ChopperNova

Yes, but I said plausible reasons. So 15% of Windows machines can no longer install software the way everyone's installed software since Windows 95, and only 0.1% of the people who try to install V2 are having issues? The technical reasons are dubious at best,as others have detailed. That you padded the list with Microsoft Photos integration app is hilarious 🤣. I'm sure that was a pressing issue among the engineering staff, and a highly requested feature from users who wanted to integrate exclusively with Microsoft Photos while disintegrating with literally everything else. You've got a software engineering staff that's second to none, but everything else is decoupled from reality. I haven't seen even the slightest indication that anyone there knows how, or even why, your products are used in the real world. It's infuriating, and depressing. And the You'll Take Your Medicine and Like It shtick is wearing thin.

Somehow this isn't sinking in to you guys, but on many machines that could support a regular installer, it cannot be installed as provided. Period. That's kinda the problem. The only plausible reason for continuing this idiocy is that you are contractually obligated to supply it as a MSIX, and maybe the suits would have to forfeit their MS stock option perks. Or there's been a strategic decision to compete with the Paint.NET, or go after the people who always wanted to run Photoshop on the Zune.

This is what I did, but no guarantee it won't mess things up worse, although that's kinda hard to imagine... First, close all your Affinity programs apps, then go to where you unzipped, and find the folder affinity-photo-2.0.0\App\Resources\Affinity%20Photo. (Yes, it actually has a %20 in it😖). It should be full of files like "assets.propcol", etc. Then find directory: C:\Users\<usernamehere>\.affinity\Common\2.0\user, (note the dot in .affinity, and it may be hidden). COPY the first, unzipped folder into the second, overwriting existing files. Next time you start a V2 program app, default stuff should be there, and they should share between programs apps.

But the 100% failure rate integrating into users' existing workflow wasn't considered? Doesn't anyone making strategic decisions actually use the products? I'm sorry, but all this sounds more like ad hoc marketing rationalizations than technical considerations. Are you actually saying that 15% of the people running Windows can't install MSI/EXE programs? If it's just Affinity MSI/EXE, then it's obviously not a problem with the installation format itself. If that's the people who can't install because they don't have admin permissions, then they shouldn't be able to install it for a reason. It just doesn't pass the giggle test. You may think you found a golden ticket in a Microsoft candy bar, and although it may look chocolate, you should really consider why no one else in the industry is willing to take a bite.

Getting off topic a bit, but Adobe's Flash was one of the worse security risks in the history of the internet. Adobe Reader doesn't have a sterling security rep. either. And when you install CC, you get some mystery, unnecessary programs running 24/7 on your computer, whether you're using their software or not. Sometimes these programs will consume 100% CPU, or at very least keep your CPU from going into low power mode, which can translate to real electrical bills over time. Yet Adobe is vague on their programs' function and purpose. Any software with intentionally hidden data pipelines home is inherently insecure by design.

On dpreview I've seen pros use Affinity Photo, but not necessarily exclusively. The number one issue was not the professional cred of Affinity Photo per se, but integrating it into a workflow. Like in real estate, it's Location!, Location!, Location! Well in photography, it's Workflow!, Workflow!, Workflow!. Until Serif internalizes this, they'll be stuck in this frustrating, quasi-professional limbo. And this whole app installation scheme is an unmitigated disaster.

Affinity keeps working forever, whereas CS6 stops when Adobe shuts down the activation server. Does that count as a "feature"? (JK, they'd never do that.🤫) More to the point, in a head-to-head "feature" list, CS6 destroys Affinity Photo. In a real-world use scenarios, not so much, even current Photoshop CC. Affinity Photo V2 doesn't have Content Aware Scale as in CS6. It also lacks 3D and Video, so no animated .gifs. Liquify is non-destructive in Affinity, but CS5 had the best version of Liquify in any program, anywhere. Adobe New & Improved it in CS6 by removing core functionality to make it faster in demos and give them another feature bulletpoint. CS6 can import directly from a scanner. CS6's native file format can't handle > 4GB and makes you save in a different format. No, really. CS6 can't save image editing history, whereas Affinity can in it's native file format. Although it makes for gargantuan files, it's extremely useful in certain circumstances. There's some plugins that won't work with Affinity that work in Photoshop. The one to export for Skyrim files, and Topaz Gigapixel don't work, however Topaz Sharpen and DeNoise work Perfectly. I was actually kinda shocked the last version (CC Trial a year or so ago) had a ton more "features", but virtually zero improvements from my perspective as a photographer. Much of the the vaunted built-in AI stuff was unusably slow and hardly worked better than their non-AI counterparts that have been around for ages like Unsharp Mask, a technique once used in darkrooms, on*gasp*film. CC has a motion blur sharpen thing which seems like it might be useful for some people, although my results were poor. For RAW files, I prefer neither, although I haven't worked with V2 much yet. I VASTLY prefer Affinity's masking, and Refine... to any Photoshop product. Although CC has a new Refine... interface with AI🙄, it's really only effective on images that are already easy to mask, so it's kinda pointless. The hair/fur thing only works if everything is in perfect focus, so I guess if you make cat memes you're in heaven. If you photograph animals with a shallow DoF, Affinity works better just running the Refine... matte brush around the perimeter. The border of the InPainting brush repair is less obvious than the over the Adobe equivalent (in my work). However, CS6 allows you to change Blend Modes. Here's why that's important: Say you've got a closeup of a dog with short white fur and it has lots of specks of dirt (or fleas), and you want to clean that up quickly . Using either program's InPainting brush works OK, but if you set CS6's brush Blend Mode to Lighten, it will only alter the dark dirt pixels -- so it's effectively self-masking. In Affinity, you either InPaint on a blank layer with its Blend Mode mode set to lighten, or bathe your dog. Affinity's Stack Mode is simple and intuitive, whereas CS6 is clunky and takes more menu surfing to change modes, or edit a stacked image. Affinity's Stack More is almost instantaneous when Photoshop sometimes takes actual minutes to update. Same feature, better in Affinity. I found nothing -- in either program -- that will turn what I consider an unacceptable photo into an acceptable one. From a photographer's perspective, if I could only choose one, I'd choose Affinity Photo as I find it more productive to work in overall. This is not to say that Photoshop doesn't have certain real advantages over Affinity Photo for other people, so, as always, YMMV. In conclusion, it's really a trade-off on how the features work, rather than some bullet-list of features made by some corporate marketing guy who doesn't actually use the software. If you need video editing, go get the free version of DaVinci Resolve, it's better than anything Adobe, anyway.

Affinity Photo has only fraction of the features of Adobe Photoshop, but in real-world functionality, Photo isn't far behind at all. And if you really learn the software, it's faster. (Try putting a dozen images into an image stack, then switching modes.) PS's whole Smart Object scheme now seems like a top-heavy, inefficient kludge compared to the Affinity Way😇. I found the hyped "AI" features in PS ineffectual and unusably slow, and their bugfix for unusable 3D was to put up box telling you 3D is not only unusable now, but will be even more unusable in the future. I find Affinity's InPainting brush (in V1, I haven't tested V2 extensively) to work as well or better than PS's alternative in typical cases. The border of the repair was often more obvious in PS than Affinity. However, you can't set blend modes in Affinity. I find Affinity's Refine Selection... Superior and more intuitive all around. I photograph lots and lots of fuzzy little wild animals, and PS's whole refine fur scheme was completely useless. Just running Affinity's matte brush around the perimeter of the little beasty (in Refine... mode) produces a better mask, faster, with less touch-up. Affinity's Tone Mapping persona is more flexible, faster and has a better UI than PS's clunky alternative. Photoshop does do video, albeit in the most confounding way possible -- so it's good for animated GIFs, even if the export is deprecated to legacy. This is not meant to be a slap at Photoshop. It can definitely do useful things Affinity can't (content aware scale, for one), but just comparing alleged features misses the entire point. This post is based on a trial edition of Adobe CC within the last year or so. I was actually kinda shocked how little, if any, productivity benefit it offered over CS6.

I have the utmost respect for Serif, and coming from a software engineering background (since 1983), I understand the developing and marketing realities, but this is a fiasco. Some of their customers -- myself included -- are willing to jump through hoops to install software, yet this is literally the first program that I've been unable to install on this Win10 installation. I can't remember anything like this in any Windows software since forever, it's more akin to mounting an unsupported CD drive in 1990's Linux. If the trial worked as well as V1, I would purchase all three, as I have no problem with their business model of, y'know, trying to make money. I need professional software, not apps; apps are something other people use in the bathroom. Affinity was a great bargain for professionalesque software, but it's grossly overpriced for a few "apps" -- it's a perception faceplant. Plus, I don't want anything that updates without explicit, unambiguous permission. Serif goes to impressive lengths to link into a "studio", yet throws a grenade into the entire concept of workflow -- in lieu of a DAM (which I don't much care about), have they even bothered to contact FastStone, et al. so their files are even recognized as image files? It isn't absolutely necessary for FastStone to display a thumbnail, but as of 7.7 & Affinity V1, it doesn't even show an icon, so a folder full of .afphoto files shows as empty. I guess the question many are asking, who are Affinity products even aimed at now? This is not a request for help, as the easiest workaround for testing is to create a Win10/11 Hyper-V VM and install it there. You'll likely have to use a unregistered installation, if you don't have a spare Windows license just sitting around, but it works. Finally, how much app-specific Telemetry is now going on, and is Serif the recipient, by any means whatsoever, when the Send Crash Info box is not checked? Consider this post Tough Love💔, as if I didn't like Serif, I would not have posted at all.

Just testing so far, but props for a cleaner preferences interface (little things mean a lot). I understand libraries like brushes are sync'd between programs apps now, more integration is better. In Photo, Mesh Warp is now live. The more live, nondestructive stuff the better. Finally, thank you for footnotes/endnotes in Publisher. Bout time! 😝