[BigMackCam]

This morning, I got an e-mail from Serif notifying me that Affinity Photo for Windows Beta has been released. I've downloaded it and had a quick play... It seems very slow to me, at least compared to Lightroom 6 (which is my benchmark), and that's on my i7 laptop with 12Gb RAM and a a 7200rpm disk drive. Speed aside, the basic functionality all looks to be there, but I'm having a hard time getting any decent results out of luminance and colour noise reduction with high ISO files. The results look very heavily processed and nothing like as "clean" as Lightroom. Still, it's early days... I'll play around some more and see if I can't improve my results...

[mee]

Glad someone posted this.. saves me the trouble.

Yes it is pretty slow both loading DNG and processing parameter changes onto them. And I got the whole application to crash by trying to highpass sharpen a frequency separated image (processing on the High Freq layer).

When I reloaded the app and tried again, it didn't crash. So it seems hit or miss on the crashing. Betayish Beta right now for sure!

[jlstrawman]

My laptop is configured with an I5 processor, 12MB of ram, and a 7200 rpm hard drive. Initial loading of a new photo is a bit slow. Reopening the same photo is quicker. Parameter changes seemed adequately fast to me. Overall speed is not a deal-breaker for me. To ME, there does not appear to be anything revolutionary here. A nice program. My processing needs are modest and I use Faststone 95% of the time.

[virusn3t]

My laptop is configured with an I5 processor, 12MB of ram....

Its impresive the skills you have to make windows work on that machine.....

Back on Topic

I donwnloaded the program, and try with 2 files one from the K30 and one from the K1, no problems with any of those files, maybe just a little sluggish with the bigger file of the K1 but nothing very serious, maybe it just get pixelated when i move one slider but almost instantly come back to normal.

My PC is i7, 16GB RAM, SSD and 3GB GPU card

[boriscleto]

Its impresive the skills you have to make windows work on that machine.....

20+ years ago System 7 ran great in 12 MB

[interested_observer]

This morning, I got an e-mail from Serif notifying me that Affinity Photo for Windows Beta has been released.

• It seems very slow to me, at least compared to Lightroom 6.
• Speed aside, the basic functionality all looks to be there,
• but I'm having a hard time getting any decent results out of luminance and colour noise reduction with high ISO files.
• The results look very heavily processed and nothing like as "clean" as Lightroom. Still, it's early days...

I saw your post a couple of hours ago, but decided to get breakfast, and scan some news sites before I actually went over to my other system to download it and try it out. Several thoughts before I go out and get my hands dirty with it...

• Just retired, with well over 40 years as a software systems engineer and architect. Over 5 years as principal architect for an image exploitation system that has been in the field and used extensively for well over 10+ years now.
• Slowness - You want to make sure that the basic capabilities are working as expected before you spend the time to optimize the performance. So initial slowness is not a concern at this point.
• Getting decent results with some particular functionalities - would go along with in-maturity of the software, but seeing that this is a port from a Mac baseline - that received rave product reviews, would raise some concerns.
• Heavily processed results not "clean" - this would be a much larger concern with me and not what I would be expecting. That usually points to something being rushed out the door before being ready (even in a beta). That leads to how much of the beta was actually ported versus the amount of raw new development and why the level of in-maturity. If someone has access to both a Mac and a Win PC, do the two versions act alike? ... or is the Win version much more heavy handed?

I am going to go download it and give it a try....

[mee]

I'm not a fan of how it handles shadow and highlight data. ACR does a MUCH better job of this imo.

That said, I'd use this mostly as I use PhotoShop Elements (PSE) -- for layers and the extra features (panoramas/stiching/healing/compositing), provided the stability and speed improve in the next 6-12 months. Don't expect this to be a final release until then (the Designer windows beta was offered in March or April and it is still in beta).


I know the Mac version, they state, is operating off of some Mac-specific libraries. So there could be a lot of polishing yet to be done on the windows side.. that's probably a big given at this point looking at how it operates atm.

[mee]

Surprised this software hasn't had more attention thus far.. for all its betaness, it is still a rather functional photoshop competitor.

I can see myself using Lightroom to import/catalog and do basic edits then exporting to Affinity Photo to do heavier editing. It has a stack mode for median shots, hdr mode, panorama mode, focus stacking mode, healing brush, photoshop plugin support, liquify..

And its free to use now, 50 dollars when out of beta. Despite it's aforementioned betayness, it still has quite a lot of features that work right now.

[BigMackCam]

It's not what I was expecting or hoping for, and for now my beta testing has stopped. The editing side is decent enough, but the initial image development (a la Lightroom or ACR) is poor, and the overall user interface is quite badly designed. It's certainly not intuitive - at least, I don't think it is. Others may get on with it easier than I have.

[mee]

It's not what I was expecting or hoping for, and for now my beta testing has stopped. The editing side is decent enough, but the initial image development (a la Lightroom or ACR) is poor, and the overall user interface is quite badly designed. It's certainly not intuitive - at least, I don't think it is. Others may get on with it easier than I have.

It seems like you might still be in the Adobe GUI mindset. If so get out of that!

I had trouble initially too. I've been using PS for 20 years... so I'm pretty used to the layout and menuing.

Affinity does it differently.. there are 'Persona' type modes and in each are different features. It isn't like PS where you can access everything from the lone interface.

After I got my mind around that, it became a lot more functional for me.

Btw I got an email today from Affinity for an intro offer of 40 dollars (10 off) for being in the Windows beta of Designer (their Illustrator competitor). I suspect we'll see a similar deal for Photo once it is out of beta sometime next year. So it might be worth everyones time to just sign up for the beta and give it a quick whirl. If you do like it, you might get an offer for 10 off eventually. If not, you at least got to try an interesting photo editor.

[FantasticMrFox]

And its free to use now, 50 dollars when out of beta. Despite it's aforementioned betayness, it still has quite a lot of features that work right now.

It'll probably start at a lower price. I think the Mac version debuted at $40.

[mee]

It'll probably start at a lower price. I think the Mac version debuted at $40.

Yes, I mentioned that in the post right above yours.

Not shabby for 40 dollars... or even 50 imo.

[FantasticMrFox]

Yes, I mentioned that in the post right above yours.

Not shabby for 40 dollars... or even 50 imo.

My bad, didn't read that far

I have used Affinity Photo on the Mac for about half a year now and am extremely happy with it. Also very speedy (don't see a difference to PS), so I assume the slow speed of the Windows version boils down to it being a BETA, and the final release will be much faster.

Also, who wouldn't love this video - it did a great deal in convincing me to buy this software

https://vimeo.com/macaffinity/photo

[mohb]

There are some really good instructional videos that make it easier to use if you have been a PS user

[mee]

Indeed. I've just gone through a few on youtube that were well done!

Hmmm I'm not sure I have the same level of control with luminosity masking, at least out of the gate. But I suspect some work around can be done to get them going. In any case, I'm seriously thinking about buying LR6 upgrade and this then skipping the LR+PS CC thing after playing in Affinity Photo a bit more. It is rather nice for a version 1.5 beta at least.

I wonder what this does to PhotoShop Elements? Affinity Photo is most of the full Photoshop but half the cost of PSE (which is fairly limited). I am interested in seeing what Adobe does...