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)
