Want to move from Photoshop to Affinity

[johnyoungphotos]

I have used Serif software for years since the days of PagePlus, WebPlus (Still miss WebPlus) etc and would love to move over to Affinty Photo. At the moment I use Photoshop for my work (wedding photographer) and I have a trial version of Affinity.

It looks a great bit of software and the healing brush seems better than Photoshop but I want to ask a few questions.

I know Affinity photo does not have any kind of image browser like adobe bridge which is a shame and still something of a stumbling block for me but moving past that for now can I ask

1) Does Affinity photo have any kind of auto mode in the RAW develop section. In photoshop RAW there is an  Auto function (see screenshot) that is a good starting point to doing a file

2) Does Affinity support any filter for making a montage. I use a great free one called Tychpanel

3) Does Affinity Authentec Perfectly clear - a good useful filter

 

 

[johnyoungphotos]

No one ? 

[John Rostron]

On 6/24/2019 at 12:53 PM, johnyoungphotos said:

Does Affinity Authentec Perfectly clear - a good useful filter

I just entered "Perfectly Clear" in the Search box, and got the answer to this. It is "No"!

John

[Alfred]

1 minute ago, John Rostron said:

I just entered "Perfectly Clear" in the Search box, and got the answer to this. It is "No"!

A perfectly clear answer!

 

[MEB]

Hi johnyoungphotos,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
1. No, there's no auto mode in Develop Persona. The closest thing you can do is to save presets for the various tab sections.
2. No. Affinity Photo doesn't support plugins that rely on automation & custom panels/interfaces or any other  type of plugins other than basic image filters.
3. The last time I tested (with Perfectly Clear Complete 2.2.5) it wasn't working. The plugin preview was corrupted and the output was wrong (juts a solid colour filling the entire image). I haven't tested with the latest version - it's possible there may have been changes but I haven't checked yet.

[Alfred]

<off-topic>

Congrats to @MEB on reaching the 25k posts milestone. 

</off-topic>

 

 

[johnyoungphotos]

29 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi johnyoungphotos,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
1. No, there's no auto mode in Develop Persona. The closest thing you can do is to save presets for the various tab sections.
2. No. Affinity Photo doesn't support plugins that rely on automation & custom panels/interfaces or any type of plugins other than basic image filters.
3. The last time I tested (with Perfectly Clear Complete 2.2.5) it wasn't working. The plugin preview was corrupted and the output was wrong (juts a solid colour filling the entire image). I haven't tested with the latest version - it's possible there may have been changes but I haven't checked yet.

OK thank you for your answer

Shame - looks like it will be photoshop for a good while yet then. I will have to check it out again in the future

Affinity designer is excellent thought I use that a lot

[Ulysses]

Hi, @johnyoungphotos. This is a small but happy user-driven forum. Probably many of the users are catching up with using and learning the latest release of affinity photo version 1.7.1, and getting to know it.

Here's a thought, if you might be open to it: I have a few plug-ins which I enjoy using. However, the image processing tool is always more important to me than the plug-ins. If I feel the tool — whether Photoshop or Affinity Photo — s more compelling and useful over the long-term, then I have no problem switching and then adapting via the use of plug-ins that will work better with that new tool.

For example, maybe you can investigate some of the Topaz Labs plug-ins for use with Affinity Photo. 

 

 

 

[johnyoungphotos]

2 hours ago, Ulysses said:

Hi, @johnyoungphotos. This is a small but happy user-driven forum. Probably many of the users are catching up with using and learning the latest release of affinity photo version 1.7.1, and getting to know it.

Here's a thought, if you might be open to it: I have a few plug-ins which I enjoy using. However, the image processing tool is always more important to me than the plug-ins. If I feel the tool — whether Photoshop or Affinity Photo — s more compelling and useful over the long-term, then I have no problem switching and then adapting via the use of plug-ins that will work better with that new tool.

For example, maybe you can investigate some of the Topaz Labs plug-ins for use with Affinity Photo. 

Oh plug-ins arn't the must have thing but they can be time-saving at times. But the RAW auto adjust is very good at getting a base layer and then working from there

I have not discounted Affinity photo and will check in the future for sure. Maybe it will update again before my next yearly payment to adobe

2 hours ago, Ulysses said:

 

 

 

 

[Ulysses]

1 minute ago, johnyoungphotos said:

Oh plug-ins arn't the must have thing but they can be time-saving at times. But the RAW auto adjust is very good at getting a base layer and then working from there

I have not discounted Affinity photo and will check in the future for sure. Maybe it will update again before my next yearly payment to adobe

Honestly, I almost never used the feature when I was using Lightroom. But never say "never", right? Maybe they'll add it in due time.

Although you won't find a dedicated "Auto" button in the Develop persona, there IS this menu in the Photo persona with a few "Auto" options. You might even be able to apply some keyboard shortcuts for quick & easy access. 

[johnyoungphotos]

Thank you - it was really in the RAW developing I wanted the auto function. As I said it just gives you that start with your photo then work from there. I never use the auto on its own and that is the same with filters like perfectly clear they are just handy tools which come in handy

Its a shame as apart from the cost difference Affinity photo looks very good and powerful and I reckon the heal function works better than the one in photoshop

Affinity photo also needs something like adobe bridge so you can see your photos at a glance and decide which ones to work on etc. I did contact Affinity about that a while ago and they said they had no plans to implement it which is also a shame

[Ulysses]

6 minutes ago, johnyoungphotos said:

Its a shame as apart from the cost difference Affinity photo looks very good and powerful and I reckon the heal function works better than the one in photoshop

Affinity photo also needs something like adobe bridge so you can see your photos at a glance and decide which ones to work on etc.

Their Healing Brush is usually more effective than the equivalent in Photoshop, IMHO. And it seems to be improving with each version.

I'm not sure what your use case for Adobe Bridge is. But if you simply need a Bridge-like application so that you can see thumbnails of your Affinity files, have a look at XNView, at least until Serif provides their own solution eventually.

[johnyoungphotos]

I use bridge to go through the RAW photos and choose which to develop into photos and also bridge gives me info on the photos such as the tech details etc

[Mike33]

Take a look at GraphicConverter 11. It does all you mentioned.

[Ulysses]

2 hours ago, johnyoungphotos said:

I use bridge to go through the RAW photos and choose which to develop into photos and also bridge gives me info on the photos such as the tech details etc

I generally use Adobe Bridge to do the same. It’s great for raw files, JPEG, TIFF, PSD, PDF, and other formats it recognizes. But it’s unfortunate that it won’t display thumbnails for the Affinity file formats (Designer, Photo, and Publisher). 

Although I'm not crazy for the UI of XNView, it will give you thumbnail previews for Affinity files along with a very wide variety of others, while also showing pertinent file info and histogram.

[johnyoungphotos]

Yeah I think with the limitations of Affinity Photo I (No Auto mode in RAW, no support for some filters and actions, No bridge type of feature) it looks like I will unfortunately have to stick with Photoshop for now. I use Photoshop for my business so cannot have software that will slow down my work-flow

 

But as I said I will keep on checking back to see if and when these features will be added as Affinity photo looks great and its brilliant to see software out there that takes on Photoshop. I use Affinity Designer and its excellent. They just need to also make an Affinity Web Design Software (So miss WebPlus )