Affinity Photo for Digital Painting

[Krow]

I'm trying to find a good replacement for Photoshop to use for digital painting. I like Affinity, it seems well designed, and I would much rather put money into the pockets of a small group of dedicated developers than Adobe.

So far, it's been challenge to achieve the same level of workflow, but I will see what I can do to push the software as best as possible.

If anyone has any recommended tutorials for digital painting with Affinity Photo or have made the transition themselves, I would love to hear about your experience.

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums Krow.

Are you referring to Designer or Photo? Here's a link to a search on YouTube for tutorials on digital painting using Affinity apps

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=digital+painting+in+affinity+photo+tutorial

[migueldearcanjo]

Same situation here... I wanted to migrate from Photoshop, but it’s hard to find good tutorials about digital painting in Affinity PHOTO.

So I got the Ipad version and I’m trying by myself.

My impressions hasn’t been the best, since everytime i touch the screen with the pencil, all the drawing gets pixelated, like it was loading or something.

If anyone knows how to solve this, please share. Affinity photo seems to be a great software and I hope to use it for now on!

[SrPx]

Affinity Photo is good now for digital painting. (I wouldn't do digital painting with A. Designer, although is technically possible. IMO, Designer serves well for vector based illustrators, and Photo, for raster based (more of my case, tho I also do vectors) illustrators and digital painters (the distinction is not easy to make, IMO, among certain types of professionals).

I have used Photo already for painting, it is quite fine at this latest version (1.7.1 ). (I'm pro, not hobbyist)

[snukalot]

I've been using Photo to teach myself digital painting. Only problem is, with this latest release (1.7) the program is randomly crashing and when I re-open it there's no autosave file offered to load. In previous editions this wasn't an issue for me, so I'm hoping it'll get ironed out as a bug in short order. When digital painting there seem to be fewer "stop-points" in the process than when processing a photo, so I'm less likely to remember to manually save (even though I know that's certainly the best way to do things, no matter what you're doing). I've lost some good work that way. But I'm forging ahead, rather than jumping ship, because I trust the good folks at Serif to get this problem licked before too long--and perhaps I just needed a reminder to insert a habit of manual saving into my painting workflow.

[SrPx]

I hit ctrl + s every ten seconds... (almost....well, probably every ten minutes  ) 

[Onions and Ginger]

Please I purchased the affinity designer so I can both create vector arts and digital paintings....looks like I may have made a mistake. Because I can’t seem to find anyone who has successfully done a portrait with it ...instead all I’m seeing in search is affinity photo....so please is it possible to create digital paintings with affinity designer ? Thanks 

[BöroseStudios]

On 6/16/2020 at 9:38 PM, Onions and Ginger said:

Please I purchased the affinity designer so I can both create vector arts and digital paintings....looks like I may have made a mistake. Because I can’t seem to find anyone who has successfully done a portrait with it ...instead all I’m seeing in search is affinity photo....so please is it possible to create digital paintings with affinity designer ? Thanks 

Hi! My answer would be yes, you don’t have as many features in the pixel persona compared to Affinity Photo, but the raster brushes generally work the same and you have selection tools, mesh, and the smudge tool. I’ve painted in it before and it worked out great. :)

[SrPx]

Yes, it (Photo) is very capable of painting. And this last 1.9 version is sweet in many senses.

I think for digital painting and specially concept art (in the way it is done at game companies) and matte painting, Photo is a better solution than Designer's Pixel Persona.

And... vectors are great for... vector based illustration, and specially graphic design. 

For similar reasons I think Photoshop, while being mostly an image editor, is fantastic for digital painting (it is the software REQUIRED for concept artists in the entire industry!) , and so is Affinity Photo, as a lot of the essential advantages of that use of PS, are in Photo, too.

There are some important tools you don't have in the pixel persona in Designer which you have in Photo (I made an in depth comparison for my own use some time ago). 

That said, I know I would be able as well to do digital painting in Designer's pixel persona, but would be pointless, as the advantages of using a "PS like" tool like Photo, disappear in that pixel persona of Designer, so, for that I'd rather just use CSP, SAI or Krita (I can't stand Rebelle, Open Canvas and Paintstorm Studio inability to deal with bigger than 10x10k (or similar) pixel canvases...). Which are AMAZING tools for painting. But some of us value very highly the versatility offered to an illustrator, painter and general graphic professional doing other tasks besides just painting (but these advantages are also in painting) , reason why still can see an edge on using Photo or Photoshop for Painting instead of Krita, Art Rage or Corel Painter, to name a few.

And currently the brushes in Photo do behave quite well (you have two modes of line stabilizer, and several other features that provide the essentials, in my book).

I'm a realistic painter, with many years of experience, and yup, I'd totally would paint with Photo (my tools of choice are tho CSP, Krita, and since recently PaintTool SAI 2.0  (best painting app in performance, till crazy levels, tho minimalist UI, and it is "only" a painter (quite more so than Krita) , not for everyone). 

Designer is a very good purchase for vector based illustration, and in my opinion, specially for graphic design. For my (non painting) workflows, is an absolute must, I use it together with Inkscape.