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01-04-2017, 11:37 AM   #1
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What's Your Experience With AFFINITY PHOTO Professional photo editing software?

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I received an email offer from AFFINITY PHOTO Professional photo editing software today. Currently, they have a 20% discount off of their already comparitively low price.

Here's a link to their webpage. It looks like they offer much of the same functionality as PhotoShop and PhotoShop Elements do. Also, they include focus stacking, HDR, and a few other capabilities that my older version of PhotoShop does not.

Their webpage says nothing about layers capabilities, which is of critical importance to my workflow.

Have any of you tried AFFINITY PHOTO Professional photo editing software? Has it replaced PhotoShop for you?


01-04-2017, 11:50 AM - 1 Like   #2
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Affinity does have adjustment layers. I really like it, but nowadays I'm not that interested in heavy PP work, so I mainly use Affinity for selective exposure adjustments, often based on layer blend modes and simple gradient masking. I use Iridient Developer for raw conversion so I haven't gone deeply into Affinity for that purpose. Focus stacking was added in a recent version but I haven't tried it out yet (I use Zerene for that). HDR, what's that? (kidding, joke)
01-04-2017, 12:02 PM - 1 Like   #3
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I downloaded the beta and have used it to varying degrees across a number of images (and image sets). I'll say right now that - Yes, for $40 I'll buy it, as it will only improve over time. Now, having said that, the beta has only been out for something like a month and it looks like the are already going into a release candidate? That is really pushing things.
  • You specifically asked about layers - I found that it specializes in layers. Essentially everything is done is layers. The problem that I have with it - and it is probably me - is that you do layers with in Personas. Then you essentially have to burn in your changes when you change Personas. To me that is a bit counter productive, but image editing is not my specialty.
  • I was really anticipating Affinity Photo - but the beta, for what I wanted to use it for was a let down,both in its functionality (stitching and compositing). It had some problems that I reported, but do not know if they have been fixed yet. The stitching capability was well behind Microsoft ICE (the original release several years ago). The compositing capability had limited functionality and had a masking deficiency (the result was not at all usable). The HDR functionality was rudimentary at best (less than 10% of the capability I use in Oloeno's PhotoEngine).
  • It was somewhat slow in performance - but that would be expected in a beta. It seems a bit quick to go from a first release beta to a release candidate without any subsequent beta releases (with fixes).
  • The Windows version was suppose to be a port of the Mac baseline, but I had read that some of the Mac libraries had to be redone for use under Windows, so the stability/maturity that I was expecting was really not there yet - especially in the new functionality - stitching and compositing.
  • And last - the basic user experience that I was expecting - the ability to have all the tools available all the time - was not there (especially when moving across Personas). Now, that is more my problem in terms of initial expectations. That said, it has a number of different Personas (read tool sets). To move from one Persona to another, you are essentially committing the changes (burning them in). That is not what I was expecting - which surprised me (negatively).
For the price, I do believe it represents a good value. Now, having said that - for what I want to do, I think that I will need to go out and subscribe to Photoshop. Everything is there, it works the way one would expect, I have seen demos and results, but I still really do not like Adobe's user interface.

01-04-2017, 12:50 PM - 1 Like   #4
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Good timing as I've switched a week ago and am really enjoying it so far. Had the On1 Photo Raw trial too but heard good things about Photo and, without the option for a demo, bought it for Windows to see if it was any good. Well, it is. I love the 32bit raw capabilities for messing about with hdr etc. The gradient maps for skin retouching are okay, could be better. The curves layers are great for retouching. The Live filters that you can go back to are great. Panoramas are very limited for projection modes and Raw exposure adjustments but good to have anyway. All in all worth triple the price at least.

Ben

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01-04-2017, 01:35 PM - 1 Like   #5
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For the price, yes, buy it,
Intro comment- I do not do a lot of heavy editing, like creating an image, I only work on the ones I shoot, so there are some who would still be better off with photoshop, and you have to learn how to use affinity, so if you are used to photoshop, elements, etc.. it my be a little frustrating since things go from a little different to a lot different, And if you do 3d then affinity is out, they don't do it.
I used the Bata for about a month, it had speed issues, locked up sometimes, some functions did not work correctly, but is was bata. I have to say that affinity worked through the issues very fast. On the issue thread site they responded to customers ( a novel idea) and fixed things. SO, I bought the release version. Much faster, I have seen no bugs in what I do but a few have been reported some issues. IF you go to their web sight and go to photo for windows you can see what is going on.
You have to watch every tutorial you can find to see how to do some things,,, they need a manual (they are working on it)

Why did i buy it:
-very good customer support through bata,
-I like the way the layers work in affinity, vs Photshop
-Everything is there, including HDR, pano, photo stacking, I have only used the pano, so far it works fine... but i have not presented any really tough stitching yet. IF I have to I can use ICE, but...
-As for the Personas, they are what they are, you have to move through them, yo would start with the raw editor if you shoot in raw and then develop it, move to the photo persona were everything else is done, save the finished work. There is also a persona for saving in different formats and sizes. Easier than moving from lightroom-photoshop-ICE-etc.
-In raw it works in 32bit color- vary large color window...I know, my monitor can not see that.. but allows you to push everything to see what you would get
-ALL updates and revs are FREE, when they make it better you get it.

The bad:
-you have to change a setting every time you open up the software and use RAW to get rid of the raw presets, they drive clipping when you adjust. PITA, they need to change that ( found that in a tutorial) did I mention to watch all the tutorials you can find..
-Lightroom is still a better raw editing tool, but this is rev 1 of affinity, and it is close, it will get better
-Did I say You have to watch every tutorial you can find to see how to do some things,,, they need a manual (they are working on it)
01-06-2017, 03:33 AM   #6
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Let's see..

It took me awhile to get used to the different UI from Photoshop. I've used PS for around 20 years so I was pretty familiar with it. Affinity Photo has some different ways of going about things that I'd have done in the Adobe UI. Once I got around that, it has been pretty nice!

It loads PS plugins like PS loads PS plugins. (they work)

Panorama stitching isn't (ime) as forgiving as Adobe's, but I still prefer AutoStitch over both (since it is even more forgiving than both) so it wasn't a loss to me. If I was deep into panos though, I'd buy a separate software like the autopano pro instead.

It has live adjustment and filter layers so most (if not all) of the adjustments are non-destructive... a big plus.

Export options are better imo than what I get in PS.

I'm still deciding on if I like the sharpening abilities in AP more over PS or vice versa. Either way AP is no slouch there..

I don't do official HDR so I cannot comment on that.

I still use Lightroom (ACR) for initial RAW processing then send the file over to AP.

Focus stacking is a bit rudimentary.. you get to select your images and it does the stacking... not a lot of parameters to control. But my quick tests show it is functional.

Compositing abilities work just as well as Photoshop. I think the key is understanding how Affinity Photo functions (some of the features are in different areas than in PS).

They have a vimeo account setup with a TON of quick tutorial videos on how to do things, since they realize people are coming from other software and are used to having functionality performed in a certain way.

My take is AP still pretty young right now at version 1.5, while Adobe has had 30 years to grow PS into what it is.. plus, CS6 was at least 500 dollars. This is 40-50 dollars. Huge savings. Even if you do the CC plan it is still 100 dollars a year. Affinity will only get better if the current algos meet your needs.

Yet PS has an advantage of having decades of industry use. There are lots of quick panels and support for it.. lots of books and information on it, which makes it great to use.. plus some really strong algorithms behind it.

While I wouldn't consider myself an expert, I'm also not exactly what you'd call a novice when it comes to post processing..
But I'm happy with Affinity Photo.
01-16-2017, 04:53 AM   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by interested_observer Quote
Now, having said that, the beta has only been out for something like a month and it looks like the are already going into a release candidate? That is really pushing things.
Affinity Photo is already an established program on the Mac, having been out since July 2015. So this beta is not about testing an entirely new software, but just about adapting it for Windows.

QuoteQuote:
The problem that I have with it - and it is probably me - is that you do layers with in Personas. Then you essentially have to burn in your changes when you change Personas. To me that is a bit counter productive, but image editing is not my specialty.
Yes, but you will do almost everything in one or two personas - 'Develop' and 'Photo'. Develop is a RAW converter, and just as with LR and PS, you will have to turn your RAW into a TIFF (or similar) once you're done developing. The other three personas are 'Liquify', 'Tonemapping' (for HDR) and 'Export' - I can't speak for others, but I hardly use any of these.

QuoteQuote:
The stitching capability was well behind Microsoft ICE (the original release several years ago). The compositing capability had limited functionality and had a masking deficiency (the result was not at all usable).
I haven't done panoramas myself yet, but I have seen online comparisons where AP did much better than PS at stitching panoramas.

QuoteQuote:
It was somewhat slow in performance - but that would be expected in a beta. It seems a bit quick to go from a first release beta to a release candidate without any subsequent beta releases (with fixes).
This seems to be heterogenous - some people report AP to be very slow, but for most people it's quite fast. On my MacBook (mid-2012) it's definitely faster than PS.

QuoteQuote:
For the price, I do believe it represents a good value. Now, having said that - for what I want to do, I think that I will need to go out and subscribe to Photoshop. Everything is there, it works the way one would expect, I have seen demos and results, but I still really do not like Adobe's user interface.
In fact, I believe that AP would still be great for twice the price. It may not have the same exact feature set as PS, but it is very close. It actually does some things better than PS, such as removing objects (the inpainting brush is better than PS'), haze removal, or speed (for most people). I also think that AP's layer blend options are superior to PS' luminosity masks.

QuoteOriginally posted by mee Quote
It loads PS plugins like PS loads PS plugins. (they work)
A lot do, but not all. E.g. four of the Nik plugins (Viveza, Dfine and the Sharpeners) do not work properly, with users reporting them crashing when they try to set a control point. For me these plugins actually don't work at all - they just crash AP.

01-28-2017, 07:20 PM   #8
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QuoteOriginally posted by FantasticMrFox Quote
A lot do, but not all. E.g. four of the Nik plugins (Viveza, Dfine and the Sharpeners) do not work properly, with users reporting them crashing when they try to set a control point. For me these plugins actually don't work at all - they just crash AP.
Strange. They all work for me on Windows 10. Are you using the current 1.5.1 version?

Actually, with that most recent update, the Nik plugins process SUPER fast. As in, instantly. And Affinity seem to have resolved the odd color cast issue I saw in Viveza too with the update. They actually function faster in Affinity Photo than they do for me in PSE 13.

What a wonderful Photoshop alternative and for only 50 dollars!
01-29-2017, 07:56 AM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by mee Quote
Strange. They all work for me on Windows 10. Are you using the current 1.5.1 version?

Actually, with that most recent update, the Nik plugins process SUPER fast. As in, instantly. And Affinity seem to have resolved the odd color cast issue I saw in Viveza too with the update. They actually function faster in Affinity Photo than they do for me in PSE 13.

What a wonderful Photoshop alternative and for only 50 dollars!
I have the Mac version (1.5.1) - a couple of weeks ago, when I managed to get the plugins to run, the Viveza colour cast issue was still present, and it was acknowledged as yet unsolved by Affinity staff on their forum. Was it solved within the last two weeks or so?
02-21-2017, 10:43 PM   #10
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Wondering if it supports RAW for the recent models, such as the K-1, K-3II, K-70
Their list of supported model is outdated: Supported Develop (RAW) Cameras - Photo Beta on Mac - Affinity | Forum

Thanks
02-21-2017, 11:05 PM   #11
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QuoteOriginally posted by Weevil Quote
Wondering if it supports RAW for the recent models, such as the K-1, K-3II, K-70
Their list of supported model is outdated: Supported Develop (RAW) Cameras - Photo Beta on Mac - Affinity | Forum

Thanks
OK, found my answer. They did not updated the link on the Feature page, that's why...

There is an updated list here: Supported Raw Cameras (1.5.x) - Questions & Feedback - Affinity | Forum
02-25-2017, 06:45 PM - 1 Like   #12
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Sorry for being so late to respond. I missed this thread..

QuoteOriginally posted by FantasticMrFox Quote
I have the Mac version (1.5.1) - a couple of weeks ago, when I managed to get the plugins to run, the Viveza colour cast issue was still present, and it was acknowledged as yet unsolved by Affinity staff on their forum. Was it solved within the last two weeks or so?
Thought it was fixed. But I just tried again and am seeing funky colors in Viveza live view. It renders the final image correctly though. And the Loupe view in the plugin itself is also rendering colors correctly. Strange.

QuoteOriginally posted by Weevil Quote
OK, found my answer. They did not updated the link on the Feature page, that's why...

There is an updated list here: Supported Raw Cameras (1.5.x) - Questions & Feedback - Affinity | Forum
I tried to load a DNG from my K-1. It works well. No hiccups. Don't have any PEFs but if it says it loads RAW from K-1 I think it is ok. If you really need me to check, let me know and I'll take a PEF and see.
03-21-2017, 04:02 PM - 1 Like   #13
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I'm using Affinity Photo now. Love it. Highly recommended, and an absolute bargain too.
03-22-2017, 12:34 PM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by mee Quote
Sorry for being so late to respond. I missed this thread..



Thought it was fixed. But I just tried again and am seeing funky colors in Viveza live view. It renders the final image correctly though. And the Loupe view in the plugin itself is also rendering colors correctly. Strange.



I tried to load a DNG from my K-1. It works well. No hiccups. Don't have any PEFs but if it says it loads RAW from K-1 I think it is ok. If you really need me to check, let me know and I'll take a PEF and see.
Been using Affinity exclusively with PEFs from a K-3II. Has worked as expected-no issues.
I love Affinity Photo and thank them for great software at a fantastic price.
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