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Will Affinity ever be able to call itself a true replacement for Photoshop untill.....


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I've never thought of Affinity Photo as a replacement for Photoshop. An alternative maybe. Calling it a replacement implies that you want it to do everything that Photoshop does.

Plugins that follow Photoshop's correct plugin interface mostly work. But not all do.

John

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

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I would just like to add that Affinity Photo is my editor of choice. But after wanting to try some plug ins and finding very few work with Affinity Photo it got me thinking. I know the Nik plug ins work. However I wanted to try Alien Skin but it keeps crashing Affinity Photo. 

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I think I've read around here quite a bunch of times from Serif company staff that they do not pretend Photo to be a Photoshop replacement. That said, it works for me as one, even as is now, pretty well, despite the pending features or bits to polish (When I read "for this or that lack of a feature, this software is useless *(???)* to me" (just read a pair of re-re-float posts now in other matters) I immediately think there's a problem with imagination and looking for alternative workflows while using this application (inside the actual app, or in combo with other apps)   around these parts... )  // Generic rant.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
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Serif has never claimed Affinity Photo is intended to be a Photoshop replacement.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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15 hours ago, ian1357 said:

But after wanting to try some plug ins and finding very few work with Affinity Photo it got me thinking.

Perhaps devoting a little thought to the following will make why this is true a little clearer: many types of Photoshop plugins require features that are not present in Affinity Photo. For more about this, see for example the discussion of plugin types & host application support in this Wikipedia article.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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10 hours ago, R C-R said:

Serif has never claimed Affinity Photo is intended to be a Photoshop replacement.

Of course not but to be real, Photoshop and Affinity Photo are both intended for the exact same thing. No one wants to be using both so one or the other will have to suffice which in most cases, people will stick to photoshop because they know it well and it has more features.

Some people will *replace* photoshop with Affinity Photo and those people expect to be able to get the same out of the software one way or another. Even if their favourite feature in photoshop isn't in Affinity there needs to be an alternative, non-awkward method of achieving the same results.

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32 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

Of course not but to be real, Photoshop and Affinity Photo are both intended for the exact same thing.

Would you agree that depends on each person's definition of "real," what they want to use either app for, & of course if they really consider it a hardship to work in two (or more) different apps to do everything they want?

Although it is not specifically about either app, I agree with what @JET_Affinity said in this post about the Designer roadmap. I do not think I am the only one....

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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1 hour ago, MattyWS said:

Some people will *replace* photoshop with Affinity Photo and those people expect to be able to get the same out of the software one way or another

From what I can check in several places is *way* more than "some"  (and even larger the bunch of users disliking the subscription and still staying there, quite unhappy)

I don't think tho that people, at least those thinking it well, do expect the same output than the one from that other tool which counts on an advantage of time in production of 20 years, when Affinity Photo has been born way later. Kind of yesterday, in comparison. And also, when the other company's resources, size in staff, money, and a large etc, is outstandingly larger in every possible way.  It simply can't get you the same output, at least not in even less of a 1/5 of the years. Even what they got is simply epic, in this short period of time. (and keeps improving and evolving)

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
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13 minutes ago, SrPx said:

I don't think tho that people, at least those thinking it well, do expect the same output than the one from that other tool which counts on an advantage of time in production of 20 years, when Affinity Photo has been born way later. Kind of yesterday, in comparison. And also, when the other company's resources, size in staff, money, and a large etc, is outstandingly larger in every possible way.  It simply can't get you the same output, at least not in even less of a 1/5 of the years. Even what they got is simply epic, in this short period of time. (and keeps improving and evolving)

30 years actually and bear in mind that Photoshop was/is a more expensive product and not only have Adobe had the benefit of thirty years development, they charged for each new update. That's an awful lot more development and revenue.

What Serif have done is quite amazing in comparison.

Like everything in life, you get what you pay for, although IMHO, with Photo you get much more than what you pay for.

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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15 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Would you agree that depends on each person's definition of "real," what they want to use either app for, & of course if they really consider it a hardship to work in two (or more) different apps to do everything they want?

Although it is not specifically about either app, I agree with what @JET_Affinity said in this post about the Designer roadmap. I do not think I am the only one....

Of course in a lot of cases you'll find yourself using multiple applications in your workflow. For example I use Substance Designer and Painter as well as photoshop, you could argue all three are image manipulation applications so with my own logic I should choose one, right? The problem is they are all used in a different part of my workflow and have their unique niche uses, for example I use Substance Painter to texture my model initially, then use Substance Designer to automate any post process changes and give the model an Ambient Occlusion and heightmap, sometimes even automate an atlas texture sheet, then finally all my images are saved in Photoshop as .psd files to be saved as the file format I desire and for organisation.

In this whole workflow there is only room for Photoshop or Affinity, I would never need or want to use both since they would be doing the same thing, while the other applications have some cross-over features they aren't used for all the same reasons. So Photoshop has file formats I need that Affinity doesn't (but should really, but that's another topic), so as much as I hate having to pay subscription costs for photoshop, currently I have to use that instead of Affinity. I would much rather switch to affinity photo and not be paying subscription to adobe.

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36 minutes ago, SrPx said:
1 hour ago, MattyWS said:

Some people will *replace* photoshop with Affinity Photo and those people expect to be able to get the same out of the software one way or another

From what I can check in several places is *way* more than "some"  (and even larger the bunch of users disliking the subscription and still staying there, quite unhappy)

Some people's expectations are, to put it as kindly as I can, not well aligned with reality. For reasons I cannot understand, they expect apps developed by one company to be able to do in some way everything the apps developed by another company can do, even though this has never been true in the entire history of software development. Some even expect everything to work in exactly the same way, using the same UI & terminology.

I completely understand that this would make things a lot simpler for a great many end users, but short of complete monopolistic dominance by one company across all apps that drives all its competitors out of business, it just isn't ever going to happen. History also tells us what happens when one company achieves market dominance even when it is not complete, & I don't think many end users would be happy with that.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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I've been also a game artist for a bunch of years, several companies and later, freelance. Seems is not a case of you working at a company where all gets paid for you,  but is your own freelancing or whatever. So, you are forced to pay the subscription, as in your case, you can't avoid it. Well, as stated above, the advantage in time in favor of the giant is over 30 years (or 25 -27 as we are speaking about the difference, tho not sure when Affinity started)... it will need time to catch up for some fields completely (and unless Adobe performs really badly in the future, they'll be farther away at that moment, but at least, Affinity will have  the main stuff well covered, even if not as many bells and whistles as Adobe, that probably will be a constant. But I don't really mind that, and to explain why, would need a way, way longer post ) , but it's a math problem :  years, amount of money, size of both companies, number of programmers at each, etc.In several fields, or niches inside certain fields, there's no other solution than one of these : A) Adopt later B) Use a combo of apps.   Tho B is a must in any case, with any suite, for complex workflows... But imo, B is possible even in your case, combining certain converters (XnView, etc) and other utilities. Just way too cumbersome for a workflow as complex as game art these days (I'm assuming you work with Unity and etc), is probably not worth it saving the 12 bucks per month, for now, in your case (if we speak only about PS/Photo).

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
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8 minutes ago, SrPx said:

... the advantage in time in favor of the giant is over 30 years (or 25 -27 as we are speaking about the difference, tho not sure when Affinity started)... it will need time to catch up for some fields completely ...

Why do you assume Serif/Affinity would even be interested in 'catching up' with Adobe? It seems pretty obvious they have a lot of different ideas about how graphics editing apps should work, both at the UI & "under the hood" levels. It also seems obvious this is working quite well for them in a highly competitive market where others have crashed & burned chasing that elusive goal of 'catching up' with the giants.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

History also tells us what happens when one company achieves market dominance even when it is not complete, & I don't think many end users would be happy with that.

Exactly.... some people only see the short term issue, to pay 12 bucks now or not. The thing runs way deeper. Even while I do think that some cases, like a complex workflow with Substance, Quixel, Zbrush hotlinking with PS or etc, do totally need PS, as everything has been designed with that tool in mind, by the other companies, when building the chain of work since day 1  !  But... not just for supporting or not TGA format, for quite some other reasons. Just like I also advice people in the other route, just willing to have a job in the mainstream (triple As, or at least, just not small studios) game industry (and surely fully disconnect at home, not touching a computer other than in the weekends, for sanity, and survive with good health more than one year) that they HAVE to go with the industry tools , PS, just as they go with Substance or ZB. Freelancers and indies? yep, I get it, you (we) have room to decide, but if part of the plan is getting into a mainstream company later on... is these exact brands, and absolutely no other (Autodesk included).. Any other thing is fooling oneself and loose time and chances. Now, for freelancing in less rigid fields -or for games where the thing is not so tied to those packages- and when there's zero plan to go (or go back ;);) ) to the mainstream game industry ? Heck, then Affinity all the way, and whatever else to support it in the form of "combos".... 

For going mainstream, if that's the dream (eeek) , I wouldn't save bucks, quite the opposite, or you wont reach anywhere. (bucks in formation, masters, books, seminars, fast hardware to learn, etc, etc, etc). But I'd get information about what that entire world is like, really, beforehand. (probably no reader is that situation around here, seems the majority of Affinity users aren't millennials, to say the least. But you never know. )

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
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4 minutes ago, SrPx said:

But I'd get information about what that entire world is like, really, beforehand.

If you really mean the whole world & all the diverse workflows in use in it for different kinds of work, that would be quite a challenge! :o

Besides, taken to its logical conclusion, it would be hard to see how that would leave much room for innovation. :(

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Why do you assume Serif/Affinity would even be interested in 'catching up' with Adobe? It seems pretty obvious they have a lot of different ideas about how graphics editing apps should work, both at the UI & "under the hood" levels. It also seems obvious this is working quite well for them in a highly competitive market where others have crashed & burned chasing that elusive goal of 'catching up' with the giants.

For market reasons. There's a large pool of users they could grab, and are acquiring a part of those already. Because is the nature of a business. Because the oficial marketing slogans (several currently in the site ) tell a bit of a different version/story of that, which you mention or has been said by others in the forums. A buyer has option A and option B to do the works, be it for hobby or the much more pressuring situation of bringing food to the table. If the developer does not want to be compared, that's fine, but the potential customer, have no doubt, will evaluate things that way, like it or not... 

Because the key here is that there's entire huge industries built around Adobe's ways, UI, workflows, pipelines, et, etc, etc. Yes, you can trash/ignore all that, or... adapt to it cleverly, to grab more market, more user base (steal it, indeed, rightfully tho, it's business). For that is not needed to discard a more original and modern approach while aiming to cover the same needs, as those are common, is not like Affinity is  going to invent those needs and requirements. Those are there, very complex and evolved at companies through decades, tightly tied to Adobe , fully covered already by Adobe. But the combination of the purchase system, and several other little advantages, might worth by a large difference to many, that's IMO the key.

The catch up need is very obvious, several fields need to fill the gaps (bits of those corners to polish: tga, dxf, stuff needed for certain color separation uses, several matters in digital painting (even for a very basic set of that), some pending but planned tools additions in AD, the  fast evolution in Publisher to "catch up" whatever they can in Quark's and ID's territory, etc... ) . IMO, being realistic is a need, here. For a lot of people -me included- and a lot of uses, it already is worth it, a lot (but even I need a combo of tools). For others, that catch up is something they will wait for to jump wagon. A bunch actually can't till some stuff finds time to be implemented.

With catching up, I guess is never meant to do internal code the same, or same UI, is only aiming to the results and cover what is needed to be covered for professional work in several areas. Is a work in process, and it took Adobe really a long time. (Serif seems to be quite faster, despite the size)

 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
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4 minutes ago, R C-R said:

If you really mean the whole world & all the diverse workflows in use in it for different kinds of work, that would be quite a challenge! :o

ehm....nop, that sentence was not referring to the whole world of fields where a 2D application can be used (from medical, to CG, general science, fashion, photography....) nope, I was mostly talking about video game art making world, as was what Matty was referring mostly to ( with the Substance apps, probably Zbrush, PS, etc) . It was a very very niche comment from someone -me- that have worked quite in that one.... about getting into (or planning your life for that) video game art making jobs, which btw , have the companies pretty saturated of people now (specially in game characters making) and I was mostly implying that it can get to be a very hard life, and extremely far from what a lot of enthusiastic kids think it is.... (but I bet there's not a single "kid" in this thread, maybe neither in the entire forums...)

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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5 minutes ago, SrPx said:

For market reasons. There's a large pool of users they could grab, and are acquiring a part of those already. Because is the nature of a business.

But is also the nature of business to consider carefully which investments are likely to generate profits vs. those that are likely to generate losses, otherwise known as return on investment or ROI. I think Serif has a pretty good handle on that, including how big the pool of users they could grab really is, both in the short & long terms.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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I’ve read yesterday that Adobe has presented its upcoming Photoshop CC for iPad, which in my opinion will just be to little for Adobe to “fight” Serif; CC looks ugly, it’s largely the same interface, it’s like Adobe just took the desktop PS and squeezed it on mobile. The general consensus in comments sections (macrumors article) is that Affinity apps are superior (and they’re talking from the perspective of working on a iPad) to Adobe, which I agree with. People don’t understand why should they leave AF, since is doing almost everything that PS do, and has everything optimized to work with touch gestures. People working with desktop programs should at least try the mobile versions, they may be surprised how much it can be achieved with gestures instead of a mouse. And just wait until Serif will improve AD (while AF became great with version 1.6, I think AD will become incredible when 1.7 will arrive), no one will give a penny about Adobe on mobile.

I don’t agree with people defending Affinity lack of some features (especially because all of them will become eventually available here, not some cheap tool clones, but innovative, in affinity’s way) with this childish “we’re not a PS replacement”. Of course you are; affinity is not just an alternative to Adobe; is better in many ways, and slowly will become absolutely superior to it.

So, will Affinity truly be able to replace PS? — again, they already do; IMO the future of graphics is all mobile; that’s the reason why Adobe is investing in it, I believe; and forget about the subscription they’ll bring to iOS (and that’s something that everyone hates), do anyone really see PS having the same easy-to-use brilliance Affinity has in its apps? I don’t think so. In ten years, people will forget the greedy Adobe ever existed; the future is mobile, and the future is Affinity (as cheesy as it may sound, I truly believe it).

iuli

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I fully agree with the potential that Affinity has and will deliver in the future, but the fact is that you can open  a PSD in Affinity and Smart Objects will be displayed as rasters because they simply don't work. So when files arrive from companies to you that use Adobe what is your solution when they deliver a PSD with Smart Objects that need further tweaking?

Or you have to deliver  a Adobe extension (industry standard) to a client like a PSD and you only use Affinity what do you do when they can't open your files or your files don't work a 100%, because they use Photoshop? That will always be the problem. Adobe (unfortunately) is a giant that dominates the world with their applications and greedy business model compare to Serif and Affinity that are much smaller and use a more human friendly approach towards their users.

This is just one example but I can name more (plugins for example, editing text in a PSD and Photoshop Actions), the problem is that not everybody uses Affinity so a 100% replacement is out of the question for now.

I use both Adobe Photoshop &  Illustrator ( CS 6)  and Affinity Photo and Designer.

Of course I hope I can skip Adobe completely in the future!

David 

 

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