Feedback & Hopes For The Future

[Allison6DK]

I'm a filmmaker and I recently took interest in animation, which requires working with Photoshop. Upon the launch of Affinity Photo, the accessible price and positive reviews made me choose it over Photoshop, which is current industry standart and the only software available in the institution I was working at.

Having already worked with Affinity for a little while, opening Photoshop for the first time was a tremendous shock for me. The difference is immediately noticeble. Affinity Photo is much smoother and allows attention to detail. It's incredibly user friendly compared to Photoshop that honestly feels like driving a tractor manufactured in Soviet Union - and incredibly overpriced for such performance!

I ended up with much better result using Affinity Photo on my 13inch laptop than using Photoshop on the 27inch computer. Ever since, it has become my goal to promote Affinity as the new industry standart and I hope the developers will take the challenge and take one step further, introducing new and not so pricy softwares for us filmmakers, such as animation, after effects or colour grading.

Affinity Photo allowed me to achieve awesome result despite being an amateur and I can't wait to try out the new apps to come.

[DavidMac]

Allison welcome!

Another filmmaker. How nice. I have been a DOP for over fifty years. 

 

Since you are looking for animation and (presumably moving) post FX, which Affinity does not do, you could look here: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products.

 

Black Magic produce two full professional film apps that might interest you.

 

Fusion is one of the major industry standard apps for animation, tracking, FX, rotoscoping, etc. Used on tons of huge movies.

Da Vinci Resolve, is probably the most widely used colour grading app worldwide. I have worked with it (using professional colourists) ever since it's inception. 

They make their money on the expensive hardware. So they offer the basic software for free download to anybody. Its exactly the same as the professional versions but without 3D, VR and things such as network rendering.

Be warned - it is serious professional software. Although they claim it is very easy to learn you won't find much in the way of tutorials etc. Only manuals aimed at professional colourists and animators etc. Unlike Photoshop, Affinity or After Effects, which are layer based, these two apps are node based. It's a principle that takes a bit of getting used to, but is generally considered far more flexible once you have got your head round it. Both apps are available for Windows, OS X or Linux.

 

They are quite demanding in hardware terms. You will need a reasonably up to date machine. However, since both are completely free, you can try downloading them and running them. If your hardware is not up to the task it will give you a warning. You many be able to use some aspects but not others. 

So there we are. Depending on your level of knowledge and determination to learn they could be nightmare or could be bliss! If you fancy dipping your toe into some seriously professional waters you might enjoy the challenge and acquire the kind of toolset you appear to be looking for as a filmmaker.

Neither of the above apps are  applicable to still images. For that Affinity Photo is still one of the very best available!