6 ms·

Side question: how good are Affinity Designer & Photo as a replacement for Adobe tools ?

gyanreyer 2y ago
I really really like Affinity. I'm not a pro but they offer all of the tools I would possibly need in a much better designed package compared to open source alternatives like gimp. Adobe has more bells and whistles like AI, but I don't need that. And I'm very happy to support their no-subscription model, it's very refreshing.
gizajob 2y ago
Totally awesome.
fidotron 2y ago
Not close. They’re utterly inconsistent and glitchy which makes using them in a hurry a total nightmare. The corel stuff was better. Adobe have successfully built a moat around particularly Photoshop that no one seems likely to get close to crossing.
- kranke155 2y ago
  Not just Photoshop. There is literally nothing but After Effects in the 2D Motion Design world.
  - fidotron 2y ago
    Blender will get there eventually, by which I mean in 10 years, but it will. They have the clear foundations going in place today.
  - spaniard89277 2y ago
    Cavalry? That's what my GF uses.
    - kranke155 2y ago
      Extremely rare. I've used it but no agency in London would allow you to work with it, they need copies of the files for later. AE is just the standard.
  - discardedrefuse 2y ago
    How about DaVinci Resolve from BlackMagic? https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve
  - misswaterfairy 2y ago
    What about Natron? https://natrongithub.github.io/ https://natrongithub.github.io/
- Daub 2y ago
  Counter-opinion.... I use both the Adobe suite and afinity. I love affinity for the interoperability of it's apps (which has to be experiencd to belive) and it's comprehensive support of RAW. At home I use mostly Affinity, at work it's Adobe all the way. Photoshop is unique for the many professions it supports: web designers, graphic designers, photographers, digital painters etc. If you are looking for a PS replacement, first ask what you are going to use it for. Other apps may be the more natural choice. God is in the detail. I would hesitate to use Affinity photo for digital painting simply because there is no slick way to change the flow rate of brushes. Recent changes have improved this, but not to the point where it is comfortable to use.
  - discardedrefuse 2y ago
    Krita is excellent for digital painting. https://krita.org https://krita.org
- coldcode 2y ago
  I used Affinity Photo in my generative art; I also own Photoshop and use it for a few things, but it's rare. AP is faster at many things that matter to me, the UI is much cleaner, and it suits me just fine despite occasional issues (mostly memory related, their memory management sucks). Many of Photoshop's AI "features" are useless to me since they can only do tiny images (basically the usual 1MP that AI can manage). PS is a giant pile of features, but the UI is often a giant pile of complexity because of it.
- misswaterfairy 2y ago
  I use Affinity Photo and Designer professionally and at home. Affinity Photo is not Photoshop. That said, it's a great image editor in and of itself. Making direct comparisons I feel is unfair, yes it is glitchy and can, and does, have inconsistent UI behaviour though is only occasional in my experience. But for US$70 per major version, perpetual (no subscription), for the small team behind it, compared to the Adobe behemoth behind Photoshop, it's pretty damn good. As of writing (2024-06-08), Serif's entire suite is 50% off at the moment, which makes Affinity Photo US$35 perpetual, for (in my opinion) 80% of Photoshop's capabilities, when Photoshop itself is US$22.99 per month (individual subscription). Designer blows Inkscape out of the water. Yes, I know I'm comparing a commercial package to an open source package, though for professionals who don't have time to troubleshoot bugs in open source software, let alone time to write their own patches, Inkscape sadly doesn't cut it here. For what its worth, I am a huge advocate of open source software, though I'm also a professional that needs my tools to work now, not in six months when someone gets around to helping/assisting/writing a patch. Downsides for Designer though, it does lack some features, like image tracing, though it's not a deal breaker for US$70 perpetual, for a user interface that's intuitive (sorry Inkscape), and that spits out SVG images that don't cause problems in other consuming applications, or SVGs that fail to display correctly. Coincidentally I do use Inkscape for image tracing though migrate over to Designer after that. As much as it sucks, the only way Serif will get close to knocking Photoshop, or Illustrator, or InDesign, off the 'industry-standard' pedestal is if we all support them by kicking in a few dollars for a licence, even the cheaper iOS tools, which are more-or-less on-par with their desktop counterparts. Likewise for open-source software: they'd easily start winning over people with a better UI design (again, in my opinion, most FOSS software in this space feels unpolished) and perhaps commercial sponsorship like Blender has been able to partner. Before version 3.0, Blender's UI sucked and drove a lot of people away. It's now easy and intuitive, if overwhelming with the number of features it has, attracting a lot of newbies and kids wanting to learn 3D. Blender (there are some really big names here!) - https://fund.blender.org/ https://fund.blender.org/ Inkscape - https://inkscape.org/*sponsors/ https://inkscape.org/*sponsors/ GIMP (Web Archive as GIMP's website is having cache issues right now) - https://web.archive.org/web/20240603082716/https://www.gimp.org/donating/sponsors.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240603082716/https://www.gimp.... (I have no financial interest in Serif at all, apart from owning licences for their software.)
spaniard89277 2y ago
My GF uses Affinity tools and Cavalry for her freelance work. She told me she's happy with it. She made the change like 6 or more months ago.
jastuk 2y ago
They've recently been bought by Canva, in case that's relevant to you.

I really really like Affinity. I'm not a pro but they offer all of the tools I would possibly need in a much better designed package compared to open source alternatives like gimp. Adobe has more bells and whistles like AI, but I don't need that. And I'm very happy to support their no-subscription model, it's very refreshing.

gizajob 2y ago

Totally awesome.

fidotron 2y ago

Not close. They’re utterly inconsistent and glitchy which makes using them in a hurry a total nightmare. The corel stuff was better. Adobe have successfully built a moat around particularly Photoshop that no one seems likely to get close to crossing.

kranke155 2y ago
Not just Photoshop. There is literally nothing but After Effects in the 2D Motion Design world.
- fidotron 2y ago
  Blender will get there eventually, by which I mean in 10 years, but it will. They have the clear foundations going in place today.
- spaniard89277 2y ago
  Cavalry? That's what my GF uses.
  - kranke155 2y ago
    Extremely rare. I've used it but no agency in London would allow you to work with it, they need copies of the files for later. AE is just the standard.
- discardedrefuse 2y ago
  How about DaVinci Resolve from BlackMagic? https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve
- misswaterfairy 2y ago
  What about Natron? https://natrongithub.github.io/ https://natrongithub.github.io/
Daub 2y ago
Counter-opinion.... I use both the Adobe suite and afinity. I love affinity for the interoperability of it's apps (which has to be experiencd to belive) and it's comprehensive support of RAW. At home I use mostly Affinity, at work it's Adobe all the way. Photoshop is unique for the many professions it supports: web designers, graphic designers, photographers, digital painters etc. If you are looking for a PS replacement, first ask what you are going to use it for. Other apps may be the more natural choice. God is in the detail. I would hesitate to use Affinity photo for digital painting simply because there is no slick way to change the flow rate of brushes. Recent changes have improved this, but not to the point where it is comfortable to use.
- discardedrefuse 2y ago
  Krita is excellent for digital painting. https://krita.org https://krita.org
coldcode 2y ago
I used Affinity Photo in my generative art; I also own Photoshop and use it for a few things, but it's rare. AP is faster at many things that matter to me, the UI is much cleaner, and it suits me just fine despite occasional issues (mostly memory related, their memory management sucks). Many of Photoshop's AI "features" are useless to me since they can only do tiny images (basically the usual 1MP that AI can manage). PS is a giant pile of features, but the UI is often a giant pile of complexity because of it.
misswaterfairy 2y ago
I use Affinity Photo and Designer professionally and at home. Affinity Photo is not Photoshop. That said, it's a great image editor in and of itself. Making direct comparisons I feel is unfair, yes it is glitchy and can, and does, have inconsistent UI behaviour though is only occasional in my experience. But for US$70 per major version, perpetual (no subscription), for the small team behind it, compared to the Adobe behemoth behind Photoshop, it's pretty damn good. As of writing (2024-06-08), Serif's entire suite is 50% off at the moment, which makes Affinity Photo US$35 perpetual, for (in my opinion) 80% of Photoshop's capabilities, when Photoshop itself is US$22.99 per month (individual subscription). Designer blows Inkscape out of the water. Yes, I know I'm comparing a commercial package to an open source package, though for professionals who don't have time to troubleshoot bugs in open source software, let alone time to write their own patches, Inkscape sadly doesn't cut it here. For what its worth, I am a huge advocate of open source software, though I'm also a professional that needs my tools to work now, not in six months when someone gets around to helping/assisting/writing a patch. Downsides for Designer though, it does lack some features, like image tracing, though it's not a deal breaker for US$70 perpetual, for a user interface that's intuitive (sorry Inkscape), and that spits out SVG images that don't cause problems in other consuming applications, or SVGs that fail to display correctly. Coincidentally I do use Inkscape for image tracing though migrate over to Designer after that. As much as it sucks, the only way Serif will get close to knocking Photoshop, or Illustrator, or InDesign, off the 'industry-standard' pedestal is if we all support them by kicking in a few dollars for a licence, even the cheaper iOS tools, which are more-or-less on-par with their desktop counterparts. Likewise for open-source software: they'd easily start winning over people with a better UI design (again, in my opinion, most FOSS software in this space feels unpolished) and perhaps commercial sponsorship like Blender has been able to partner. Before version 3.0, Blender's UI sucked and drove a lot of people away. It's now easy and intuitive, if overwhelming with the number of features it has, attracting a lot of newbies and kids wanting to learn 3D. Blender (there are some really big names here!) - https://fund.blender.org/ https://fund.blender.org/ Inkscape - https://inkscape.org/*sponsors/ https://inkscape.org/*sponsors/ GIMP (Web Archive as GIMP's website is having cache issues right now) - https://web.archive.org/web/20240603082716/https://www.gimp.org/donating/sponsors.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240603082716/https://www.gimp.... (I have no financial interest in Serif at all, apart from owning licences for their software.)

spaniard89277 2y ago

My GF uses Affinity tools and Cavalry for her freelance work. She told me she's happy with it. She made the change like 6 or more months ago.

jastuk 2y ago

They've recently been bought by Canva, in case that's relevant to you.