Affinity Photo Vs. Lighroom

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Name
Nick
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi all,

I'm currently using Lightroom 6.6 (I think) paying monthly for that and PS. I've stumbled across Affinity on here and it seems to get good reviews and all for £50!

Can anyone give me the pros and cons of Affinity vs Lightroom? I used to use LR when it was version 1 then I stopped my photography. Now I've gone back to it, I don't recognise it anymore. Seeing as I probably use about 20% of LR, I was thinking I may as well buy Affinity and save some money.

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
Nick
 
I have affinity on a Mac and it's a good application. There are some reports of bugs and slowness in the windows version as this has only recently been released but I'm sure these will be ironed out.

Affinity is a great pixel editor but unfortunately the raw processing is lacking and I would never give up my LR for Affinity.
Best thing to do is download their trial and give it a whirl yourself.
 
There are some reports of bugs and slowness in the windows version as this has only recently been released but I'm sure these will be ironed out.

On my PC, Affinity takes 25 second to open a RAW file where as Photoshop takes 7.5 seconds.
 
I'm using a Mac so hopefully the slow down problems wouldn't present themselves to me
 
Another one here for the slowness of Affinity on Windows.

Everything you do in it takes an age. Opening files, processing files, working out what to use for the processing, exporting to Nik, exporting back from Nik, exporting the finished image back to your source folder.

I'm going to stick with it though :cool:
 
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I use pixlemator on the Mac but do like what i have seen on YT videos for Affinity. Just need to try it before i buy it.

Did download the 10 day trial but did get a chance to try it.
 
As has been said, download the trial. I did, and I liked it. I find it easier to use than Lightroom.
For me, it does exactly what I want it to do, and it's a good price.
I use the Mac version.
 
I have affinity on a Mac and it's a good application.
+1

…download the trial…

Yes, indeed!

Affinity IS a pixel editor with some RAW conversion
capabilities… but IT IS NOT a dedicated RAW con-
verter. In this, LR is a better performer… but by far
not good enough for my photo publishing operation.


I use a dedicated RAW converter and Affinity Photo
as pixel editor. Both choices are based on high end
publishing productions and both are supporting per-
fectly my work.
 
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I. Did a lot a beta testing with affinity. Really upset with the loss of aperture.

In the end went with lightroom A and photoshop
 
Affinity isn't the same product as lightroom, Affinity is photoshop with extras.
 
Lightoom is all about image management (tagging, meta data etc) and a bit of basic PP like cropping and grads. Affinity is a full on photoshop competitor. Feels like we're comparing apples with oranges here.
 
Might be worth trying a few lightroom replacements to see what you get on best with. DXO Optics Pro is a powerful tool designed for RAW processing. On1 Photo RAW is a complete suite (some have problems with it, some find it fine). If paying regularly for Adobe CC is frustrating but you actually like the software and find it useful (and changing to different software will mean losing all your existing 'live' RAW edits from Lightroom) then it might be worth just buying Lightroom outright (or a used copy).
 
I bought Affinity for £29 when it was on offer. I'm unusual in that I have never got on with Lightroom and I tend to use Faststone Image Viewer to look at my images then throw them out to Photoshop Elements with ACR to do the RAW conversion. Affinity is a good replacement for PSE as an editor for the resulting TIFF files - it does a lot more, and importantly for me as I do a lot of astrophotography, it works in 16 bits which PSE largely doesn't. I've not found it particularly slow either. Where it disappoints is the RAW conversion - this is nowhere near as good as ACR, and also the fact that although Affinity claims to support Photoshop plugins, it won't work with the Nik Collection. Awaiting v2.0 and hoping it's better and that it will be a free or cheap upgrade.
 
I have lightroom but don't us it a lot yet, I have a Macbook but use photoshop aswell. Not Used affinity.
 
What do you mean exactly?

Affinity is a photo editing package, Lightroom is a workflow package, in that it does so much more than just editing images, it's much more powerful than just the develop module.

It's a workflow tool, in that it handles everything from importing and organising images to producing final outputs in a number of ways.
It's extensive cataloguing in the library module is impressive. Numerous ways to find images, sort them. Teh map and Book modules are ok, of some use. The print module is really powerful way of exporting images through the use of either inbuilt or custom templates.
 
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changing to different software will mean losing all your existing 'live' RAW edits from Lightroom


Tony, that is true but not if the chosen replacement
is C1 which will read and convert the xmp files!

… even the library should one wish!
 
TIP: If using Capture1 on a mac, and you are using networked storage to an NFS share, use Cifs:\\, not smb:\\ as connection. Cifs uses smb1 protocol, smb uses smb2/3 which apple have messed up since Maverick. If you use SMB it corrupts the Catalogue, corrupts files, crashes Capture1 regularly, is slow...
 
Affinity claims to support Photoshop plugins, it won't work with the Nik Collection. Awaiting v2.0 and hoping it's better and that it will be a free or cheap upgrade.

Have you put the Nik plugin into the plugins folder?

Open the Help section and put 'plugins' into the search box. Using Plugins is the one you want. Follow the instructions under 'To enable untested or potentially unsupported plugins:'
 
I have Infinity for the Mac, bought for £29, as a back up if Adobe get silly with their pricing, but in the mean time I will continue to use Lightroom, which I love, as the complete photo management tool with a little help from some plugins.
 
Have you put the Nik plugin into the plugins folder?

Open the Help section and put 'plugins' into the search box. Using Plugins is the one you want. Follow the instructions under 'To enable untested or potentially unsupported plugins:'
@Harriers9
I've done that, but they still won't work. Any thoughts?
Edit: managed to get it working :)
 
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I have Infinity for the Mac, bought for £29, as a back up if Adobe get silly with their pricing, but in the mean time I will continue to use Lightroom, which I love, as the complete photo management tool with a little help from some plugins.
ditto
 
I bought Affinity at he weekend to go along with my stand alone version of Lightroom. My first impressions are that it looks very capable but not anywhere near as easy to use as LR. However I am going to try to learn it as I go, as I doubt I'll need (or be able) to use anything like it's full capability.
 
Agree in that as a pixel editor it is very good and getting better with each update but as a raw processor its poor compared to ACR.
Its ok but even if you switch to the Apple convertor in the menu that is somewhat better than the default.
 
Well after a short to-and-fro of emails, Serif blame my quad core machine for the slow speed of their program using Window 7. Even though I have explained that PS is twice as fast, miraculously their computers dont have any issues.

Been here before in the early 90's when software companies blame your equipment, only to bring out a patch to fix the issue months after.
 
Hi all,

I'm currently using Lightroom 6.6 (I think) paying monthly for that and PS. I've stumbled across Affinity on here and it seems to get good reviews and all for £50!

Can anyone give me the pros and cons of Affinity vs Lightroom? I used to use LR when it was version 1 then I stopped my photography. Now I've gone back to it, I don't recognise it anymore. Seeing as I probably use about 20% of LR, I was thinking I may as well buy Affinity and save some money.

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
Nick

Are you going to use it for Mac? My colleagues complain it's a bit slow so one of them came back to Lightroom, the other one opted for https://macphun.com/luminar which is a bit more expensive but works fast and smoothly.
 
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