Affinity programme.

[EGGON]

Having only downloaded Affinity today, I am working my way through it and reading parts of the forum, it appears that I have wasted my money.

The whole programme seems to be in BETA and is not ready for general photography use. Take the raw converter as an instance. A converted file cannot be reinserted into the converter to further enhance it.

One has to start again from scratch and continue in the converter, covering what has already been done and then continuing beyond the original work to complete the conversion to what is required.

On straightening a photograph, there is no fine adjustment, it either doesn't straighten it enough, or it goes too far.

On cropping the shot, after cropping to requirements, the picture jumps across the window and has to be re-aligned centrally. I am surprised at some of the reports that it is one of the best programmes and is compatible with Photoshop. I'm sorry, but it is not. Photoshop is non destructive and by a moderators own admission, Affinity is not non destructive and that puts it only marginally beyond Googles own Picasa programme, which is now defunct. I'm sorry, but that is how I find it. I know that it is nowhere near the price that Photoshop is, but you get what you pay for.

 

Regards;

EGGON.

[toltec]

11 hours ago, EGGON said:

Having only downloaded Affinity today, I am working my way through it and reading parts of the forum, it appears that I have wasted my money.

The whole programme seems to be in BETA and is not ready for general photography use. Take the raw converter as an instance. A converted file cannot be reinserted into the converter to further enhance it.

One has to start again from scratch and continue in the converter, covering what has already been done and then continuing beyond the original work to complete the conversion to what is required.

On straightening a photograph, there is no fine adjustment, it either doesn't straighten it enough, or it goes too far.

On cropping the shot, after cropping to requirements, the picture jumps across the window and has to be re-aligned centrally. I am surprised at some of the reports that it is one of the best programmes and is compatible with Photoshop. I'm sorry, but it is not. Photoshop is non destructive and by a moderators own admission, Affinity is not non destructive and that puts it only marginally beyond Googles own Picasa programme, which is now defunct. I'm sorry, but that is how I find it. I know that it is nowhere near the price that Photoshop is, but you get what you pay for.

 

Regards;

EGGON.

As a long time PS user, I had problems getting used to it too.

 

What do you mean by RAW converter? Affinity opens and edits files using what it calls a "Develop Persona" which opens RAW files and converts them into Affinity files. If you want you can load the "converted" files into Develop again and continue with editing them or edit them in Photo. What else do you need? If you have converted something you would not convert it back, would you. You use it and edit it.

 

I think the straighten option is pretty good. It does depends on you drawing the Straighten tool line accurately in the first place but you can easily adjust it afterwards. Click outside the crop box (or even redraw it, if it help) and you can fine tune the rotation. I have no problems getting things straight. You can also straighten by using the crop box, as you click outside and start to rotate, Affinity draws a finer grid to help you align to.

 

Whenever I crop something, it centres and zooms to the exact centre of the window?? Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.5.2.69

 

What do you mean destructive? Affinity does some things non-destructively that Photoshop destroys, filters, cropping etc. If you are just talking about RAW, you can save snapshots while working but that's only a tiny part of Photos capabilities. For some thing Affinity is better, some not.

 

I think Affinity have done a great job in one year. When PS was one year old it was sh!t and cost hundreds. It has improved year by year but cost me thousands in upgrades.

 

If Affinity has 75% to 80% of PS functionality but only cost 10% of the price (or whatever) you don't get what you pay for do you?. You pay way over the top for a few extra features with PS and will continue to do so, month by month forever. 

 

And considering the pace of Affinity development so far, my money's on Affinity (literally).

 

[Mithferion]

I guess you didn't download the trial version to test Affinity Photo. Another good thing to do before any purchase is to gather information. In spanish, buying is "comprar", and that verb has its root from the latin word "comparare", meaning that it's not just spending money but also comparing to decide which is the best for us.

I feel sorry if you are this disappointed but Affinity Photo is a very good solution, that solves many use cases. Not all of them and not in the same way as Photoshop.

So, before getting to this point, next time try to gather the required information before spending money.

Best regards!

[kaffeeundsalz]

13 hours ago, EGGON said:

Photoshop is non destructive and by a moderators own admission, Affinity is not non destructive

 

Sorry – what? The opposite is true: While you can use Photoshop non-destructively, you almost always have to tell the program to explicitly do so. In contrast, Affinity Photo is designed to be non-destructive by default. Just take layer scaling or live filters as an example. The non-destructive workflow in Photo is so much more sophisticated than anything Photoshop has ever offered in this area.

[R C-R]

16 hours ago, EGGON said:

Take the raw converter as an instance. A converted file cannot be reinserted into the converter to further enhance it.

I am not entirely sure of what you mean by this but if you mean switching back to the Develop Persona after a RAW file has been developed in that Persona, which automatically switches to the Photo Persona when you click the "Develop" button in the Context toolbar, that is easily done simply by clicking on the Develop Persona icon in the main toolbar. The only limitation for this is you must have an RGB pixel layer selected to reuse the Develop Persona tools.

 

Developing a RAW file is destructive, but only in the sense that you cannot "undevelop" a RAW file once it has been developed in Affinity Photo (a completely non-destructive develop is on the roadmap but not yet implemented). However, the original RAW file is untouched & unaffected by anything you do in AP, which means you can open the RAW file as many times as you want & create new AP files to develop or otherwise edit as you see fit.

 

16 hours ago, EGGON said:

On straightening a photograph, there is no fine adjustment, it either doesn't straighten it enough, or it goes too far.

The Crop Tool Straighten mode is accurate to the pixel dimensions of the photo. If you are having difficulty getting the adjustment you want, try zooming in so you can better see pixel patterns to use as a reference. If you prefer, you can use the Transform panel to enter precise rotational values, including those using mathematical expressions. The accuracy of this alternate method is limited only by the internal accuracy of the app, which is somewhere around 8-10 decimal points, making extremely fine adjustments invisible to the eye entirely possible.

 

16 hours ago, EGGON said:

On cropping the shot, after cropping to requirements, the picture jumps across the window and has to be re-aligned centrally.

I don't know how or why that is happening for you, but the normal behavior after clicking the "Apply" button in the Crop Tool's Context toolbar is for the window to zoom to whatever level entirely fits the cropped document in the window's dimensions & centers it there. This applies even if you crop the document to larger than its original size.

 

If you bought the app less than 24 hours ago, it would not hurt to devote more time to evaluating it before drawing any conclusions about its worth. It is not, nor is it intended to be, a Photoshop clone. If you bought it with that expectation, you will be disappointed. If you judge it based on its own merits, perhaps not.

[RNKLN]

For everybody looking for a great photoshop clone I recommend this site  

[MikeW]

Now that's funny.

[toltec]

1 hour ago, RNKLN said:

For everybody looking for a great photoshop clone I recommend this site  

I hate cheap Knock Offs.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, RNKLN said:

For everybody looking for a great photoshop clone I recommend this site  

Clearly, from that site you have a great opportunity to get what you pay for ... & pay for ... & pay for ... & pay for....

[Merde]

21 hours ago, EGGON said:

Affinity is not non destructive and that puts it only marginally beyond Googles own Picasa programme, which is now defunct.

Please don't feed the troll...

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Clearly, from that site you have a great opportunity to get what you pay for ... & pay for ... & pay for ... & pay for....

In a collaborative setting, the PS/LR combo is the best deal Adobe has going. It's worth the money. 

 

While I don't like the SaaS model, in pure financial terms it is akin to vehicle leasing. Or even akin to buying a vehicle on payments. Stop paying and no vehicle.

 

But I am glad that I have a few versions of perpetual license PS for collaboration. When it comes down to what I do, I don't think there has been anything added since version 6 (not CS6) that I need or would use.