Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. I do think $39 cost seems very reasonable for software that seems to be very capable. The reason I hesitate is 1) If another version is right around the corner and would require a new license, I would likely wait to gain the new features. 2) I purchased lightroom 6 outright, however I found that Adobe has provided updates to CC users but not standalone users. These are updates to the same version...just not available on the standalone version. When lightroom 7 comes out, I might be forced to purchase a CC license which would come with photoshop..... that makes me pause to see if the money is well spent on Affinity.
At this point, I think I am going to pull the trigger on Affinity because watching the training videos has me hooked. Currently using Gimp to do major edits after lightroom is kind of difficult, and Affinity looks like it will really help me.