download folder. But without the plug in you can't rotate in the image as with Photoshop. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 13/11/25 2:55:50 PM |
|
Frank
Eager Beaver Posts: 1815 Reply |
Re: Good news about the Affinity app
Agree, so far I too am hard wired to PS. Funny, I renewed my subscription to PS before the deadline date and it renewed at the old Annual Rate. So i'm here for another year. As David mentioned some of my Plug-Ins would not work with Affinity. I plan to keep Affinity installed of course. |