Photoshop Alternatives - Non Subscription

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487
Name
Roger
Edit My Images
No
I've been a user of Photoshop since about 2002, it's undoubtably a wonderful piece of software, an industry standard, but the subscription model does bug me. I can understand why Adobe moved to this type of business model - it very much favours them, hooking their customers into an annual fee. As a photographer, who's now retired, I do have to watch the pennies, and so I've been taking a look at alternatives.
One that comes up time and time again as probably the best value for money piece of photo editing software on the planet is Affinity - right now you can purchase this for a one off cost of £23.99.(no recurring annual fee). There is also a free trial available.

Having built up to a certain level of competance with Photoshop over the last 19 years I'm a bit reluctant to make the change and have to go through another learning process.
Can anyone with any real experience of using Affinity help me out here? I would love to know what the advantages and disadvantages are in using this application (against Photoshop).

Roger
 
I migrated from PS to Affinity about a year ago, for the same reasons. Affinity is deliberately built to mimic PS (in order to capture some of their customers, I assume) and I found the move smooth and the learning curve was not at all steep. It was intuitive, and there are shedloads of tutorials both on the official You Tube channel, and some excellent ones from some of their ambassadors. I would name Olivio Sarikas as one of the better ones.

As to the advantages and disadvantages, the obvious advantage is the one-off price and the similarity to PS. The only disadvantage I have found is that some operations perhaps take one or two more mouse clicks than the same operation does in PS, but you very quickly forget that. I also had to remember in the start to export images instead of saving them so as not to end up with very large unflattened files :)oops: :confused:) but again, you soon remember these small differences.
 
Affinity is on offer at the moment for £23.99.
It's extremely capable as a pixel level editing program and unbelievable value for money .
However, IMO, the raw conversion is not as versatile/flexible as ACR or Lightroom
 
Has anyone used GIMP for any length of time?

I don't tend to PP mostly because it seems like a lot of effort but is that is a "feature" of GIMP vs the competition?
 
Following this post with interest, I purchased Affinity a couple of years ago but never really used it, as I had a beta version of Photoshop for quite a while, I was watching a tutorial on Affinity just yesterday, and was amazed how good it was, particularly a couple of tools I had never seen in Photoshop, like you I'm reluctant to start a new learning curve, however seeing how similar Affinity is to Photoshop, it may be worth looking into it further, I also have ON1 which again never really used, I reckon that may be good to use as a substitute for Lightroom and Affinity for Photoshop, I hate the catalogue system in lightroom, I've never been able to get to grips with it, and again have read good things about ON1 as a replacement for Lightroom.

I think the price of Affinity is unbelievably cheap for what it offers, I bought it when it was on offer for £30 and thought then it was a no brainer, now it's even cheaper, so well worth it just to try out, the thing I also like about Serif is they offer all their software on 3 months trial, I mean who else does that, I think it shows they have a lot of confidence in their products.
 
Photoshop Elements 2021 isn't a subscription based app and might do all you want it to. Around 75 quid I think (for a disc rather than a download.)
 
Has anyone used GIMP for any length of time?

I don't tend to PP mostly because it seems like a lot of effort but is that is a "feature" of GIMP vs the competition?
I've been using it since the late 90s.

It's not designed for processing images in the way lightroom or darktable is, rather it's a pixel level editor for making major changes. You can process images with it, but it's the wrong tool.
 
I've stuck with Photoshop but mainly because it came with my Lightroom subscription. On a slightly different note, I reluctantly gave up using Premiere Pro as that would be an extra £20 per month subscription on top, so I tried using Davinci Resolve 17 which is free and so far it's been excellent, with many standard tasks implement far better.

I don't mind learning curves as there's usually always a YouTube or web tutorial on anything and everything, so I simply search as I go and build up my knowledge.
 
Affinity is on offer at the moment for £23.99.
It's extremely capable as a pixel level editing program and unbelievable value for money .
However, IMO, the raw conversion is not as versatile/flexible as ACR or Lightroom
I do the raw conversion in Luminar AI , if I need to edit further I export in TIFF and bring it to Affinity Photo.
 
Adobe has me over a barrel as I have invested a lot in plugins and panels.
I also have Affinity and On1 which are both very good.
On1 updates every year so if I was to renew yearly it wouldn't be much cheaper than Adobe CC.
Affinity is very much like Photoshop in appearance and great value!!
In the meantime I'll be sticking with Adobe CC which I think still represents good VFM.
I jack in work at the end of next month so my views may change :D
 
I purchased Affinity and ON1 and the subscribed to the ON1 360. I moved away from Adobe as the subscription was beginning to bug me too! I think ON1 is starting to go the same way. I just want a program that will catalogue and edit it with a one time fee!
 
A vote for Affinity. I was a PS user in the past but I also don’t like subscription software so when getting back into photography I opted for Affinity. Love it. Does all I want and the tutorials are clear and succinct. I combine it with C1Express for RAW processing.
 
I purchased Affinity and ON1 and the subscribed to the ON1 360. I moved away from Adobe as the subscription was beginning to bug me too! I think ON1 is starting to go the same way. I just want a program that will catalogue and edit it with a one time fee!

If you want a 'cloud' option like the current Adobe option or On1 360 then you will need to pay a subscription because you're paying for their servers to offer you the cloud option. With On1 Photoraw without 360 there is no subscription, and the software will remain yours to use indefinitely.
 
Affinity is on offer at the moment for £23.99.
It's extremely capable as a pixel level editing program and unbelievable value for money .
However, IMO, the raw conversion is not as versatile/flexible as ACR or Lightroom
Agreed but the 1.9 version now compared to the original when I bought it is vastly improved IMHO
 
I do the raw conversion in Luminar AI , if I need to edit further I export in TIFF and bring it to Affinity Photo.
im not much of a editor and probably am easily pleased but I would certainly consider trying another program for raw conversion before taking into Afinity but I would like to know what things do people do in other raw convertors that one cant do in Afinity,i am obviously missing a few tricks and am open to learn, thanks
 
Following this post with interest, I purchased Affinity a couple of years ago but never really used it, as I had a beta version of Photoshop for quite a while, I was watching a tutorial on Affinity just yesterday, and was amazed how good it was, particularly a couple of tools I had never seen in Photoshop, like you I'm reluctant to start a new learning curve, however seeing how similar Affinity is to Photoshop, it may be worth looking into it further, I also have ON1 which again never really used, I reckon that may be good to use as a substitute for Lightroom and Affinity for Photoshop, I hate the catalogue system in lightroom, I've never been able to get to grips with it, and again have read good things about ON1 as a replacement for Lightroom.

I think the price of Affinity is unbelievably cheap for what it offers, I bought it when it was on offer for £30 and thought then it was a no brainer, now it's even cheaper, so well worth it just to try out, the thing I also like about Serif is they offer all their software on 3 months trial, I mean who else does that, I think it shows they have a lot of confidence in their products.
think its only 7 days now?Unless you mean you can return it?
 
think its only 7 days now?Unless you mean you can return it?
90 days at the moment. They seem to do this when the purchases are also discounted as a sort of lockdown offer:
 
90 days at the moment. They seem to do this when the purchases are also discounted as a sort of lockdown offer:
Cheers Retune.(you a guitarist by any chance)?:) thats a brilliant offer I must say. i bought AP when it first came out at £19.99,only really started using it recently,following Simon Fosters guides.
 
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Cheers Retune.(you a guitarist by any chance)?:) thats a brilliant offer I must say. i bought AP when it first came out at £19.99,only really started using it recently,following Simon Fosters guides.
Sadly not a guitarist! That's actually a 19th century Yamaha logo, a phoenix holding a tuning fork. I do have a Yamaha keyboard...

Some reasons to look at other raw converters:

- 'Non-destructive editing'. With many current raw converters, you can play with the settings and save a whole series of them, any of which you can later return to and change or reverse. These edits are typically saved as metadata in a 'sidecar' file. With Affinity, the changes you make in the Develop persona are baked in at the time of development and you have to start from scratch if you want to do anything differently. However, once you are in the Photo persona you can choose to save the history of your subsequent edits and embed it in the image file, allowing you to revisit these post-development changes.

- Lightbox-style interfaces are common, usually with some form of tagging for image selection and culling. Some have sophisticated keyword tagging and image library management functions. Affinity just has a basic 'file open' dialogue.

- Camera profiles. The manufacturers' own converters (like Nikon's NX Studio) usually have excellent camera-specific raw profiles that closely match their in-camera jpegs. Some other companies (like Adobe and Capture One) have also gone to a fair bit of trouble to develop their own equivalent profiles, though they may not match the manufacturers' profiles exactly. More basic raw converters have more generic profiles. Whether this matters depends on how much you like the camera-specific rendering, or whether you prefer to start with a more neutral image.

- Camera-specific settings. The manufacturers' own converters also respect in-camera settings that third party converters generally ignore.

- Highlight recovery, noise reduction, etc. Raw converters vary quite a bit in how well things like this are implemented.
 
Sadly not a guitarist! That's actually a 19th century Yamaha logo, a phoenix holding a tuning fork. I do have a Yamaha keyboard...

Some reasons to look at other raw converters:

- 'Non-destructive editing'. With many current raw converters, you can play with the settings and save a whole series of them, any of which you can later return to and change or reverse. These edits are typically saved as metadata in a 'sidecar' file. With Affinity, the changes you make in the Develop persona are baked in at the time of development and you have to start from scratch if you want to do anything differently. However, once you are in the Photo persona you can choose to save the history of your subsequent edits and embed it in the image file, allowing you to revisit these post-development changes.

- Lightbox-style interfaces are common, usually with some form of tagging for image selection and culling. Some have sophisticated keyword tagging and image library management functions. Affinity just has a basic 'file open' dialogue.

- Camera profiles. The manufacturers' own converters (like Nikon's NX Studio) usually have excellent camera-specific raw profiles that closely match their in-camera jpegs. Some other companies (like Adobe and Capture One) have also gone to a fair bit of trouble to develop their own equivalent profiles, though they may not match the manufacturers' profiles exactly. More basic raw converters have more generic profiles. Whether this matters depends on how much you like the camera-specific rendering, or whether you prefer to start with a more neutral image.

- Camera-specific settings. The manufacturers' own converters also respect in-camera settings that third party converters generally ignore.

- Highlight recovery, noise reduction, etc. Raw converters vary quite a bit in how well things like this are implemented.
thankyou for that. Im using a Canon M100 with the 22mm F2 at the moment.I actually considered developing the raw in the canon software then taking into Apple photos which I use to catologue my photos.At the moment my High Sierra on my 2011 mac which wont update to a higher OS ,Photos will import the CR2 file ,it looks to have come in fine then after a few seconds starts to self destruct and ends up with a red hue all over the photo so i have been doing the raw in AP,but apart from a few tweeks here and there I actually find my photos look better in the Photos app and they store the raw file too.wish they did lens corrections and a bit of overlay stuff and id be happy but until I update my mac cant use the raw file in Photos,I might give the Canon software a go
 
Photoshop and Lightrroom are still the most effective and economical do everything suite of programs.

Capture one if you keep it up to date is more expensive per year and is not a full suite.

Affinity is cheep as chips but has no DAM,library, and the Raw processor is beyond useless.
But is exceptionally well integrated with the other programs in the suite. As a pixel level processor it is excellent.
 
Photoshop and Lightrroom are still the most effective and economical do everything suite of programs.

Capture one if you keep it up to date is more expensive per year and is not a full suite.

Affinity is cheep as chips but has no DAM,library, and the Raw processor is beyond useless.
But is exceptionally well integrated with the other programs in the suite. As a pixel level processor it is excellent.
Terry have you tried the raw editor in version 1.9 not apples but the Afinity one? Definitely better than it was
 
thankyou for that. Im using a Canon M100 with the 22mm F2 at the moment.I actually considered developing the raw in the canon software then taking into Apple photos which I use to catologue my photos.At the moment my High Sierra on my 2011 mac which wont update to a higher OS ,Photos will import the CR2 file ,it looks to have come in fine then after a few seconds starts to self destruct and ends up with a red hue all over the photo so i have been doing the raw in AP,but apart from a few tweeks here and there I actually find my photos look better in the Photos app and they store the raw file too.wish they did lens corrections and a bit of overlay stuff and id be happy but until I update my mac cant use the raw file in Photos,I might give the Canon software a go
You might want to have a look at some of the LR alternatives in this thread:
There are some free/open sources packages like Raw Therapee and Darktable, and relatively inexpensive ones like ON1.
 
just to be clear you dont mean the lens and camera that took the photo do you because it shows my daughters 15-45 and corrects it??


It corrects the lens profile Just fine however it does not apply the Fuji colour Profiles and settings, velvia etc, as set on the camera.
It can adjust an image quite well but compared to the Photoshop raw processor, #it is extremely slow to make changes, and changes lag behind sliders.#
It can also only process one raw at a time. so unlike photoshop you can not process a multiple set of images to the same values. which is vital when processing raws for stitching.
I am sure there must be a way of saving settings as a profile but I have not found it.

Using Photoshop raw, I can open as many raw files as I like and process them all at the same time, and then go through them again to make minor individual adjustments. before saving them.

#
EDIT have now switched rendering to WARP and now sliders are effective in near real time.
 
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As a long-term user of Lightroom, used in conjunction with Elements, I was miffed when Adobe introduced the subscription model. In anticipation of a new camera which would produce raw files not recognised by Lightroom 6.14, I sought alternatives.
I found some perfectly capable raw converters (eg On1, DxO) and a very good pixel level editor (Affinity). However, after adopting On1 and Affinity, and the new workflow that combination demanded, I eventually missed the comprehensive set of features offered by the Adobe software.

I've now swallowed my pride and become a subscriber to the Adobe Photography plan. IMO nothing else offers the flexibility, features, and convenience.

YMMV
 
It's always best to try out the alternatives and see what works for you. Back in the CS6 days, I really wanted to like Adobe's raw conversions, but when I compared the results to what I was getting with Nikon's own converters, Adobe's conversions were just a bit lacking. Even with the camera matching profiles, the colours were a bit off compared to what I was used to, which would have meant more work to get them the way I liked them. The only converter that impressed me at the time when compared to Nikon's was Capture One. ACR was good at recovering blown highlights, though.
 
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