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Hi !

I know i can read this topic on several other forums and it was already talked a lot i think, but anyway, 

since here are mostly Affinity users, i'll ask here :)

I have tried now Adobe cloud with Photoshop and Lightroom.

I have installed it for a month now.

But still, not that comfortable than with Affinity.

Since i'm using stacking , panorama a lot, i think Affinity has better interface and a lot easier access to that options, which i like a lot.

I was installed Photoshop mainly , cause i also work with Astro photography and there are a lot of manuals (videos), how to blend 2 photos together (foreground and sky), 

other tips and so on. I also have one plugin for Photoshop (Orion, from Miklywayhunters) which i wanted to try for milkyways and night photos, but didn't find it so usefull, 

also didn't learned a lot so far :)

On other hand , paying monthly for Adobe cloud is quite a lot over years, so Affinity wins. What do you think about that ? Best, Matej

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That it takes patience to learn any new program, and that Affinity Photo is very capable. Is a good choice.  :)

 

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Booth has big advantages before each other. And i thing SERIF is goin a well way to take its concept.

SERIF has some advantages before PS, BUT also some big "we are years behind".

 

1. Preset-Managing  is in SERIF sometimes impossible or only extrem long-windowed.

2. SERIF can import PS-brushes, you can edit to your own... but its a torture to find a brush (if you have hundreds in dozens categorys)... No way for fast change via right-click (no brush-history), no preset manager for better organize, no smart folders/aliases (to keep one brush in different categories...) no other preview... no possibility "create brush-tip/texture from that layer/clipbord.... This is so last century.... The FREE Krita is much, much better in create/handling brushes.... Its really a shame how SERIF handle this!

3. Affinity lecks of "options" and templates and stuff like that. There are some "not changeable", questionable defaults - you have always to set to your like EACH time again... someting is NEVER changeable like the "wrong" after/before.... preview....  You cannot create templates in the size you want, with some layers you need...., the tool you want...

4. If you work with macros (actions) - Well Serif offers this possibility and ists working quite well for basic stuff. But lot of things are not recordable (eg. text/smudge...move a layer....) and you cannot EDIT a macro later. You can only de-activate steps, but never "start from here new".... or "replace this step". Also, you cannot range a slider (or give a "dropdown" for eg. 4 different styles....) or to wait of an user-action....  Its quite "basic"...

5. There are other things i forgot. The whole GUI/workflow does what it should, but its not really comfortable....  However SERIF does the job for what it is, and thats really well!

Sometimes you have to seacrh, sometimes it needs too many clicks/mouseways.... but under the hood, its a fantastic app. 

####

If you come from PS- there is some "re-learn", but mostly should be the same. In PS lot of things are faster/workflow better, others not. Both has apps  has "unique" ideas/concepts i cross-miss in each other. So both should "steal/advance-develop" the best ideas/concepts from the competition... That will give BOTH a developing! They should inspire cross-over! Or "steal" from Krita....!

 

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On 1/9/2019 at 4:15 AM, schmety said:

Hi !

I know i can read this topic on several other forums and it was already talked a lot i think, but anyway, 

since here are mostly Affinity users, i'll ask here :)

I have tried now Adobe cloud with Photoshop and Lightroom.

I have installed it for a month now.

But still, not that comfortable than with Affinity.

Since i'm using stacking , panorama a lot, i think Affinity has better interface and a lot easier access to that options, which i like a lot.

I was installed Photoshop mainly , cause i also work with Astro photography and there are a lot of manuals (videos), how to blend 2 photos together (foreground and sky), 

other tips and so on. I also have one plugin for Photoshop (Orion, from Miklywayhunters) which i wanted to try for milkyways and night photos, but didn't find it so usefull, 

also didn't learned a lot so far :)

On other hand , paying monthly for Adobe cloud is quite a lot over years, so Affinity wins. What do you think about that ? Best, Matej

 

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I've been using Photoshop professionally since Photoshop 2. As it progressed, and Adobe added other products and features, I just kept spending money. 

For many years, it was "the only act in town." 

I've continued to use the cloud suite since it's introduction but as Adobe becomes much more greedy and stupid, (how many poorly thought out revisions can you make) before your customers don't want to be your customers anymore?  Working as a third party developer and teacher, there is only so much I can do when it comes to using new products.

So far as I can remember, there has never been a true competitor for PS. The Affinity products are the first products to even try.

Will they succeed? Only time will tell. But right now, they have most everything to meet the needs of many and I believe they are working hard to fix some issues.

For PS users, Affinity Photo has a steep learning curve. For non-PS users, Affinity Photo has a steep learning curve. Too many steps to do too little. 

In the beginning, PS wasn't that good either.

It isn't enough to look like PS! But it is an escape from high cost and it will get better just like PS in time.....

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Once I really dug into it, I found the learning curve to be less steep than I anticipated.  While I had to learn how to speak Affinity, after 16 years with PS, I found the the AP sliders to be very close to the PS controls.  The only negative is that most of the AP tutorials are videos ( BTW, there are a lot of them) and I am more comfortable with text based tutorials.

When I am trying to learn something new, I still go to a PS tutorial and translate it into a set of Affinity notes.

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Thanks to all for your answers.

I will continue to learn both programs, then, after some time, i'll see, if i can work everything just in Affinity.

Like i said, i really like Affinity interface, also graphically looks better to me and more organized. 

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In my opinion, it goes like this:

- Use the tool you need for the job.

- If you can choose, pick the tool you want to use for the job.

Best regards!

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53 minutes ago, Mithferion said:

In my opinion, it goes like this:

- Use the tool you need for the job.

- If you can choose, pick the tool you want to use for the job.

Best regards!

I agree 100%. I've been reading these forums daily, which include the Requests. There seems to be a lot of requests that appear to want Affinity to be Photoshop. While it's obvious Serif is working hard to eat away at Adobe's market for their products, it's not trying to be Photoshop. Posting that PS does it this way can you add this, type of requests suggests to me anyway the posters want Serif to clone Adobe's products. I'm sure Serif could do that, including the pricing. It would take that to provide a product that is a replica of PS. BUT, I'll wager they (those requesting) would not be willing to pay for it.

I've used PS, and did like it, but not the pricing. I currently use several tools, LR, On1 (very little), Corel PSP, CorelDraw, and now I mainly use Affinity Photo. If I need to do something I'll use which tool(s) work the best or at least what I can do the task(s) best with. (For now, I just can't justify purchasing Affinity Designer having a current version of CorelDraw GS. It's way more advanced, and I do not expect Serif to be able to equal it for some time). If you can do things using MS Paint or Gimp but AP doesn't have the niffy one-button click to do it, well use those. I wouldn't expect some other software to adapt to that. JMHO.

Affinity Photo 2.4..; Affinity Designer 2.4..; Affinity Publisher 2.4..; Affinity2 Beta versions. Affinity Photo,Designer 1.10.6.1605 Win10 Home Version:21H2, Build: 19044.1766: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s);32GB Ram, Nvidia GTX 3070, 3-Internal HDD (1 Crucial MX5000 1TB, 1-Crucial MX5000 500GB, 1-WD 1 TB), 4 External HDD

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20 minutes ago, schmety said:

that i can work exactly the same with Affinity

You'll never be able to work exactly the same as you do in Photoshop. You may be able to produce the same effects, and images that are just as good, but the two programs work differently and their interfaces are different, and how one uses them is and will remain different. Serif is not trying to make the Affinity programs clones of any other programs, and they want them to work differently.

So, if you really meant that you want it to work the same, rather than being able to produce the same results, you might as well just stick with Photoshop.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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13 hours ago, Dennis Nisbet said:

I've been using Photoshop professionally since Photoshop 2. As it progressed, and Adobe added other products and features, I just kept spending money. 

For many years, it was "the only act in town." 

I've continued to use the cloud suite since it's introduction but as Adobe becomes much more greedy and stupid, (how many poorly thought out revisions can you make) before your customers don't want to be your customers anymore?  Working as a third party developer and teacher, there is only so much I can do when it comes to using new products.

So far as I can remember, there has never been a true competitor for PS. The Affinity products are the first products to even try.

Will they succeed? Only time will tell. But right now, they have most everything to meet the needs of many and I believe they are working hard to fix some issues.

For PS users, Affinity Photo has a steep learning curve. For non-PS users, Affinity Photo has a steep learning curve. Too many steps to do too little. 

In the beginning, PS wasn't that good either.

It isn't enough to look like PS! But it is an escape from high cost and it will get better just like PS in time.....

Couldn't agree more. I started way back from 1995?so I remember the early days of ps. Affinity is definitely giving adobe a run for their money. Which is beautiful. Someone needs to stop adobe's greed. There's still room for affinity to make the UX better. I agree there's still a bit much manual clicks needed(been using the trial) affinitys not quite there yet for me to leave PS. But in time I think they can get there for sure. I still feel slow working in Affinity photo after 3 days of use. It took me 3 days to get acquainted with blender and I'm happy to say I've finally left autodesk for good. Blender shortcuts and genius UX blew me away. Anyways I'll save this for a Blender forum

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I don't think there's any "greed" on Adobe's side. They just take what they can take (normal business really). Nobody is forced to use PS. Professionals pay for it, because they think it's worth it.

Other than that, i see some very sensible opinions and advice here. I like. :5_smiley: Affinity's products will continue to develop, and, they're doing a good job. You won't be able to place a equal alternative on day one. And, it's also a matter of manpower, and money flow. I wouldn't really get into this this vs. that thing anyway. Affinity Photo is a nice software, and, i doubt many will feel that it falls short in features.

So far, for the things i do, i really like it. The only thing which is really bad that i notice is the transformation of a selection. I have no idea why Serif didn't just implement handles on the selection, to quickly transform it, like GIMP does it, for example. That's a real PITA. But, that's about the only thing i noticed really negatively.

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1 hour ago, chakko007 said:

I have no idea why Serif didn't just implement handles on the selection, to quickly transform it, like GIMP does it, for example.

Do you mean like this? I made a freehand selection and then changed to the Move Tool.

image.thumb.png.e97e28bb7b8397ae270def510ad59bc9.png

Best regards!

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No. I mean the transformation of a selection. When you use the select tool to draw a selection, you then have to switch to the quick mask, open the Selection menu, choose Edit selection as layer (or similar), and then you have to switch to the Move tool. Really complicated.

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48 minutes ago, chakko007 said:

No. I mean the transformation of a selection. When you use the select tool to draw a selection, you then have to switch to the quick mask, open the Selection menu, choose Edit selection as layer (or similar), and then you have to switch to the Move tool. Really complicated.

Did you try just pressing the V key (Move Tool shortcut)  to get the transform handles ?

boat.jpg.11cf4dad4a2a77dd5adfde91f2444fac.jpg

p.s. The layer does need to be unlocked or it is, er, locked,

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

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I'm a former heavy PS user, but I'm more and more using Affinity for certain tasks. Not really just because I do want the program to get better, but also, the interface and workflow seems more intuitive, inviting and doesn't feel as restrictive (despite slimmer feature set) for the creative headspace. I find the UI and just some of the thought and effort that is put into the UI/UX really serves user's best interests and encourages tinkering and exploring as well for the more experimentative folk.

Whereas... PS seems more and more tailored towards the technical side of this digital imaging stuff, the more updates that come. It's losing it's former charm... whereas I think this used to be true in earlier versions of PS. It's become too clunky for what it is. Illustrator unfortunately suffers the same problems and is very clunky. Designer I think will shine actually more than Photo just in execution, it's just a matter of getting the feature sets and quality assurance to reach industry level. Imo, they should put a lot of energy into Designer.. just because anyone can have PS+Lightroom for $20/mo... but $50 if you just need Illustrator. A pain in the *ss for us folk with broad workflows.

Affinity has bugs and quirks and it's limited in certain features and scope of capability that I must sometimes still use Adobe products, but software updates with Adobe products are not something I look forward to. I now just don't update. Their updates have introduced a lot of bugs for me as well  (so much so I call them bug releases), and sometimes it's really slow before the problems get fixed. One or two major update/releases... Affinity does put out pdates faster, but obviously they can only pack in so much of what people hope and expect... but with what they have on their plate, I think they're capable of eventually becoming quite competitive. I will keep using the betas and contributing where I can because I want it to succeed...

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You often see reviews that ask if Affinity Photo is a real Photoshop alternative and so on.

Because so much is similar to equal you focus on the differences. Like you do if you test drive different cars. This is just natural and totally legit.

Missing and requesting a function seen elsewhere is a valid thing. I don't agree that Photo does not offer a very useful function like setting a thumbnail size in the layer panel is "doing it their own way".

The own way should apply solely to the UX and still people should be allowed to state "I think in XY this is easier to do".

For the comparison with Photoshop CC I can't say anything, because I heard that it's different and harder to use than Photoshop Elements in "Expert Mode".

I think Photoshop Elements is a lot easier to use and still has more basic functions like Photo. Also the UI is less cluttered. I consider for exanple the auto crop feature a basic thing.

But I have no need for all that assistant stuff in PSE. I just use only the expert tab. Not that one thinks I want to see all those wizards.

So in conclusion even Photoshop Elements 12 IMHO is far more mature than Photo. They have some way to go to catch up.

But it also costs half the price as PSE! So in my view for my needs they are equal (not better!) on the cost/performance ratio.

Adobe did not change much in PSE in the last 5 years while Affinity Photo changed a lot. So there is a possibility to catch up.

Maybe Affinity Photo will be on a PSE level with v2.0 and adjust pricing to 99$. That would be fair imho.

I assume I may make the switch to Photo with Publishers release because of the tight integration. Having to switch between two apps may be more annoying than not having auto crop and several other minor things that PSE just does better.

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

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What i definitely miss in APhoto compared to Photoshop Elements, which i also use, are the additional brushes, and, especially, the lots of artistic filters. APhoto really falls short there. Other than that, there are things which are more easy in PS Elements, and in APhoto. And, of course, APhoto has some things PS Elements doesn't. For example, one big argument for me to buy APhoto was the pencil/vector drawing tool, as i really needed that. I tried Inkscape, but, just like many other free Open Source, i found the handling and GUI beyond horrible (that's something about every payware does better, always).

Anyway, summing up, there are certainly always things the one or the other program does better. The amount of such things ultimately, for me, makes the difference between a good and a great software. But, of course it's also about cost/performance ratio, and, APhoto certainly does a nice job there. Now, i'm hoping that it will develop further, which it surely will do. :)

The thing is just, and that's what i wanted to say, i don't get this this vs. that thing. If you really want to compare Photoshop with APhoto, then, unfortunately, i have to say that APhoto is not on Photoshop's level. But, i don't think it's really comparable, because APhoto also costs a fraction of what Photoshop costs, and, there's really need to talk your software good, because it already is good. It's just that, if a person happens to use 80% of what Photoshop has to offer, there's no point in recommending him/her to use APhoto, because he/she will most likely be disappointed. Apart from having to adapt to a different workflow, and different program.

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4 hours ago, >|< said:

You are repeating Mithferion's misunderstanding. chakko007 is talking about transforming a Pixel Selection, not transforming a selected region of a Pixel object.

 

Ah. You mean transforming the selection boundary (area).

Well, as you said, to transform (resize/rotate etc) press Q (Quickmask) then V (Move tool) to resize, stretch, move, reshape etc. Press Q again to return to normal.

You can also just click inside the selection area and drag it or use the nudge arrows. Unless the Selection Brush is active, in which case you just need to select a Marquee Tool (M) first.

You can also resize, move, squeeze or stretch the selection area with the Transform panel.

tr.jpg.2f12e125a89538e6862e015ea8593d24.jpg

Enter a numeric value in the box, press and drag on X Y W or H or turn the mouse wheel over the entry box. I use that quite often to fit an eye or something similar as it is very precise.

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

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