Affinity Photo For WInodws (Beta)

John Young

John Young

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I have used Serif software for years and its always been brilliant. Last year they released Affinity Photo for the Mac and it had rave reviews and won awards. Priced at £39.99 it was amazing value compared to the competition. (see below for full paid for Mac version) chosen by Apple as best Mac app of 2015

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo

Many people (including me) wanted a Windows version and we were promised it was in the works.

Well now it has been released and its FREE while in beta and will most likely be a very good price once released (link below)

https://affinity.serif.com/blog/affinity-photo-for-windows-is-available-now/
 
Downloading mine now :banana:


Nice, its got the HDR. focus stacking and panorama parts too!
 
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Thinking of giving it a go, I am very keen for Photoshop to have a lot more competition.

Can people give feedback here about how they get on with the beta test of this new program?
 
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1st impressions,
not overly impressed, it keeps crashing to start with, sent in lots of reports and I've only used it once for a couple of hours ...
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
Get a mac,
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Last time I went out in a mac I got questioned by the man in black ......
Oh I see not that kind of mac :p

But the whole idea is they are aiming at the windows market,
To me it seems like a cross between lightroom and CS whatever.
I'm happy with CS5 but hate lightroom with a vengeance.
I'll use it a bit more, but I don't see me swapping, even if it is a fraction of the price,
you want quality, you have to pay for it :p
 
CS5 is fine, can't buy that anymore, you now pay rent for CC, which is a thing I'll never do.
I use CS3, but will move to Affinity.

I remember having Photoshop 4 a long time ago and thought nothing could beat that :LOL:
 
Pete B said:
you now pay rent for CC,
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It seems it was "cracked" within 24 hours of being released..
It also seems that the hacks have been taken down..
I've trialled CC its ok, but really nothing more than CS5 that I have, well nothing that I'd use anyway, so no, I can't see me renting it either.
 
First impressions are that its very slow and clunky in operation. Nothing special, poor release
 
Came here to post the link and with a question or 2 :)

1 Cant seem to find pc requirements
2 Once the Beta has finished you have to pay fair enough, do they take money for example if you decide you don't like it, basically do they take your card details up front
 
Bob

1. Click the OP's first link and scroll right to the bottom for the system requirements
2. Play with the Beta, no payment details taken
 
dcash29 said:
Bob

1. Click the OP's first link and scroll right to the bottom for the system requirements
2. Play with the Beta, no payment details taken
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Cheers Dave could not see the system requirements for looking, thank you it is exactly where you said :banghead: thank you for info on payment
 
I installed and tried it last night with a RAW file, and was not impressed. I know I'm very used to Adobe Camera Raw, but it didn't seem very intuitive. I didn't like that you had to activate different sections to do something. :( I also don't like that there seems to be no White Balance presets. :(

I know it is a Beta, but there is a noticeable delay in doing certain things and seeing the image update. I'm not sure about it atm. Interesting to have a look at, but they obviously make it look it look a lot better in their videos, and it needs a lot of work.

I have not had it crash yet, but if I cancel the editing I have been doing, the RAW file changes to look very dull, rather than how it opened up. The original file seems to be untouched, but it gave me a bit of panic the first time.
 
Latest impression. Ridiculous amount of hype for a very disappointing program. Uninstalled.
 
ianp5a said:
Apparently there is a version without the hype.
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I must have missed that memo :D

The idea was sound, but I fear the reality is weak
 
dcash29 said:
Latest impression. Ridiculous amount of hype for a very disappointing program. Uninstalled.
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Perhaps you're expecting to much from a newly released beta.

Whilst the raw editor, even on the Mac version is nothing short of shocking, the pixel editor is very good.m sure the windows version will get there eventually.
 
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ecoleman said:
Perhaps you're expecting to much from a newly released beta.

Whilst the raw editor, even on the Mac version is nothing short of shocking, the pixel editor is very good.m sure the windows version will get there eventually.
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I don't find that an excuse after receiving email upon email informing of the great day. Serif have been in business long enough to understand that a product needs to impress I'm sure.
 
dcash29 said:
I don't find that an excuse after receiving email upon email informing of the great day. Serif have been in business long enough to understand that a product needs to impress I'm sure.
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Ah. There was the hype of which you spoke.
 
Hi Pete you may well call me a moaner, I think I'm someone that has a different opinion to you. Tell me as well as the speed issue is the whole layout going to change from this beta?
 
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Wonderful program. A few crashes in the first fornight, none in the past ten days.
In-house tutorials are short, to the point and informative.
I'd agree it had a shaky start, but expected that from a beta. I think we're on the fourth update and it's massively improved.
 
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Purchase mine £29.99 special offer and I am well chuffed:D
 
Still seems a bit clunky to me, obviously cheaper than CC but ....
 
When you consider that Photoshop CS6 was version 13 and Affinity is version 1.5, it's hardly surprising there are differences.
 
Brian G said:
When you consider that Photoshop CS6 was version 13 and Affinity is version 1.5, it's hardly surprising there are differences.
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I understand it's an early version, but they have had that many versions of Photoshop to study and see what they have to compete with, and from what I have tried it is a bit confusing and poorly designed. They didn't have to copy what Adobe did, but it needs to be laid out better imho. I wish them well though, because Adobe need the competition.
 
redhed17 said:
I understand it's an early version, but they have had that many versions of Photoshop to study and see what they have to compete with, and from what I have tried it is a bit confusing and poorly designed. They didn't have to copy what Adobe did, but it needs to be laid out better imho. I wish them well though, because Adobe need the competition.
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I quite agree about the competition, but as far as "confusing" - it's just different to PS, so things are not necessarily where you expect them to be.
Although Photoshop can do amazing things, the nature of it's evolution means it has finished up with one of the worst User Interfaces of any software I have ever used.
Look what Adobe manged with Lightroom, which has a modern, "from the ground up" UI, and is much more pleasant to use than PS.

ecoleman said:
I find they layout (Mac version) fairly similar to PS. Granted it's not identical but why should it be?
I've neve had a problem finding things.

I find it amazing that people are expecting a PS clone for £30
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Exactly!
Even as a substitute for Lightroom it's still amazing value, and certainly beats "Elements" hands down.
 
Brian G said:
I quite agree about the competition, but as far as "confusing" - it's just different to PS, so things are not necessarily where you expect them to be.
Although Photoshop can do amazing things, the nature of it's evolution means it has finished up with one of the worst User Interfaces of any software I have ever used.
Look what Adobe manged with Lightroom, which has a modern, "from the ground up" UI, and is much more pleasant to use than PS.
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I very rarely use Photoshop itself anymore, mainly the Camera Raw part, which is what I was comparing it to in my mind. I know it doesn't have to be exactly like Photoshop, but I think the Basic section of Camera Raw is a good set up, but Affinity split them up. OK, they don't want to be exactly the same, but you had to choose what you wanted to do, and then additionally switch it on. Why couldn't choosing it make it active. :thinking:

I can't check on anything anymore as the Beta trial has run out, so I have uninstalled it. Like I said, good luck to them, but from my brief time of using it, it is not for me.
 
Is the stacking part of it any good? I have so far been unable to find anything that isn't overly complicated or just clunky as hell
 
Been using this a few weeks now (purchased version) and have to say it's still very slow.

Other things I have noticed are the unsharp mask tool is poor without a really intuitive way of seeing the results. I only ever put a max of 25 on an image in PS and Elements but this seems to give a severe result in Affinity.

I can also crop an image in Develop then open Nik Efex from within the program and it shows as the original full size image. At first I kept trying to get it to open as a crop but then gave up so continued editing full size with Nik and when I sent it back it was cropped?

The other thing is it's inability to open it's own files. I've done a few and saved them as .afphoto (I presume the equivilant of .tiff, .psp and .psd) but it just fails to open with the message that the file is un-supported.
 
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