CuriousMike
Diamond Member
I've quasi been following Affinity photo for the past year; news of the product has been on DPReview and I've been intrigued by its low cost, no subscription and "photoshop clone"ish attributes.
I've never been a Photoshop user - don't know how to use it... but I know for some of the photos I've wanted to create, having a Photoshop level editor would be necessary.
Example: Compositing two photos; for some of my astrophotography, this would mean taking a very long, lower ISO image of the foreground, and compositing a shorter (no star trails) night sky photo with it.
Affinity had been Mac only up until the last few weeks, and the already low price of $49 is now an introductory low $39.
I watched bits and pieces of some tutorial videos, and it looks like it'll do what I want.
Plus, their version of "content aware clone" seems impressive.
So, I purchased it tonight and did some preliminary recon on it.
My first impressions are:
- This isn't a photo management system like LR is. To be honest, I really only use LR as a RAW editor, so it's not a big loss to me.
- Browsing folders full of RAW files, it takes about 1/4 second per photo to preview. Leaving a folder then returning, the previews are immediate. They must be doing some caching.
- Loading a RAW file is slow. I complain about LR taking 4-5 seconds to load and "settle down"; Affinity is taking at least 5-8 seconds to load a file.
- The flow is different - they sorta separate "raw processing" (what I consider LR) and their "pixel editing" into these items (a program mode) called "personas." I guess it makes sense.
- Shadows/Highlights work differently. The default Shadows/Highlights have a very narrow range of usefulness. If I hadn't read about the Shadow/Highlight *filter* mode, I would have immediately dismissed it as a raw editor. But the shadow/highlight *filter* is very powerful and ... on first blush, provides slightly *more* control than LR.
- Their dehaze is amazeballs. Literally, I would pay the $39 just to run its dehaze.
I haven't had a chance to try their content-aware-fill, but the videos I watched convinced me its very very good.
I'm not sure I'd recommend this to anyone who is already entrenched in the Adobe subscription model or is a Photoshop power user.
I'm not sure it's Photoshop "Elements" friendly enough.
But if you have no raw editor, no pixel level editor and have the stomach to watch a few youtube videos on how to learn this program, it might be the best $39 you can spend.
This is a sappy example that's overdone, but it's an example of what overdone it can overdue.
I've never been a Photoshop user - don't know how to use it... but I know for some of the photos I've wanted to create, having a Photoshop level editor would be necessary.
Example: Compositing two photos; for some of my astrophotography, this would mean taking a very long, lower ISO image of the foreground, and compositing a shorter (no star trails) night sky photo with it.
Affinity had been Mac only up until the last few weeks, and the already low price of $49 is now an introductory low $39.
I watched bits and pieces of some tutorial videos, and it looks like it'll do what I want.
Plus, their version of "content aware clone" seems impressive.
So, I purchased it tonight and did some preliminary recon on it.
My first impressions are:
- This isn't a photo management system like LR is. To be honest, I really only use LR as a RAW editor, so it's not a big loss to me.
- Browsing folders full of RAW files, it takes about 1/4 second per photo to preview. Leaving a folder then returning, the previews are immediate. They must be doing some caching.
- Loading a RAW file is slow. I complain about LR taking 4-5 seconds to load and "settle down"; Affinity is taking at least 5-8 seconds to load a file.
- The flow is different - they sorta separate "raw processing" (what I consider LR) and their "pixel editing" into these items (a program mode) called "personas." I guess it makes sense.
- Shadows/Highlights work differently. The default Shadows/Highlights have a very narrow range of usefulness. If I hadn't read about the Shadow/Highlight *filter* mode, I would have immediately dismissed it as a raw editor. But the shadow/highlight *filter* is very powerful and ... on first blush, provides slightly *more* control than LR.
- Their dehaze is amazeballs. Literally, I would pay the $39 just to run its dehaze.
I haven't had a chance to try their content-aware-fill, but the videos I watched convinced me its very very good.
I'm not sure I'd recommend this to anyone who is already entrenched in the Adobe subscription model or is a Photoshop power user.
I'm not sure it's Photoshop "Elements" friendly enough.
But if you have no raw editor, no pixel level editor and have the stomach to watch a few youtube videos on how to learn this program, it might be the best $39 you can spend.
This is a sappy example that's overdone, but it's an example of what overdone it can overdue.
