# Affinity Photo vs. Photoshop conversation continued



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 10, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> As a counter perspective, having owned Affinity Photo for many years now and having tried very hard to make it my tool for pretty in-depth photo editing, it is absolutely no replacement for Photoshop for my workflow. It actually doesn't even come close. But, it may be totally sufficient for what you need it to do. But yeah, Adobe is king for a reason (though I applaud Affinity's attempt at creating some competition).



It's fantastic for my workflow, but I'm going to move this post to the off-topic section and hopefully we can continue there - because it's an interesting subject.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 10, 2022)

So. I don't use Affinity Photo for traditional photo editing, I use it for giclée. (Although I have used it for traditional photo editing too, and it was great.)

At this point I haven't wanted to do anything it can't do very easily, and there are lots of features I haven't even exploited yet.

How does it not come close to Photoshop? The one limitation I've found is that neither Topaz Gigapixel AI's nor Canon Pro Print & Layout's plug-ins work in Affinity Photo.

And kings don't charge absurd subscription fees, so that alone disqualifies it. $21 a month?! Go home.


----------



## ALittleNightMusic (Apr 10, 2022)

For me personally, I do mostly landscape / architectural photography and occasionally portraits. The type of features that Photoshop has for that workflow is unmatched IMO - not to mention, I rely on some extensions like Lumenzia, which are not able to run in AP. Also, AP has decided on a number of different workflows from Photoshop for the same concept - but only to be different it seems. If they want to convert Photoshop users, they should have kept notions exactly the same - it makes for a much easier transition.

I pay $10/mo for the Photography plan from Adobe (includes Lightroom, which I find to be a MUCH better RAW processor than what is in Affinity Photo).


----------



## ALittleNightMusic (Apr 10, 2022)

Also should add that Photoshop's community of content / tutorials also makes it an easier tool to use IMO.


----------



## Michael Antrum (Apr 10, 2022)

I shoot Fuji, and I much prefer Capture one over Lightroom - but that’s been the case for most Fuji shooters anyway.

Adobe is good software, but I hate the way they do business.

As for training, I bought the Affinity book from Serif, and found it answered everything I needed to do - it’s excellent.

I am in the graphics industry - large and grand format (up to 5m wide) printers. It’s fun and takes me all over the world. Most people in the sector use Adobe for one of two reasons:

1) To be fully compatible with everyone else.

2) They need plugins that only run on Adobe software.

I am hearing the more and more bureau are adding Affinity workflow due to customer demand….

I also remember when Quark was the industry standard - things can and do change…..


----------



## Jdiggity1 (Apr 10, 2022)

Michael Antrum said:


> I shoot Fuji, and I much prefer Capture one over Lightroom - but that’s been the case for most Fuji shooters anyway.
> 
> Adobe is good software, but I hate the way they do business.
> 
> ...


I'm a relatively recent Fuji convert, yet unfortunately find it difficult to move away from the comfort of Lightroom. But damn... Those Fuji squiggles are really getting to me when processing the RAW files.
I don't suppose there's anything to make the process of switching to Capture One a little easier?

And to be more on-topic, I've also bought into the affinity suite, and just like my Capture One woes, am finding it difficult to make the switch. Though my Photoshop work is mostly to do with GUI designs and graphics, as most photography work is simply done in Lightroom.


----------



## ALittleNightMusic (Apr 10, 2022)

I also have Capture One (I shoot Leica and Sony) - and I do like some of the features, but Lightroom has added a bunch too and coupled with Photoshop, it's a powerful combination. C1 is basically a subscription too though.

Honestly, if Adobe stopped improving PS / LR, a lot of people wouldn't find a need to pay $120 per year, but they keep adding features to keep things ahead. A lot of other apps have tried to enter the space over the years, but so far, most have fallen pretty flat (Luminar's newest version really shot itself in the foot for example). I'm particularly excited to see what Adobe does with the M1 iPads now - Capture One is bringing tethered shooting to iPad, which I've wanted forever. That'll be incredible if Adobe's LR iPad app can do the same.


----------



## Michael Antrum (Apr 10, 2022)

Jdiggity1 said:


> I'm a relatively recent Fuji convert, yet unfortunately find it difficult to move away from the comfort of Lightroom. But damn... Those Fuji squiggles are really getting to me when processing the RAW files.
> I don't suppose there's anything to make the process of switching to Capture One a little easier?
> 
> And to be more on-topic, I've also bought into the affinity suite, and just like my Capture One woes, am finding it difficult to make the switch. Though my Photoshop work is mostly to do with GUI designs and graphics, as most photography work is simply done in Lightroom.


There’s a YouTube channel called Pal2Tech, who has a series of 5 short Capture one training videos. they will let you hit the ground running….


----------



## Jdiggity1 (Apr 10, 2022)

Michael Antrum said:


> There’s a YouTube channel called Pal2Tech, who has a series of 5 short Capture one training videos. they will let you hit the ground running….


Excellent. That guy's already been a valuable resource to me. Thanks!


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 10, 2022)

Has anyone found Topaz Shapen AI to do anything good?

I'm a big fan of Gigapixel AI, and I wanted to like Sharpen AI. But I downloaded the demo, and I haven't been able to. My guess is that it only wants to see certain kinds of pictures.


----------



## ptram (Apr 10, 2022)

I extract details from complex bitmap images, and the Export persona in Affinity Photo convinced me to finally leave Photoshop. The crop tool is also great for precisely isolating parts of a screenshot. And it does everything fast. For my use cases, AfPhoto is much better than Photoshop.

Paolo


----------



## Virtuoso (Apr 10, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> which are not able to run in AP. Also, AP has decided on a number of different workflows from Photoshop


Had to read this a couple of times before I clicked that AP=Affinity Photo, not Adobe Photoshop! We need better acronyms! 

I also haven't been able to beat Photoshop for workflow and feature set. I've been using it since the early 90s though so it's VERY hard to change!

As an all-rounder, I really liked Aperture and was very pissed when Apple just abandoned it. I still haven't migrated about 3 decades of photos over to another app yet because I haven't found one I like that I think I could stick with - I still keep an iMac on Mojave JUST for Aperture. What I particularly like is the asset management side - I find it very easy and fast to search/tag/organize and work on multiple files simultaneously.

I just can't get on with Lightroom. Even though it has a lot of overlap with Photoshop, I hate the UI and I've never clicked with the workflow. I'd love to find something better. I quite like DxO Photolab, but it's very crash-prone. 

I've never tried Capture One - how is the asset management side of things?


----------



## rgames (Apr 10, 2022)

I use the Adobe products for image processing, mostly on timelapse sequences, but am not a fan of them. However, I, too, can't find a good replacement. I moved my video production over to Resolve about a year ago but I still can't escape Adobe for photos.

Adobe's dominance has been baffling to me over the last decade. They're so ripe for losing their #1 spot... and yet nobody is really challenging them, at least not in the stills world.

I think the problem is that competitors waited too long to pitch their wares, so Adobe has too much legacy functionality that competitors will have to match to be competitive. I do think the competitors are closing the gap but it's still pretty wide. Adobe can continue to provide marginal new functionality and it'll still be a while before anybody catches up.

However, the biggest problems I have with Adobe are, in general, pretty basic. Things like selection boxes not showing up and sort functions not working properly. I've done a fair bit of coding in my life and the kinds of bugs I find in Adobe products are ones I'm pretty sure are very basic. I rarely say that for, let's say, Steinberg products. Sure, there are bugs in Steinberg products but the people coding Steinberg products seem to pay some attention to detail so the simple bugs aren't as prevalent as they are in Adobe apps. I think a lot of Adobe bugs are the result of just plain bad programming practices and/or just plain bad programmers.

rgames


----------



## sostenuto (Apr 10, 2022)

Just a sentimental moment to mention _ and appreciate _ Digital Light & Color - Picture Window Pro.
So helpful and affordable for decades. Truly sad the path forward ended some time ago.

PWP 64 v7.0.020 remains great home studio tool yet today. 🙏🏻


----------



## Fidelity (Apr 10, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> For me personally, I do mostly landscape / architectural photography and occasionally portraits. The type of features that Photoshop has for that workflow is unmatched IMO - not to mention, I rely on some extensions like Lumenzia, which are not able to run in AP. Also, AP has decided on a number of different workflows from Photoshop for the same concept - but only to be different it seems. If they want to convert Photoshop users, they should have kept notions exactly the same - it makes for a much easier transition.
> 
> I pay $10/mo for the Photography plan from Adobe (includes Lightroom, which I find to be a MUCH better RAW processor than what is in Affinity Photo).


Lumenzia has been destroying my CC installations for months now. Great plugin, but it just doesn't like me or something...ended up buying the NBP suite on sale (which is closer to original price). But yeah, imagine doing architectural (or even real estate) retouching without those plugins and ezpz frequency separation...no thanks!

And yeah, that LR/PS synergy is huge, especially when you're turning bracketed ambient sets into 32-bit HDR and then blending those layers in with strobed shots. Probably the biggest reason I never fully switched over to C1, either (I have a license for it and only use it for tethering on a tablet, which is basically never).


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 11, 2022)

rgames said:


> I use the Adobe products for image processing, mostly on timelapse sequences, but am not a fan of them. However, I, too, can't find a good replacement.


Have you tried Affinity Photo?

As I said, I didn't know it was a Photoshop replacement when I bought it, but I'm still waiting to hear specifically why people think Photoshop is better!



rgames said:


> Adobe's dominance has been baffling to me over the last decade. They're so ripe for losing their #1 spot... and yet nobody is really challenging them, at least not in the stills world.


Again, have you tried Affinity Photo?


rgames said:


> I think the problem is that competitors waited too long to pitch their wares, so Adobe has too much legacy functionality that competitors will have to match to be competitive. I do think the competitors are closing the gap but it's still pretty wide. Adobe can continue to provide marginal new functionality and it'll still be a while before anybody catches up.


Again again, what specifically does it do that nothing else does? 

I know about plug-ins, and ALNightmusic has said nonspecific things about the workflow, but I still don't know what I'm supposed to be missing!

What makes Photoshop a nonstarter for me is that it's subscription. No way would I walk into a situation where I'm forced to pay whatever they want to continue being able to open my work.


----------



## sostenuto (Apr 11, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Have you tried Affinity Photo?
> 
> As I said, I didn't know it was a Photoshop replacement when I bought it, but I'm still waiting to hear specifically why people think Photoshop is better!
> 
> ...


THX for this ! May be long awaited replacement for Picture Window Pro ! 
Affinity demo just installed and likely order.


----------



## Virtuoso (Apr 11, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> What makes Photoshop a nonstarter for me is that it's subscription. No way would I walk into a situation where I'm forced to pay whatever they want to continue being able to open my work.


Lots of apps can open Photoshop .psd files, including Affinity Photo, so you're not going to be held hostage.

I get the whole not-wanting-subscriptions thing, but for me it's been a godsend. Pre Adobe Cloud, I used to have to pay $2,500 for a single license of Creative Suite which was EITHER Windows or Mac. $5,000 if I wanted both platforms! Now it's $636 a year and you get two platform-agnostic licenses - it pays for itself in half a day.

The $10 Photoshop+Lightroom+Storage plan is a no-brainer.


----------



## alcorey (Apr 11, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Have you tried Affinity Photo?
> 
> As I said, I didn't know it was a Photoshop replacement when I bought it, but I'm still waiting to hear specifically why people think Photoshop is better!
> 
> ...


I agree. I owned a large format Commercial printing company for over 25 years and have used many of the Adobe products along with Pagemaker, Aldus Freehand and Quark Express. We did a lot of scanning and color correction, touchups and compositing in Photoshop throughout our run and I absolutely cannot find a deficiency in Photo thus far that would diminish its usability compared to Photoshop.

I imagine if one digs deep enough or has a peculiar specific usage that they might possibly find a slight deficiency in Photo, but I really feel that would be an isolated case. And SUBSCRIPTIONS SUCK mostly! For $55 you get quite a useful resource in Photo (which you OWN forever)- and also Publisher and Designer.

Just in the trial period for Publisher I whizzed through a 6 page elaborate Italian restaurant menu from scratch without even looking at a tutorial or a manual and was thoroughly impressed with the flow and capabilities. I believe this platform will become THE major competition to Adobe and they know it - why else when I opted to cancel my subscription a few weeks ago did they give me 3 FREE months and $29 a month for the full suite to keep me from fleeing.

Competition is good for the consumer


----------



## ALittleNightMusic (Apr 11, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Have you tried Affinity Photo?
> 
> As I said, I didn't know it was a Photoshop replacement when I bought it, but I'm still waiting to hear specifically why people think Photoshop is better!
> 
> ...


I haven't opened Affinity in a while but I remember their approach to layers and adjustments, clipping masks, and channels was not the same as Photoshop and made things harder for me. Also, without the Photoshop selection workflow with channels (given they don't support plugins) like invert, intersection, etc., making proper luminosity masks was impossible - their little blend range shadow / highlight selection curves were pretty poor in terms of how good the selection was. Also, they don't have anything like a RAW smart object - you have to modify the pixel layer.

Like I said, if you're trying to be a Photoshop competitor, don't try and re-invent the wheel in areas it doesn't need re-inventing. Especially when your approach doesn't bring anything better to the table.

But I'm not trying to convince you - if it works for your workflow, great! I can just tell you it falls short for mine.


----------



## tressie5 (Apr 11, 2022)

I've actually been a long time user of Photoshop and Premiere, and to a lesser extent, After Effects. My new Ryzen SSD laptop (three years old, actually) struggled with the Adobe stuff, so for video I now use PowerDirector and Affinity for photos also because they have a smaller footprint. To be fair, I'm not employed in the graphics industry, though. I create short films (PowerDirector has a sweet renderer) and I use Affinity for text, photo editing, montages, album covers, etc.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 11, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> I haven't opened Affinity in a while but I remember their approach to layers and adjustments, clipping masks, and channels was not the same as Photoshop and made things harder for me. Also, without the Photoshop selection workflow with channels (given they don't support plugins) like invert, intersection, etc., making proper luminosity masks was impossible - their little blend range shadow / highlight selection curves were pretty poor in terms of how good the selection was. Also, they don't have anything like a RAW smart object - you have to modify the pixel layer.
> 
> Like I said, if you're trying to be a Photoshop competitor, don't try and re-invent the wheel in areas it doesn't need re-inventing. Especially when your approach doesn't bring anything better to the table.
> 
> But I'm not trying to convince you - if it works for your workflow, great! I can just tell you it falls short for mine.



Oh, I know you're not trying to convince me, I'm just trying to understand what I'm missing.

As to selection, I'm not sure what you mean. Affinity Photo certainly does let you select color ranges (among many other things, such as sampled colors, tonal ranges, alpha ranges...) it has invert and intersection modes... so I'm confused.

Also, it does support Photoshop plug-ins, just not all of them work - such as the two I would like it to: Gigapixel AI and Canon Pro Print & Layout.

RAW smart objects: I can only guess what those are, but I'm sure I want one.  The truth is that I don't need RAW files most of the time anyway. What I do limits the color range of the original images, although I do create new colors afterward.

Example: turning the seemingly insignificant photo on the left into Modern art:


----------



## Virtuoso (Apr 11, 2022)

Object Selection in Photoshop, coupled with Context-Aware Fill saves me hours! Check out this short video for some of the new stuff in the latest release. Some of the neural filters are like voodoo!


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 11, 2022)

Virtuoso said:


> Lots of apps can open Photoshop .psd files, including Affinity Photo, so you're not going to be held hostage.
> 
> I get the whole not-wanting-subscriptions thing, but for me it's been a godsend. Pre Adobe Cloud, I used to have to pay $2,500 for a single license of Creative Suite which was EITHER Windows or Mac. $5,000 if I wanted both platforms! Now it's $636 a year and you get two platform-agnostic licenses - it pays for itself in half a day.
> 
> The $10 Photoshop+Lightroom+Storage plan is a no-brainer.



I wasn't thinking about being able to open Photoshop files. Good point. Even so, there are going to be features specific to each program that don't translate. But yeah, that is one less objection.

As to the godsend... well sure $636 a year is going to feel soothing if you had to pay $5000 and you're still paying for licenses even after that! The Affinity programs are $55 each, one time.


----------



## Virtuoso (Apr 11, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I wasn't thinking about being able to open Photoshop files.


I was just replying to your comment where you said "No way would I walk into a situation where I'm forced to pay whatever they want to continue being able to open my work."

Maybe I misunderstood what you meant, but generally you're going to be ok opening your work in many photo editing apps - psd, like pdf, is a very common format that most apps can parse.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 11, 2022)

Virtuoso said:


> I was just replying to your comment where you said "No way would I walk into a situation where I'm forced to pay whatever they want to continue being able to open my work."
> 
> Maybe I misunderstood what you meant, but generally you're going to be ok opening your work in many photo editing apps - psd, like pdf, is a very common format that most apps can parse.


Right, and it's a good point. As I said, that's one less objection.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 11, 2022)

Virtuoso said:


> Object Selection in Photoshop, coupled with Context-Aware Fill saves me hours! Check out this short video for some of the new stuff in the latest release. Some of the neural filters are like voodoo!



I didn't watch the video, but Content-aware Fill is called Inpainting in Affinity Photo.

The neural filters... not something I'd use, but cool.


----------



## Virtuoso (Apr 11, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I didn't watch the video, but Content-aware Fill is called Inpainting in Affinity Photo.


Inpainting isn't as nuanced in Affinity. In Photoshop you can define the area you want it to sample from when cloning and (depending on the material of course) it does a really good job without any work required. With Affinity you just get what you get, which can be a bit hit and miss in my experience, with considerable tidy up required.

Don't get me wrong - it's a massive bargain (I paid $25 each for Affinity Photo and Designer!) and I'd love one day to move on from Photoshop. It's just a few years behind where Photoshop is right now. With a single click I can select a whole person and then with another click, remove them from a scene. That used to take tens of minutes with a Wacom tablet, first carefully selecting the subject and then painstakingly painting them out with the clone stamp tool.

A couple of years ago, I produced a product video for Honeywell where the products had crenelated edges (like a medieval castle!) and were white on a white background. There were hundreds of them and they all had to be individually cut out. I nearly wept for joy when the Photoshop object select feature came out the same week! It saved me DAYS of extremely tedious work.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 11, 2022)

I use the Clone Brush for that, but I've only done it once.

But it sounds like we use photo editing software for very different things.

And I just checked - I paid $25 for Affinity Photo. To me it's not a case of "for the price," it's just a great program - although you'd want Photoshop to have more features considering how much it costs!


----------



## ALittleNightMusic (Apr 11, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Oh, I know you're not trying to convince me, I'm just trying to understand what I'm missing.
> 
> As to selection, I'm not sure what you mean. Affinity Photo certainly does let you select color ranges (among many other things, such as sampled colors, tonal ranges, alpha ranges...) it has invert and intersection modes... so I'm confused.
> 
> ...


It doesn't support the plugins I need it to (and it seems for you as well).

Like I said, I haven't used Affinity in a bit of time, but I promise you it does not allow for the same type of selections or luminosity mask building (to the level of control I need) that Photoshop does  I would've stuck with it for longer if it did. Photoshop is a Ferrari - you don't need it to get around, but it sure is nice once you have it.


----------



## ptram (Apr 11, 2022)

Virtuoso said:


> I used to have to pay $2,500 for a single license of Creative Suite which was EITHER Windows or Mac. $5,000 if I wanted both platforms! Now it's $636 a year and you get two platform-agnostic licenses - it pays for itself in half a day.


This was the initial cost of the license. Upgrades of the CS licenses were not cheap, but you were free to only upgrade when the upgrade was worthy.

How fast the cost of a subscription can be repaid by the work depends, obviously, by the type of job, and the country one lives in. I wouldn't for sure have it repaid in half a day, but in several days.

Having the file hostage is a real concern for me. InDesign files can't be read by other programs, and I had to discover that I couldn't export a ToC file from CC to CS, to use the older program to open it. Illustrator files can only be read if they contain a PDF preview, and layers are not preserved.

Also, I really dislike the intrusive behavior of Creative Cloud. Today it asked me access to my Mac's keychain, without explaining what it was going to do. Not nice.

Paolo


----------



## ptram (Apr 11, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> RAW smart objects: I can only guess what those are, but I'm sure I want one.


They are RAW images loaded as "smart objects", that is subject to non-destructive editing.

But aren't all the objects in Affinity Photo "smart objects" by default?

Paolo


----------



## ALittleNightMusic (Apr 11, 2022)

ptram said:


> They are RAW images loaded as "smart objects", that is subject to non-destructive editing.
> 
> But aren't all the objects in Affinity Photo "smart objects" by default?
> 
> Paolo


No, you can't re-access the Develop module with the original RAW. Only the converted pixel layer.


----------



## Wunderhorn (Apr 11, 2022)

From someone who has used Photoshop professionally daily (plus teaching and and as author) since version 2.5 when it did not even have layers yet I do not see any reason to get started with it at this point unless you

• are required to use Photoshop because of its industry standard
• need to use certain plugins that would not run on Affinity
• work on huge files which require to be saved in PSB format (Affinity sadly does not support it)

Anybody else should indeed give Affinity Photo a shot. Yes, I have used it as well. It is perfectly suitable for most tasks.

Adobe on the other hand adds more bugs than features to Photoshop these days and their quality control has gone down the drain since they introduced the subscription model. Plus, Adobe constantly runs questionable server connections in the background which are not disclosed and which I see as a potential privacy offense of the biggest kind. When kindly asking about these server connections the company gets defensive and denies any information. That's all you need to know! Adobe has gone from a software company for creatives to a data harvester and has turned to see their customers as cash cows.


----------



## rgames (Apr 11, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Have you tried Affinity Photo?
> 
> As I said, I didn't know it was a Photoshop replacement when I bought it, but I'm still waiting to hear specifically why people think Photoshop is better!


Honestly I can't recall. It's been a couple years since I tried something else for photo editing and I can't remember what I've tried.

I can remember, however, where I found PS to be better: masking/selections and batch file handling/processing.

It's the file handling that is probably the biggest one for me. Because I do timelapse it's not unusual for me to capture 10,000 images over a couple days. When I process them I usually need to open them up in a raw processor (ACR) and make adjustments then apply those adjustments to thousands of images. Adobe Bridge and ACR certainly struggle with that process but I found them better than doing the same with competing products. Maybe that has changed in recent years. I usually then dump the raw images to TIFF and I found Lightroom to be significantly faster than competing products in that process - like 5x faster. It was a huge difference as of a couple years ago. FYI that's the only reason I use LR - batch conversion. LR is also about 5x faster than Photoshop for reasons I can't explain - from what I can see LR makes better use of multiprocessing then PS. However, I do all my sorting and adjustments in Bridge/ACR because LR is painfully slow in that process.

So that's how I work: sort/rename in Bridge, adjust in ACR then convert in LR. As of last time I checked that process is vastly faster in the Adobe ecosystem than with anything else.

rgames


----------



## Virtuoso (Apr 11, 2022)

ptram said:


> This was the initial cost of the license. Upgrades of the CS licenses were not cheap, but you were free to only upgrade when the upgrade was worthy.


I just checked back - I still have the original boxes! The version upgrade charge was $549 per platform and the full license was actually $2599. Ouch! 


Wunderhorn said:


> Adobe on the other hand adds more bugs than features to Photoshop these days and their quality control has gone down the drain since they introduced the subscription model.


I can't disagree with this. After Effects in particular has been dreadful for the past few years. It consumes a VAST amount of memory but barely uses a single CPU core.


ALittleNightMusic said:


> Photoshop is a Ferrari


It breaks down when you least expect it?


----------



## Fidelity (Apr 11, 2022)

Virtuoso said:


> It breaks down when you least expect it?


THIS ^

Certainly wouldn't be for the speed...it doesn't seem to align images much faster on my 8c/16t @3.8ghz 4800h system than my 4c/8t @2.3ghz 2012 MBP, though I don't know if that isn't because of Adobe's preference for intel systems or just general slowdobe


----------



## ALittleNightMusic (Apr 11, 2022)

Virtuoso said:


> It breaks down when you least expect it?


Speaking from experience? I’ve never had an issue.


----------



## rnb_2 (Apr 11, 2022)

While there are applications that do some things faster than Photoshop, or in a more straightforward way, I don't think there's anything that does everything that Photoshop does. You wouldn't believe the number of industries that use Photoshop for all sorts of esoteric things - I'm a member of Adobe's Photoshop pre-release program, and I'm constantly amazed at the feature requests from some of the other members, and the workflows they use. I don't know if there's any single user that uses more than 10-20% of Photoshop's features, but there isn't a feature there that isn't used by someone.

All that said, if Apple hadn't cancelled Aperture, I probably wouldn't still be using Photoshop, since I'm really primarily interested in Lightroom, and Photoshop just comes along in the $10/month Photography plan. While I always preferred Aperture, I've been using Lightroom since the pre-1.0 days, and I know my way around it well enough that switching to something else now is a bigger headache than it's worth for me, assuming I could even find something that would duplicate all of the features I've gotten used to. While I may not love everything about it, Lightroom's photo ingest > processing > gallery upload workflow is pretty seamless, and its ability to move images back and forth to Photoshop (and other editors) makes it a pretty decent hub for anything I might want to do. Also, I've been geotagging and keywording my photos for coming up on 20 years, and I haven't found anything that works as well as Lightroom as a digital asset manager + image processor combination. Luminar made noises about adding DAM capabilities several years ago and never really got there, and the Photo Mechanic gang now also has a DAM product, but I'd still need something to process my photos for a total cost of <$120/year - nobody has come anywhere close to doing that.

On another level, I'll always have a soft spot for Photoshop, primarily because I lucked into a cheap license and never had to pay full price for it. Back in the mid-90s, I bought an Epson scanner to use with my Commodore Amiga, and it came with a copy of Aldus PhotoStyler, a Photoshop competitor at the time. Fortunately, I kept the PhotoStyler disk, and after Adobe bought Aldus to get PageMaker (long since replaced by InDesign), they offered a Photoshop crossgrade for $150, which I could hardly pass up once Commodore went under and I had to switch to Windows (3.1 at the time - blech!) for the best compatibility with the 3D animation software I was using at the time.

While I'm not a huge fan of Adobe's subscription switch, being in the pre-release program has allowed me to interact with a number of Adobe employees, and they are, without exception, great people to work with. Photoshop has to serve an unbelievable number of different user needs, and taking care of all of them while dragging the codebase into the modern era is not an easy task. Lightroom does a number of things faster than Photoshop because it originated from code that is about two decades newer, when preemptive multitasking was the norm. Getting Photoshop to work efficiently across mutiple cores was a big process, and switching it from a primarily CPU-bound application to one that can use GPU for much of its processing is still ongoing. Adobe is constantly having to hack out large parts of the Photoshop codebase and completely rewrite it, while trying not to break anything that relied on the old code, while also taking that codebase and get it running on tablets, phones, and even the web now.

All that said, if a smaller, buy-it-once application does everything you need to do, more power to you. I'm not one of those "Photoshop keyboard shortcuts are pure muscle memory for me" types, but it is familiar and reasonably comfortable for me after 25+ years, and nothing has given me a compelling reason to switch (even though I have purchased and tried many of the lower-cost competitors, just to give myself options if I need them).


----------



## alcorey (Apr 11, 2022)

I never said any of Adobe's apps were worthless or not "top notch" - on the contrary I still think they're top of the line - BUT - that line is slowly inching ever so much narrower.

My gripe is this - I've had no choice but to subscribe to CC since 2012 - 10 years now at a cost of $52.99 per month ( if your needs required the use of multiple apps - MORE than just Photoshop, you had to get the whole CC package ) and I needed more than just Photoshop.

Outlay over those 10 years for me - $6,300+ dollars - so I'm now very content to pay $165 to OWN the apps from Affinity that replace Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign, and I'll make do with any small deficiencies - (haven't found any yet though) - for that type of savings $$$.

BTW, This is what works for ME - and I was just trying to be helpful by enlightening anyone to what I've found - in the event that it may also be of benefit to them


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 12, 2022)

rgames said:


> Honestly I can't recall. It's been a couple years since I tried something else for photo editing and I can't remember what I've tried.
> 
> I can remember, however, where I found PS to be better: masking/selections and batch file handling/processing.
> 
> ...


Thanks Richard.

Also sounds like an interesting application (timelapse).


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 12, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> It doesn't support the plugins I need it to (and it seems for you as well).



I just export TIFFs and open them in the standalone Gigapixel AI, same with Canon Pro Print & Layout when I go to print.

It would be more convenient if the plug-in versions worked, but it's not a big deal. And this way I have the equivalent of a 2-track master file on my drive.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 12, 2022)

ptram said:


> They are RAW images loaded as "smart objects", that is subject to non-destructive editing.
> 
> But aren't all the objects in Affinity Photo "smart objects" by default?
> 
> Paolo



You can edit destructively or nondestructively, depending on what kind of layers you use. Adjustments are all nondestructive, but you can apply filters either way.

Also, you can open files to Image layers (which means the original is locked) or Pixel layers, in which changes are destructive - although I just duplicate the Pixel layer so the original is intact. That probably uses more storage, but who cares.

Thinking about it, it's going to have to make a duplicate of an Image before you can do anything nondestructive to it anyway.


----------



## ptram (Apr 12, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Thinking about it, it's going to have to make a duplicate of an Image before you can do anything nondestructive to it anyway.


Or, you just rasterize the Image layer.

Paolo


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 12, 2022)

ptram said:


> Or, you just rasterize the Image layer.
> 
> Paolo


Aren't all images (lowercase i) rasterized already by definition?


----------



## ptram (Apr 12, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Aren't all images (lowercase i) rasterized already by definition?


If the layer is shown as "Image", instead of "Pixels" in the Layers pane, I think it is treated as a unique object with limited editing possibilities.

Paolo


----------



## AceAudioHQ (Apr 12, 2022)

I’ve used Photoshop professionally for 20 years, a few years back I bought affinity photo and designer, because I hate subscriptions, and everybody said affinity photo is really good and a Photoshop killer, well it wasn’t. I had to roll back to Photoshop because affinity photo didn’t have some of the features I needed, it was slow to use and terrible to paint with. I have replaced all other programs from Adobe I used to use, switched illustrator to affinity designer (lots of missing features also, but manageable), premiere/after effects to hitfilm, audition to sound forge, bridge to acdsee, but I still have to stick with photoshop


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 12, 2022)

ptram said:


> If the layer is shown as "Image", instead of "Pixels" in the Layers pane, I think it is treated as a unique object with limited editing possibilities.
> 
> Paolo


Right, Images (capital I) are the original files and they can't be changed, so you have to rasterize them to a new layer even though they are pixel (lowercase) images.

I was talking about opening an image as a Pixel layer the normal way and then copying it so you have the original to go back to, vs. what you said - rasterizing an Image file. If there's a difference, I'm not sure what the distinction is.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 12, 2022)

AceAudioHQ said:


> I’ve used Photoshop professionally for 20 years, a few years back I bought affinity photo and designer, because I hate subscriptions, and everybody said affinity photo is really good and a Photoshop killer, well it wasn’t. I had to roll back to Photoshop because affinity photo didn’t have some of the features I needed, it was slow to use and terrible to paint with. I have replaced all other programs from Adobe I used to use, switched illustrator to affinity designer (lots of missing features also, but manageable), premiere/after effects to hitfilm, audition to sound forge, bridge to acdsee, but I still have to stick with photoshop



How is it terrible to paint with and slow to use?

Question, not an argument.


----------



## R10k (Apr 12, 2022)

Jdiggity1 said:


> I'm a relatively recent Fuji convert, yet unfortunately find it difficult to move away from the comfort of Lightroom. But damn... Those Fuji squiggles are really getting to me when processing the RAW files.


When people started talking about this I did a ton of tests between C1 and Lightroom. The watercolour issue (as it's described) seems to be more related to the default sharpening settings upon import than anything. Beyond that, you have the be a serious pixel peeper to notice it. I found C1 rendered colour less accurately than LR (punchier, but less true to what it should've been) and had a terribly slow and clunky workflow. Plus, LR's algorithms for things like highlight recovery are miles beyond C1.

It would be nice to switch away from Adobe, but as far as I see it, Lightroom is still unmatched.


----------



## Daren Audio (Apr 12, 2022)

The aftermarket marketplace with Photoshop & Lightroom is huge for creative artists who sell their plugins, templates, LUTs and presets, etc compared to other alternatives. 

I use both Adobe and Serif Affinity. Photoshop has basic animation features that I use which Affinity doesn't offer.


----------



## R10k (Apr 12, 2022)

Daren Audio said:


> I use both Adobe and Serif Affinity. Photoshop has basic animation features that I use which Affinity doesn't offer.


Yeah, I use both. Affinity stuff is so cheap, they're great tools for the toolbox, even if Adobe apps are your daily drives.


----------



## Jett Hitt (Apr 14, 2022)

Here's a question for some of you photo gurus: Do any of these programs have the ability to extrapolate a better photo from a lower quality image?


----------



## alcorey (Apr 14, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> Here's a question for some of you photo gurus: Do any of these programs have the ability to extrapolate a better photo from a lower quality image?


I use On1 for improving and resizing images (it was Genuine Fractals years ago)






Photo Editing Software | Discover Photography & Picture Editing Software - ON1


Get photo editing software for Mac and Windows from ON1. Our picture editing software offers everything photographers need to organize, edit, and share your photos. Download editing software for photographers at ON1.




www.on1.com


----------



## MartinH. (Apr 14, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> Here's a question for some of you photo gurus: Do any of these programs have the ability to extrapolate a better photo from a lower quality image?








Gigapixel AI


Improve image resolution with deep learning. Join hundreds of thousands of photographers who use Gigapixel AI for printing, cropping, restoration, and more.




www.topazlabs.com


----------



## Jett Hitt (Apr 14, 2022)

From these two replies, I am going to guess that neither the latest Photoshop nor Affinity Photo has this capability?


----------



## AceAudioHQ (Apr 14, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> How is it terrible to paint with and slow to use?


Well, it's been a long time since I used it so I've forgotten most of the specific things, but it had lots of things you could do in photoshop in a single step, but in affinity you could only do them in several steps. It's like they didn't want to copy the way of doing things simply just because that's how it was done in photoshop.

Also lots of bugs with brushes, especially antialiasing and exporting, also all the affinity programs are still so "new", that there are things you simply can't do with them because the features are missing, or, you can do something but it takes considerable amount of time to do, for example in illustrator there is inset path, which is one of the most basic and most used function, which is (or at least was, I don't know the current status) missing completely, and it has been asked for several years by the users. You can just select a shape in illustrator and press inset path and it's done, but you had to do it in several steps in affinity designer, and it wasn't still perfect. The affinity products are completely fine for hobby use, but I would rather shoot myself in the face than use them 8 hours a day.

I was really hoping I could get rid of adobe products but I ended up having to have both installed just to be able to do my job.

Edit. I'd just like to add that they're good products, especially for the price, but they're not quite there yet. Maybe a year or three.


----------



## Daren Audio (Apr 14, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> From these two replies, I am going to guess that neither the latest Photoshop nor Affinity Photo has this capability?



If you have the latest version of Photoshop, try out the Neural Filters (AI based, requires internet connection to work). I've been able to restore poor quality resolutions photographs and even colorize black and white photos from the 1970's for a video slide show.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 14, 2022)

AceAudioHQ said:


> Well, it's been a long time since I used it so I've forgotten most of the specific things, but it had lots of things you could do in photoshop in a single step, but in affinity you could only do them in several steps. It's like they didn't want to copy the way of doing things simply just because that's how it was done in photoshop.
> 
> Also lots of bugs with brushes, especially antialiasing and exporting, also all the affinity programs are still so "new", that there are things you simply can't do with them because the features are missing, or, you can do something but it takes considerable amount of time to do, for example in illustrator there is inset path, which is one of the most basic and most used function, which is (or at least was, I don't know the current status) missing completely, and it has been asked for several years by the users. You can just select a shape in illustrator and press inset path and it's done, but you had to do it in several steps in affinity designer, and it wasn't still perfect. The affinity products are completely fine for hobby use, but I would rather shoot myself in the face than use them 8 hours a day.
> 
> ...



I don't use vector drawing programs, so I have no idea about Illustrator.

But I haven't encountered any of what you're describing in Affinity Photo. Maybe those problems have been fixed since you tried it, and your comment about "not there yet" is based on that? But I don't know.

Also, Affinity Photo has a macro feature to combine steps, but I haven't got that far yet.

My sense from reading these posts is that Photoshop has some unique features that are indispensable for people who need to do a lot of things very quickly. What I do doesn't have any time pressure, so that doesn't apply to me.



Jett Hitt said:


> Here's a question for some of you photo gurus: Do any of these programs have the ability to extrapolate a better photo from a lower quality image?


I'm not a photo guru, but yes, Gigapixel AI does extrapolate. That's not saying it works wonders every time, because it doesn't, but it can do amazing things.

Before and after, zoomed way in on a small part of an image I'm working with right now (obviously I'd also done some other adjustments before the Gigapixel AI version, especially "quantizing" the contrast, but look at the fuzziness).


----------



## AceAudioHQ (Apr 14, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> But I haven't encountered any of what you're describing in Affinity Photo. Maybe those problems have been fixed since you tried it, and your comment about "not there yet" is based on that? But I don't know.
> 
> Also, Affinity Photo has a macro feature to combine steps, but I haven't got that far yet.
> 
> My sense from reading these posts is that Photoshop has some unique features that are indispensable for people who need to do a lot of things very quickly. What I do doesn't have any time pressure, so that doesn't apply to me.


It could well be, I haven't used affinity photo in two years, I have photoshop. But affinity designer was already pretty good when I got it several years ago, I haven't used it in a while but I noticed the missing path offset tool was added last year, It still is missing lots of features that have been requested for years and lots of things can be done but with cumbersome workarounds. If something takes two clicks and you could do it in one, it's just an annoyance.

Photoshop has been developed since 1990 so it's clear they have a huge head start. Last time I used affinity photo, I could kinda do things I wanted to with it, but then when I wanted to export it, it had an antialiasing bug which basically prevented me from completing my work and I had to export it to photoshop in a different format and export it as rasterized from there to finish it. Many people have complained about the same thing that they just can't remove photoshop since affinity photo is not enough.


----------



## Jett Hitt (Apr 14, 2022)

I picked up Gigapixel AI. On some photos, it’s amazing, not all, but some.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 14, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> I picked up Gigapixel AI. On some photos, it’s amazing, not all, but some.


That's been my experience too, as I said.

What I'm curious about is whether anyone has had better luck with AI Sharpen than I have. They show it on portraits and things like bird's eyes, and if that's what I were using it on I might be more impressed. But it does nothing but create weird lines for what I do.


----------



## rnb_2 (Apr 14, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> That's been my experience too, as I said.
> 
> What I'm curious about is whether anyone has had better luck with AI Sharpen than I have. They show it on portraits and things like bird's eyes, and if that's what I were using it on I might be more impressed. But it does nothing but create weird lines for what I do.


I think its AI model is probably working against what you're doing. It's been trained to recognize wildlife, people, trees - recognizable things in the world - and the more you move away from those things, the less predictable the results.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 14, 2022)

rnb_2 said:


> I think its AI model is probably working against what you're doing. It's been trained to recognize wildlife, people, trees - recognizable things in the world - and the more you move away from those things, the less predictable the results.


Could well be. Gigapixel AI has an Art and CG mode (which is what I use 99% of the time), but I guess sharpening is different.


----------



## MartinH. (Apr 15, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> That's been my experience too, as I said.
> 
> What I'm curious about is whether anyone has had better luck with AI Sharpen than I have. They show it on portraits and things like bird's eyes, and if that's what I were using it on I might be more impressed. But it does nothing but create weird lines for what I do.


I only tried sharpen AI once and there it was clearly bugged because it barely did anything and didn't even work on the example images that they advertise with on the store. I reported it as a bug months ago but never checked back to see if they fixed it.


----------



## Daren Audio (Sep 7, 2022)

Just noticed Adobe increased their photography plan (PS & LR) from $9.99 to $19.99/month.
I'm glad I didn't cancel.

_Correction: There's two plans $9.99 and $19.99 plan._


----------



## AceAudioHQ (Sep 7, 2022)

Daren Audio said:


> Just noticed Adobe increased their photography plan (PS & LR) from $9.99 to $19.99/month.
> I'm glad I didn't cancel.


Mine says 12.39€/month. So 9.99+Finnish vat


----------



## rnb_2 (Sep 7, 2022)

Daren Audio said:


> Just noticed Adobe increased their photography plan (PS & LR) from $9.99 to $19.99/month.
> I'm glad I didn't cancel.


There are two different Photography Plans - one is $9.99 and includes 20GB of cloud storage, and the other is $19.99 and includes 1TB of storage. There are differences in the mobile and web apps included (with the cheaper plan including more, oddly) and the 1TB plan doesn't include Premier Rush, but they're otherwise pretty much the same besides the amount of cloud storage included.

If you use Lightroom Classic primarily, the 20GB plan is fine, as the Smart Previews that LrC uploads to the web don't count against your quota. I have over 50k photos in Adobe's cloud, and have used less than 1GB of my 20. The Smart Previews allow you to create online galleries (handy for client approval), and process images on the web or in the Lightroom mobile apps, with changes synced back to Lightroom Classic.


----------



## Daren Audio (Sep 7, 2022)

rnb_2 said:


> There are two different Photography Plans - one is $9.99 and includes 20GB of cloud storage, and the other is $19.99 and includes 1TB of storage. There are differences in the mobile and web apps included (with the cheaper plan including more, oddly) and the 1TB plan doesn't include Premier Rush, but they're otherwise pretty much the same besides the amount of cloud storage included.
> 
> If you use Lightroom Classic primarily, the 20GB plan is fine, as the Smart Previews that LrC uploads to the web don't count against your quota. I have over 50k photos in Adobe's cloud, and have used less than 1GB of my 20. The Smart Previews allow you to create online galleries (handy for client approval), and process images on the web or in the Lightroom mobile apps, with changes synced back to Lightroom Classic.


Thanks for the clarification! If that's the case I may just upgrade to Adobe CC $55/mo and if I don't utilize all the apps, I'll revert back to the Photography Plan $9.99. 

*They sure make a push for the 1TB plan Photography Plan. And hide the 20GB so it doesn't show up first.


----------



## rnb_2 (Sep 7, 2022)

Daren Audio said:


> Thanks for the clarification! If that's the case I may just upgrade to Adobe CC $55/mo and if I don't utilize all the apps, I'll revert back to the Photography Plan $9.99.
> 
> *They sure make a push for the 1TB plan Photography Plan. And hide the 20GB so it doesn't show up first.


Be careful - their terms usually lock you in for a year, and if you cancel early, they'll charge you for ½ the remaining months. If you decide you're not using all of the apps in the first three months, downgrading could cost you $200-300 before you start paying for the new plan.


----------



## Vonk (Sep 7, 2022)

I feel people's preference between Affinity and Adobe is much like their preference for a particular DAW. You can get great results with either, but transiting from a familiar workflow environment feels difficult and disruptive.
I spent the last 20 years of my working life using Photoshop. But when it came to having to cough up for the sub version for myself, well Affinity seemed much better value, provided I was prepared to put in some learning time. The learning curve wasn't hard. The Affinity workbooks are excellent, and there is a fair degree of integration between the Affinity apps. I still have the last Photoshop version from before they went to subscription. I can't remember the last time I used it.
But would I switch DAW? Not effing likely! I'm not saying never, but there would have to be a really perceptual advantage. Or Cubase moving to subscription like Avid.


----------



## Daren Audio (Sep 7, 2022)

rnb_2 said:


> Be careful - their terms usually lock you in for a year, and if you cancel early, they'll charge you for ½ the remaining months. If you decide you're not using all of the apps in the first three months, downgrading could cost you $200-300 before you start paying for the new plan.


Thanks for the heads up warning about the cancellations fees. I'm going to test out Character Animator since they don't have an individual subscription plan for that app by itself.


----------



## rnb_2 (Sep 7, 2022)

Vonk said:


> I feel people's preference between Affinity and Adobe is much like their preference for a particular DAW. You can get great results with either, but transiting from a familiar workflow environment feels difficult and disruptive.
> I spent the last 20 years of my working life using Photoshop. But when it came to having to cough up for the sub version for myself, well Affinity seemed much better value, provided I was prepared to put in some learning time. The learning curve wasn't hard. The Affinity workbooks are excellent, and there is a fair degree of integration between the Affinity apps. I still have the last Photoshop version from before they went to subscription. I can't remember the last time I used it.
> But would I switch DAW? Not effing likely! I'm not saying never, but there would have to be a really perceptual advantage. Or Cubase moving to subscription like Avid.


If Adobe didn't offer the $10 Photography Plan, they might have lost the entire photographer market. I'm honestly surprised they haven't raised the price on that plan yet, but maybe the market is small enough that it wouldn't make enough of a difference to them to justify the pain the photographer community would inflict on them?

Given how much historical work I have inside Lightroom Classic, it's worth the $10/mo to have that plus Photoshop. If they removed Photoshop from the plan, I'd probably be able to switch to something else pretty painlessly - I have Affinity, Acorn, Pixelmator Pro and Photo - but my actual photo catalog with all of my keywords, processing, etc, would be hard to move on from. I honestly preferred Aperture, but we know how that turned out...


----------



## richiebee (Sep 10, 2022)

I use Photoshop in my daily work as a photographer, but I was looking to get out of the Photography Plan for personal work since I don't really do it these days. I bought Affinity Photo hoping it would be good enough. I'm a huge fan of Affinity Designer for some of the design work I do. Alas, I can't make Affinity Photo work for photo editing. I think the Adobe workflow is just too ingrained in me for photo editing, to change. I also take around 35k photos each year, so a DAM is really an organizational requirement. Affinity doesn't cater to that. The Lightroom/Photoshop workflow works wonderfully for me.


----------



## macmac (Sep 10, 2022)

I first bought Photoshop at version 1. I worked for a living using it throughout the years/various versions. I personally stopped upgrading at CC 14 (which is still installed on an old machine), then bought the Affinity trio instead of doing subs. AP is very capable. My only thing is I’m so used to PS that I look to do some things the same way in AP and it can feel awkward sometimes. I think it’s just a matter of getting used to AP.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 13, 2022)

This thread has resurfaced, and I see that I have old stuff posted in it. Without apologizing, what I'm doing now is a lot more advanced - better, to not-humble brag - and I don't want to misrepresent myself in public with anything less than my best. 

"Currents" started out as a quick iPhone picture of a coffee grounds trail in our dishwasher. This is what Affinity Photo (with a couple of weeks' work  ) lets me do:


----------



## Pier (Sep 13, 2022)

Honestly I think 90% of users will be more than happy with Affinity Photo or even Pixelmator Pro.

I agree that Photoshop is the holy grail in terms of features as it does everything (photo editing, design, illustration, etc). Personally I wish Adobe cut back and removed stuff from it. Since CS6 it has become slower and more bloated on every new version. I don't know if it's because of the number of features or neglect or what but I just don't love using any of the Adobe apps anymore as I used to.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 13, 2022)

It depends on what features you use!


----------



## Mistro (Sep 13, 2022)

I wish Adobe had a heart and made perpetual licenses an option. They can still do subscription too. But the only reason I would look at another program is to escape using a subscription for something I do as a hobby mostly. I would rather save up and pay $1500 for a license than rent it. I grew to have such an attitude when it comes to VI plugins I really want for example. Sure that $10/month is tempting to put with my streaming services but what if I don't use it for 2 months as I take a break? Or sometimes I might do a few projects in one month and not the next? That's more "I own a license" kind of behavior. If you use it professionally every day, that's a different story. I'm still on CS6 and I know I'm missing out on a lot of new stuff, but for the most part, it does the job. Since that's the case for me, how would anyone say Afinity compares to CS6?


----------



## Release (Sep 13, 2022)

Like Pier said, for 90% of the people using Affinity Photo, it's absolutely worth it. It's a great app and honestly, Photoshop is complete overkill for most people.

I see people complaining on forums all the time about the pricing of the Adobe Suite. And I get it. But I also understand that these are professional tools, aimed at the ones who can cover the subscription costs with a job or two. Affinity Photo, Pixelmator, GIMP and a host of others fills the needs _exceptionally well_ for the hobbyists and the ones that don't want to pay for subs. There are plenty of great alternatives out there that are more than adequate.... they just don't have the brand name that people feel the need to have. 

I've been a graphic designer for 25 years now and I make a living with the Adobe Suite so it's obviously something I use on a daily basis. If I wasn't though, I'd probably make the move to Affinity and save a ton of cash. I'm still 10 years away from retiring though and until I hang up the freelance work on the side, I'll continue to pay up each year, because my subscription costs are covered and I know the app inside and out.


----------



## Pier (Sep 13, 2022)

For the casual user there's even PhotoPea which works completely in-browser:






Photopea | Online Photo Editor


Photopea Online Photo Editor lets you edit photos, apply effects, filters, add text, crop or resize pictures. Do Online Photo Editing in your browser for free!




www.photopea.com


----------



## richiebee (Sep 14, 2022)

Pier said:


> Honestly I think 90% of users will be more than happy with Affinity Photo or even Pixelmator Pro.
> 
> I agree that Photoshop is the holy grail in terms of features as it does everything (photo editing, design, illustration, etc). Personally I wish Adobe cut back and removed stuff from it. Since CS6 it has become slower and more bloated on every new version. I don't know if it's because of the number of features or neglect or what but I just don't love using any of the Adobe apps anymore as I used to.


Adobe are removing 3D stuff from it, but adding in AI stuff. They have to, to keep up with the phone crowd who don't have the patience to do things as a craft.

It would be nice to be able to add in these plug-ins as optional so that you don't have to load what you don't use. The "labs" at least work this way, so that's something.

I always used Photoshop and Lightroom personally on a Windows machine, and even on modest hardware, it was smooth, quick and never crashed. My work machine is a Mac and it's a whole other story. In fact on my last three Macs it's been glitchy and a little too crash happy. Lightroom crashes lot. Photoshop, not so much but frequently tools stop working, requiring a restart.


----------



## Pier (Sep 14, 2022)

richiebee said:


> It would be nice to be able to add in these plug-ins as optional so that you don't have to load what you don't use. The "labs" at least work this way, so that's something.


That would be awesome. There's so much stuff I don't use in Illustrator and Photoshop.



richiebee said:


> I always used Photoshop and Lightroom personally on a Windows machine, and even on modest hardware, it was smooth, quick and never crashed. My work machine is a Mac and it's a whole other story. In fact on my last three Macs it's been glitchy and a little too crash happy. Lightroom crashes lot. Photoshop, not so much but frequently tools stop working, requiring a restart.


I haven't used Adobe on Windows in like 15 years. Maybe you're right though. In general I find that C++ cross platform apps do generally run smoother on Windows than macOS.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 14, 2022)

Release said:


> Like Pier said, for 90% of the people using Affinity Photo, it's absolutely worth it. It's a great app and honestly, Photoshop is complete overkill for most people.


Or maybe Affinity Photo is overkill for the vast number of Photoshop users, who aren’t professionals.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 14, 2022)

As I said, it depends on what you’re doing. 

Could I do what I do in Photoshop? I don’t know or care!


----------



## FrankUnderwoodd (Jan 2, 2023)

In my first experience with Affinity, I didn't like the interface. So I went back to Photoshop. Photoshop is king, but it's so heavy and so laggy. It needs a lot of RAM, in case you haven't noticed. And you can't like this fact. Sometimes it's worth switching to Lightroom because many tools for my needs are even in the Lightroom mobile app. It's just a pity that the image size is spoiling there. Although I also like to work with https://imgcleaner.com to use this AI to delete objects. One click, and you've done it. But in Photoshop, you need 15 minutes and 3 tools for this. Plus, imgcleaner retains the original quality and size.


----------



## sostenuto (Jan 2, 2023)

FrankUnderwoodd said:


> In my first experience with Affinity, I didn't like the interface. So I went back to Photoshop. Photoshop is king, but it's so heavy and so laggy. It needs a lot of RAM, in case you haven't noticed. And you can't like this fact. Sometimes it's worth switching to Lightroom because many tools for my needs are even in the Lightroom mobile app. It's just a pity that the image size is spoiling there. Although I also like to work with https://imgcleaner.com to use this AI to delete objects. One click, and you've done it. But in Photoshop, you need 15 minutes and 3 tools for this. Plus, imgcleaner retains the original quality and size.


THX for this ! Activity level decreased markedly, yet each image can be very special and valued. 
Still comfortable with Picture Window Pro, for most current needs, but concerned as PWP no longer iporved or supported. Will check imgcleaner.com, in hopes it can replace PWP. 
If not, Affinity may need to suffice. 🤔


----------

