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When Will Affinity Be A Real Photoshop Contender?


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With the extortion experts Adobe screwing users of Creative (Accounting) Cloud with its revised pricing 20 to 50 percent, never has there been a greater need for a competitive alternative. Affinity comes nearest but shows no enthusiasm for closing the gap. When will it address the problems around plugins on Mac, or support Photoshop Actions, or have a file organiser, or make headway into reducing its gigantic file sizes? Solve these and you could have the world beating a path to your doorstep.

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Affinity comes nearest but shows no enthusiasm for closing the gap.

 

 

??

 

A spunky, relatively tiny competitor methodically and carefully building fresh-from-the-ground-up elegant, powerful, and affordable alternatives to a set of decades-entrenched applications "shows no enthusiasm" just because they're not done yet?!

 

JET

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Typical heads-in-sand replies so far. Affinity was launched as a Photoshop contender and I was one of the first to buy it. Right from the outset they knew what they had to do to capitalise on claims made but somewhere along the way it ran out of steam. I go back to it now and then but development seems to have come to a halt. I WANT a Photoshop contender but Affinity has not made the progress its launch promised.

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Typical heads-in-sand replies so far. Affinity was launched as a Photoshop contender and I was one of the first to buy it. Right from the outset they knew what they had to do to capitalise on claims made but somewhere along the way it ran out of steam. I go back to it now and then but development seems to have come to a halt. I WANT a Photoshop contender but Affinity has not made the progress its launch promised.

HarpyG,

 

You are right, there are somethings that need to be added and somethings that need to be fixed. The developers have made a lot of improvements and rather quickly. As someone who was "one of the first to buy it" I couldn't help but notice that you have relatively few posts. Maybe a good way to help the developers to improve their software would be to be more active here on the forums. Making your voice heard and offering different perspectives and feedback is a great way to help improve things. The developers here are great and they do listen (sure they don't always agree but they do listen and way more than anywhere else). So I would recommend that you make your suggestions and see what happens. Just a thought. 

 

Hokusai

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Typical heads-in-sand replies so far. Affinity was launched as a Photoshop contender and I was one of the first to buy it. Right from the outset they knew what they had to do to capitalise on claims made but somewhere along the way it ran out of steam. I go back to it now and then but development seems to have come to a halt. I WANT a Photoshop contender but Affinity has not made the progress its launch promised.

What exactly are your requirements? I used Photoshop for 22 years and yes it does lack some features but it is no way a slouch. Just because development is slow does not mean it has stopped. Programming is complex, and their team is no way as large as Adobe's, it will take time. I am genuinely curious what as to what's a must for you? As I used photoshop as early as version 2.0, and had to do many of the automated task manually, so none of the issues with Photo are a deal-breaker for me. 

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I've used Serif products since the 90s. In those days they were hard sell products with persistent and annoying cold-calls to bully you into buying more. They would launch a product with a fanfare of self-publicity, support it minimally for a few years, then withdraw it in favour of something new.

 

I hoped Affinity might be different. I've been patient. They need now to include some new features that really challenge Photoshop or it will founder. I'm rooting for it, but for me it is as yet an unviable product.

 

That is all.

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Typical heads-in-sand replies so far. Affinity was launched as a Photoshop contender and I was one of the first to buy it. Right from the outset they knew what they had to do to capitalise on claims made but somewhere along the way it ran out of steam. I go back to it now and then but development seems to have come to a halt. I WANT a Photoshop contender but Affinity has not made the progress its launch promised.

 

Your level of entitlement is almost palpable.

 

If you're that bothered, why don't you go out there and make an alternative yourself?

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Your level of entitlement is almost palpable.

 

If you're that bothered, why don't you go out there and make an alternative yourself?

 

So rude.

 

Forums are largely ineffective. Manufacturers measure product success by sales quantity and user quality; low-end or high-end users, and they will have a target audience in mind which is monitored against revenue. They might use forums to judge the latter but mostly they are just talk with little action. Which is why I rarely come on them.

 

When sales figures drop a manufacturer must make the choice of either improving the product or moving on to something else. So far Serif have responded with small improvements but nothing significant which suggests sales figures are up to their expectation. The crunch will come when these figures fall and they have to make the big decision to either inject some serious development or to invent something entirely new. Serif's track record is to do the latter.

 

With this post I'm kind of hoping they will wake up and go all out for a full-blown Photoshop alternative, it is something that is badly needed. They obviously have the support and they have produced in a short time a pretty remarkable platform from which to achieve this, but I can't help but wonder if they will to go the full distance. Time will tell.

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So rude.

 

As if characterizing anyone who disagrees with you as having their "heads in the sand" isn't?

 

Forums are largely ineffective.

 

Then by what logic do you think posting this thread would suddenly cause Serif to "wake up and go all out"?

 

Harpy, I could build a very long list of features which Adobe was years, if not decades, behind its competitors in delivering. Illustrator, for example, is over 30 years old and still doesn't provide dimension tools, connector lines, user-defined ruler scales...

 

You're expecting Serif to have matched, feature-by-feature, in 4 years what Photoshop took 29 years (after having initially been acquired by Adobe from the Knoll brothers) to become?

 

How long will it take? When will it happen? Nobody knows. Not even Serif. Your blustering won't make it happen.

 

Unless you're privy to a full accounting of its resources, you have no idea whether Serif is already "going all out" or not.

 

What I do know is that the Affinity applications can already serve for a lot of what I do, and I've never considered graphics software an either-or proposition anyway. There's nothing saying I'm required to use just one particular raster, vector, or page assembly program, and I don't. It's how I've always avoided mission-critical dependency on a single vendor.

 

But that's just me. If you can't make productive use of any raster program until it matches Photoshop tit-for-tat, well, don't. Good things take time.

 

JET

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I've used Serif products since the 90s. In those days they were hard sell products with persistent and annoying cold-calls to bully you into buying more. They would launch a product with a fanfare of self-publicity, support it minimally for a few years, then withdraw it in favour of something new.

 

I hoped Affinity might be different. I've been patient. They need now to include some new features that really challenge Photoshop or it will founder. I'm rooting for it, but for me it is as yet an unviable product.

 

That is all.

 

I've gotten some of those calls and I actually thought they were always pleasant to talk to.  Not anything I could call bullying, or even troublesome.  They're not Americans who hang up in your face if you don't buy what they're selling.  But I agree with the rest of what you're saying.  At some point it became clear that they had no intention of further developing the Plus line, or even fixing the myriad of bugs in them, that remain in those products to this day.

 

I don't think it's realistic that Affinity Photo/Designer will ever challenge Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator.  Adobe is just too impossibly far ahead, and also developing faster than Serif.  Affinity software will grab consumers who don't need the kind of power that Adobe brings to the table.  Or people like myself who will buy a product if it has a few really unique features and the cost is cheap enough.

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[...]I WANT a Photoshop contender but Affinity has not made the progress its launch promised.

 

A Photoshop contender is pretty vague. I do motion graphics, so I know what my needs are, but they may be very different from someone who does print or web and so on so forth.

What is it that you need and that you think it's missing in Affinity Photo right now?

Andrew
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Win10 x64 AMD Threadripper 1950x, 64GB, 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD + 2TB, dual GTX 1080ti
Dual Monitor Dell Ultra HD 4k P2715Q 27-Inch

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Affinity comes nearest but shows no enthusiasm for closing the gap.

 

These type of guys word things in a way to get that dramatic response. 

 

As an environment artist, I've been able to port over my entire workflow from Photoshop, and this app is "young". There is one thing I'm trying to understand about using user created greyscale alphas as masks within the alpha cannel in Affinity, and that has been my only issue so far. This may be me getting things wrong, or Affinity just not being able to do it (Here's the link to the post I created in case anyone can help https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/40723-help-porting-work-flow-with-channelslayersalphas/). The only reason why I use Photoshop is to collaborate with other artists who are just set in their ways as well as the industry running on Photoshop for 2D stuff. I use it for all of my personal & indie work. 

 

These guys are on the right track, BY FAR! 

 

Keep it up

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For what it's worth, I've made the switch to Photo & Designer and haven't regretted it yet. I've actually been VERY impressed with the speed and responsiveness of the Affinity development team. They're pulling off a minor miracle with what they've accomplished so far in the time span they've had.

 

Considering the entrenched lead that Adobe has, to see this kind of software suite come up out of nowhere and provide a very credible challenge is amazing and encouraging. I, for one, plan on supporting Affinity from now on. I've also convinced my workplace to install them both on my work computer and they've been very pleased with the results.

 

Does either program provide every single bell, whistle or widget that the Adobe programs have? Of course not. That's beyond foolish to expect, given the time span that Adobe has been working on them. However, to claim that the Affinity team has somehow lost enthusiasm or steam is utterly wrong. They're chugging along and are providing a wonderful product that's only improving with every point release.

 

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So rude.

 

Forums are largely ineffective. Manufacturers measure product success by sales quantity and user quality; low-end or high-end users, and they will have a target audience in mind which is monitored against revenue. They might use forums to judge the latter but mostly they are just talk with little action. Which is why I rarely come on them.

 

When sales figures drop a manufacturer must make the choice of either improving the product or moving on to something else. So far Serif have responded with small improvements but nothing significant which suggests sales figures are up to their expectation. The crunch will come when these figures fall and they have to make the big decision to either inject some serious development or to invent something entirely new. Serif's track record is to do the latter.

 

With this post I'm kind of hoping they will wake up and go all out for a full-blown Photoshop alternative, it is something that is badly needed. They obviously have the support and they have produced in a short time a pretty remarkable platform from which to achieve this, but I can't help but wonder if they will to go the full distance. Time will tell.

 

It's already an alternative, It may not fit your needs but It does for many. I stand corrected, but I get the impression from you that adobe needs to be crushed in order for affinity to be a success (A lot like that Windows vs MAC Crap). Alternative does not mean it has to match feature to feature. For me any professional tool must offer CMYK support for Offset as the bare minimum. I never really saw Affinity overtaking Adobe to begin with, but as a niche market for some design professionals like myself. 

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A Photoshop contender is pretty vague. I do motion graphics, so I know what my needs are, but they may be very different from someone who does print or web and so on so forth.

What is it that you need and that you think it's missing in Affinity Photo right now?

It's not so much the stuff that is missing as much as the 'features' that are not working, fixing these would be a very good start:

 

When will it address the problems for plugins on Mac? - I own and actively use a raft of very useful and essential plug-ins, Topaz, for instance, that do not work in the Mac version of Affinity.

 

When will it make headway into reducing its gigantic file sizes that for raw are typically four to eight times larger than the oriiginal+sidecar Photoshop equivalents? - I shoot thousands of images a year, mostly in Nikon raw, that require storage and back-up. I see no point in using Affinity as a main editor when it is going to cost me the equavalent of a Photoshop subscription to store them all.

 

I see these as basic requirements but they are not being met.

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It's not so much the stuff that is missing as much as the 'features' that are not working, fixing these would be a very good start:

 

When will it address the problems for plugins on Mac? - I own and actively use a raft of very useful and essential plug-ins, Topaz, for instance, that do not work in the Mac version of Affinity.

 

When will it make headway into reducing its gigantic file sizes that for raw are typically four to eight times larger than the oriiginal+sidecar Photoshop equivalents? - I shoot thousands of images a year, mostly in Nikon raw, that require storage and back-up. I see no point in using Affinity as a main editor when it is going to cost me the equavalent of a Photoshop subscription to store them all.

 

I see these as basic requirements but they are not being met.

 

I have re-read your first post, I missed some of what you said the first time.

 

I see your point about having a better solution to handle raw adjustments. The thing is, ACR is separated from PS whereas Develop Persona is part of AP as a whole package.

I guess the devs can come up with a solution in order to have a sidecar, but as I'm not a developer I have no idea how much work that would require.

As for the plugins, you already know the intention is to expand the compatibility. How long will this take? Who knows.

I don't agree with your request for the PS actions: AP and PS are two different platforms with a different workflow. I would never expect to get compatibility with something so strictly related to the core of a software. If I decide to switch application I have to take some trade-off into account.

 

The thing I don't agree is the part about showing no enthusiasm. Why would you say that? Because of the above-mentioned issues?

For instance, I find performance and stability crucial in order to really make the switch and I have personally complained about it several times. But I can't say there's no enthusiasm because my personal priorities are not met. In fact, I can see they are showing enthusiasm considering how fast the development is moving forward with the limited resources. I wish it would move in the direction I personally find more urgent, but that's another story. For instance, spending time on the light UI is totally useless to me, I never use the light UI anyway. But I know a lot of users requested it and I'm glad to see Serif listened and responded.

Andrew
-
Win10 x64 AMD Threadripper 1950x, 64GB, 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD + 2TB, dual GTX 1080ti
Dual Monitor Dell Ultra HD 4k P2715Q 27-Inch

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Typical heads-in-sand replies so far. Affinity was launched as a Photoshop contender and I was one of the first to buy it. Right from the outset they knew what they had to do to capitalise on claims made but somewhere along the way it ran out of steam. I go back to it now and then but development seems to have come to a halt. I WANT a Photoshop contender but Affinity has not made the progress its launch promised.

This may be due to granularity the team is introducing by pushing their products to other platforms. I love to see the company flourishing and I love getting new features, I have even requested a preview App for the designs for iPhone and iPad.

 

Yet, the more products the company releases the less focused it becomes. The Affinity Designer is for example a tool that I use all the time, but I too noticed that its development considerably slowed down, while there is a lot room for improvement of existing features in order to be a game changer on the Adobe dominated market.

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