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Adobe Lightroom/PS -vs- Affinity Photo


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Greetings,

 

I am researching my software choices.  Experiences are with Photoshop CS3.  I have tried the Lightroom/PS 7 day trial.  Someone from another forum recommended Affinity Photo.  I am the try before you buy kind of person so a Windows Demo would be nice.  But I realized it is not available.  I have watched some Affinity Tutorial Video's on Youtube and so far it looks pretty straight forward to learn.  I like the Idea of purchasing.  I am not keen on giving Adobe a monthly fee to rent their software.  Plus after using Lightroom to work with some of my photographs I realized that if in the future I decided that I did not want to use Lightroom that most of my changes might be stuck in there and not able to export the edited images.  So I am looking in another direction.

 

I was wondering if any of you all had experience with Photoshop and now are using Affinity Photo and what insights can you offer. 

 

One of the things I have noticed is that there seems to be a problem with Affinity Photo and Google Nik Collection.  Is this true?

 

Thanks and I will be around.

 

Ron

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Ron,

 

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums :) no doubt other users will chip in with their experiences.

 

What OS are you on?

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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Ron,

 

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums :) no doubt other users will chip in with their experiences.

 

What OS are you on?

 

Thanks for the Welcome.  I have just upgraded computers to handle my editing of Photos and Videos more efficiently.  I have an HP Envy I7 with 16gb Ram, Dual Video Cards and Windows 10 Operating System.  I am a drone pilot but I am also a long time Photographer (40+ years but Non Professional strictly hobbyist).

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Honestly, Affinity Photo has enormous potential as an alternative to Lightroom/PS. The price is truly great.

 

But...I personally don't think it's ready for production. Maybe in a few months...

 

Now, you risk nothing by buying it. I did. The price is so friendly, we should get it even as a means of supporting a great initiative. That said, right now, if you want production-ready software and don't mind the higher cost, go with Lightroom/Photoshop. That's what I have done until Affinity Photo resolves a few issues.

 

Good luck!

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I am a long time photoshop user. Started with PS6, moved to CS2, Then onto Adobe CC photographers plan as well as the illustrator cc plan.

The minute i saw that Affinity photo was available for windows I jumped on it and have not looked back. Despite taking a small financial hit, I have cancelled and unsubscribed to all adobe products.

As far as the nik collection, there are several videos and tutorials showing how to get them into Affinity. Once you do, they are available through the filters menu.

The Affinity UI is very similar to PS and illustrator. The icons may look a bit different, but the keystrokes and layout are very similar. It didn't take very long to get it down.

I've still got an older copy of LR installed because I like the print module, and it works very well with my Epson 3880. However, i'm experimenting printing through AP and am very happy with the results. As with any change, it just takes a little time to get used to.

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-- realized that if in the future I decided that I did not want to use Lightroom that most of my changes might be stuck in there and not able to export the edited images. 

I have no experience of my own in this matter (as I use LR standalone version), but seems currently you can access and export photos from unpaid LR CC. Possibly even import and rough edit, as statement is that only access to develop and map sections is forbidden in unpaid version. (please confirm this if you have tried this).

 

You can use AP for basic and some not so basic work. There are some rough edges but basic production work just works.

 

NB that AP has no photo database functionality which is main attraction in LR. Also it may be that LR raw processing is a bit better than in AP (well, they also say C1 is better than LR in this regard -- I think differences are small).

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I realized that if in the future I decided that I did not want to use Lightroom that most of my changes might be stuck in there and not able to export the edited images.  

 

That's because you're not thinking about Lightroom in the right way.

 

Although some people use it this way (and are severely limiting themselves), it was never originally intended as a one-stop workflow solution: from v1 the idea was to use it for your conversion and basic adjustments and then hand off further post-processing to PhotoShop or similar solution, pushing a lossless-format converted file to the pixel editor.

 

The fact that Lightroom's adjustment capabilities have been substantially increased over the years doesn't change the logic here: and you can do this right now, even if you decide to drop Lightroom - just export your files as full-sized 16 bit tiffs, or whatever other format you want to use, then you can do whatever you want with them in Photo, going forward.

 

Photo is analogous to PhotoShop, not Lightroom.

 

  I like the Idea of purchasing.  I am not keen on giving Adobe a monthly fee to rent their software.

 

You "rent" pretty much any software, including Photo. All you're granted is permission to use it, and you no more "own" Photo than you do Lightroom, and if you want to stay current on an ongoing basis, you'll be giving money to Serif for the long haul, just as you would Adobe:

 

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/license/

 

Your Rights and Permitted Use

You are licensed to use the Serif Software as expressly set out in this License from your first use of the Serif Software until termination of this License.

No rights in the Serif Software are sold to you; your right is solely to use the Serif Software within the terms of this License. All rights not expressly granted to you are reserved to Serif.

[...]

you have no right to rent, lend, lease, sell, supply, transfer or distribute, transfer, redistribute or sublicense the Serif Software.

Keith Reeder

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That's because you're not thinking about Lightroom in the right way.

 

Although some people use it this way (and are severely limiting themselves), it was never originally intended as a one-stop workflow solution: from v1 the idea was to use it for your conversion and basic adjustments and then hand off further post-processing to PhotoShop or similar solution, pushing a lossless-format converted file to the pixel editor.

 

The fact that Lightroom's adjustment capabilities have been substantially increased over the years doesn't change the logic here: and you can do this right now, even if you decide to drop Lightroom - just export your files as full-sized 16 bit tiffs, or whatever other format you want to use, then you can do whatever you want with them in Photo, going forward.

 

So maybe I am not thinking in the right way.  When I first loaded the 7 day Adobe Trial Version I was immediately thrust into LR.  I watched some LR Video's and got to testing.  I really never opened up Photoshop CC.  I just stayed in Lightroom as it had most of the editing that I normally do all right there. 

 

LR was not hard to grasp and learn quickly.  Getting to use to the organizing power of Collections was something new to me.  I am use to making a copy of the original photo, fire up Photoshop and edit away while leaving the original intact in another folder.   I don't know right now what I want to do, but listen thanks for all the feedback.  It has given me more things to think about now.

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Don't see what you mean about can't export your photo from lightroom.

The main drawback for such workflow may be the extremely poor printing options in AP actually. Apart that, if you don't absolutely need lightroom cataloging, you can go for AP alone. Just check your body raw files are fully supported. And AP can only get better in coming months/years, seeing where it is after so little time. If development continue to listen and enhance their software, we have a killer in hands ;-)

intel i7-3930K - 32Go - SSDs | Dual screen | Running last customer beta

Win 7 Pro SP1 x64 | nVidia GTX 680 - v376.33 | intuos 3 - v6.3.15-3

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  • 2 weeks later...

You "rent" pretty much any software, including Photo. All you're granted is permission to use it, and you no more "own" Photo than you do Lightroom, and if you want to stay current on an ongoing basis, you'll be giving money to Serif for the long haul, just as you would Adobe

well while it is true that you only get a use permission, you get a perpetual (aka permanent) one for affinity and even if you  have to pay for newer versions it's not like you have to pay like every 2 months for a new version (affinity is about 50€ base price, adobe at about 24 per month for one piece of software)

 

for me it's more a designer vs Illustrator thing.

 

also if you dont like what the next version has to offer or you want to wait no one stops you.

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Hello Wingshooter,

 

welcome to AP Forum. For your choice, please make a selection between Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom!

1. Lightroom is more a database, with RAW converter as a pixel manipulation tool as Photoshop an AP

2. LR has an import function, keyword function, catalog function and rating orders. So it is more an administrative tool for all your pics you did. Selection for year, motive and so on. your are able to organize your pics. thats the Keyfeature.

 

3. Photoshop is a pixel manipulator. AP also, both software hasn't any feature to organize your pics. only your head will do it, or not.

 

My research gave AP a chance, because I didn't want to pay for a trouser an bill montly to use it. Adobe gets these way to pull the money out of my bag.

So I was looking for Alternatives. AP gave me these. in some cases other processes drives me crazy, but experiance will get results, sometime :-)

 

For managing my Pics I use LR V 5 because it hasn't the cloud feature.

 

the problem with editied Photos, try to synchronize your folder, you get them. It is an reimporting function ( in these case they are in the same folder. Otherway you have to import the edited Pics.) And after these, you're able to export them.

 

Good Light

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Hi Wingshooter

 

I can quite understand why you are puzzled and maybe a little confused in making comparisons between the Adobe products and AP.  I too have been puzzled and very confused in doing the same comparison.

 

For me, the crux of the issue is not price, but functionality. (Though I do have serious issues at just how damned intrusive the Adobe cloud suite is).

 

So, again for me, the most pertinent replies you have got so far are from Keith Reeder and Redbaron, who both point out that the design goals of the products are different. In order to find that out, I too did a trial download of Lightroom and one of AP, and decided to go for AP, even though it totally lacks any form of digital file management. Now that I have a few months of experience of AP, I think I know where I am. I love the incredible range of pixel editing tools, but just hate the necessity to hand-manage the numerous files involved. Not only do I resent it, but it's also unbelievably time consuming. 

 

Coming home from a shoot, I might have two or three hundred images, some in raw, some jpeg. Many are alternate images of the same landscape. So the first job is to view all of these images, maybe six at a time, and eliminate the duds. Forever. I don't want to see them again or have them hanging around in my folders. Now I want to compare the remaining duplicate images to pick out the best shots, working maybe two to a screen. I want to select these, and leave the unselected ones to the side for a while. Now I want to work on the selected images with the image adjustment tools and finally commit them to my library. The unselected ones can now be junked if they are not needed.

 

I used to work in Aperture, which was perfect for providing me with the database management tools for doing this job, even if it's editing capabilities were very limited compared to AP. I could wrap up a day's shooting in a couple of hours or less. Lightroom would be just as quick, I guess, and it's editing capabilities superior to Aperture. But now that I am using AP, I am finding myself spending hours and hours in this image processing exercise. I even have to keep track of what I am doing using a pen and paper!

 

So for you, I would say that you have first to settle on your priorities. Do you want to take lots of images and be efficient in their management, (Lightroom) or do you want to be more selective in your images and have a lot more scope in their editing, (AP)? 

 

Now, Serif have already announced that they are working on tools for image management, but so far I have not seen a projected release date for the new features/new product. But it's going to be a complicated tool if it's going to be efficient. Imagine you have a 50Mpixel camera and take a couple of hundred images. Loading that lot would overwhelm most computers, so for selection purposes, you could work at (much) lower resolutions, only loading the whole file when it comes to editing. That's not how AP does things currently, so their new product may be a good solution for me, or maybe it will not.

 

What do I do in the meantime? Well, I'm still trying to decide. Perhaps I will go back to Aperture until the new Serif product appears. Perhaps I will learn a better workflow from some more experienced AP user? But one thing is for sure. I do not wish to consume whole days in sorting and editing photos.

 

good luck with your decision.

 

julian

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If the main problem is selecting the keepers, pro shooters often use Photo Mechanic to cull photos, then open the remaining good ones in raw developer. I have heard it is much faster workflow than importing and rating in LR. Me, I tend to do some basic adjustment first and then look which are worth saving... I guess I am not pro enough.

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Wingshooter, you can still buy outright a standalone version of Lightroom for about £100 with no monthly subscriptions..

 

I, and many Affinity Photo users use this standalone Lightroom for photo management and basic adjustments and then do full editing in Affinity Photo. When Affinity bring out their own asset management product I'll stop using Lightroom.

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pro shooters often use Photo Mechanic to cull photos, then open the remaining good ones in raw developer. I have heard it is much faster workflow than importing and rating in LR. 

 

Culling outside of Lr can be really easy, and literally as fast as you can think and move your fingers; and you don't need an expensive dedicated program like Photo Mechanic to do so.

 

For example, my own (Windows) workflow is as follows (and note that as a sport/motor sport/wildlife photographer I can come back from a shoot with 1000s of images):

 

1) Ingest images onto my computer using the file system, to a folder named for the date and location of the session;

2) Navigate to the first Raw file in the folder, and Open With Irfanview;

3) If it's to go, press the Delete key (Irfanview can be configured automatically to move to the next image on delete - you'd want to do that);

4) If it's a keeper, press the -> key to navigate to the next image;

5) Repeat as necessary - I can literally fly through a big folder of images this way - and finally;

6) Import the remaining images into Lightroom/the Raw converter of choice.

 

It's much, much, much quicker this way than in Lr. Admittedly I'm not rating images as part of this workflow, but I don't do that anyway. If rating is seen as a necessity, you can do that in Lr as a much more manageable second pass. I also believe that XnView allows the addition of ratings, so that might be a substitute for Irfanview - but I don't know if its ratings are readable by Raw converters. 

 

That said - it looks like it's pretty capable as a cataloguing tool in its own right.

 

(Note that for my approach you'll probably need to install the Irfanview Raw plugin if you're not already a user - it's a one-off, two minute job, and well worth the trouble).

Keith Reeder

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hi, i am using capture one pro 10 with sessions or catalogues and from within i do the basic image raw work and then call right click open in Affinity Photo. thats a quick roundtrip work where the exportes tiff to affinity shows automatically within C1 

AP 1.5.1 / 1.6.x.x BETA , C1 , Lenovo W541 , Wacom Intuos Pro (S / M (new))

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  • 11 months later...
On 1/29/2017 at 0:52 PM, jhmdigital said:

Wingshooter, you can still buy outright a standalone version of Lightroom for about £100 with no monthly subscriptions..

 

I, and many Affinity Photo users use this standalone Lightroom for photo management and basic adjustments and then do full editing in Affinity Photo. When Affinity bring out their own asset management product I'll stop using Lightroom.

Will this happen? Can someone from Affinity Photo answer to that?

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  • 8 months later...
On ‎1‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 10:34 AM, Wingshooter said:

LR was not hard to grasp and learn quickly.  Getting to use to the organizing power of Collections was something new to me.  I am use to making a copy of the original photo, fire up Photoshop and edit away while leaving the original intact in another folder.   I don't know right now what I want to do, but listen thanks for all the feedback.  It has given me more things to think about now.

NM,

Post is really old, so my help is probably no help!

 

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