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For years I used Adobe Photoshop, it’s a must-have program for photographers and visual artists. Years ago Adobe removed the option to have a permanent license, forcing us all to switch to a subscription service in order to continue to use Photoshop and all the other programs they make. The subscription model seems nice on the surface, you pay $10/month and you get Photoshop and Lightroom and every update as long as you pay. The problem is that the moment you stop paying you lose access to the program and you cannot edit your own files anymore. With a permanent license, if you decided to not upgrade you would just be left with an outdated program but with the ability to edit your files. The subscription model keeps you hooked forever with the threat of cutting you out of accessing your own artwork. It’s a life sentence.
But the biggest problem with the subscription model is the lack of choice. If I don’t need Lightroom I still have to pay for it because the smallest subscription includes both Photoshop and Lightroom. If I want to add Premiere to the bundle, I have to pay the highest subscription model, $50/month, which gives me access to a bunch of programs, like Acrobat, Illustrator and many others, that I don’t need. It’s a total waste. At $50/month my cost per year is $600 just to have access to Premiere the few times that I need it. Over five years that is $3,000. It’s a lot of money for accessing software that I use sporadically (Premiere). I stopped using Lightroom in favor of Capture One, which has a much better tethered capture, layered non-destructive editing, and it’s much, much faster. So, even the basic CC subscription was used only at 50%. One more strike against the inefficiency and waste of the subscription model.
Adobe should provide a choice: permanent license with a paid upgrade for people who like that model, and a subscription for others who prefer that system. They should also provide a more flexible subscription model.
Fortunately, I found an alternative. Totall, by chance I found a program called Affinity Photo. Photo is a image editor that is, in many ways, even better than Photoshop. It has almost all the power of the Adobe product and it adds several improvements of its own. Selection of complex subjects is many times better than in Photoshop. I was able to isolate subjects with Affinity Photo that I was never able to select with Photoshop.
The layer control is fantastic. Adjustment layers can be easily applied to just one layer instead of all the layers underneath. Keyboard shortcuts are similar to PS but in several cases they work better. For example, the M keyboard cycles through the Marquee selections without requiring to press Shift. Affinity Photo provides a real non-destructive workflow and it has compatibility with the PSD format. The exporting module, or “persona” as it is called, is extremely powerful, and the Liquify persona will please anybody who struggled with the Liquify filter of Photoshop. Photo also provides a built-in Frequency Separation plugin that is fantastic for skin retouching.
Hundreds of video tutorials
Adopting Affinity Photo has been made easy by the wealth of very-well produced video tutorials that the company has made available. These tutorials are short, to the point, and very well narrated. Every product should be documented this well.
In my opinion, just the selection tool and the frequency separation plugin of Affinity Photo are enough to justify the purchase, even if you decide to continue to use Photoshop.
Affinity Photo is sold at $49.95 for a permanent license. No subscription required. I gave it a try for ten days and afterward I was so pleased that I stopped my Adobe subscription. Not only Affinity Photo works well as a Photoshop replacement, but I actually like the way it works better than Photoshop. It feels more friendly and clear. Many operations are just simpler in Affinity Photo and that is a great way of saving time and frustration. Here is a very cool video presentation of the program:
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What about video editing?
To replace Premiere I downloaded the excellent DaVinci Resolve by Blackmagic Design. Resolve is the program used in Hollywood to color grade movies. The program used to be very expensive and tied to specialized hardware but now it is available for free. While DaVinci Resolve has a few rough edges, it is a very good replacement for Premiere and it works well for many other photographers who edit videos on the side. In many ways, DaVinci Resolve is actually more powerful than Premiere. Its color grading system is absolutely top notch and it supports adjusting the color balance by using the ColorChecker and the DSC Chrome DuMonde color charts. Using those color charts makes it a snap to obtain absolutely accurate color representation.
So, using Affinity Photo and DaVinci Resolve I have a very professional workflow for production of artwork without the need to be tied to a subscription. For $49.95. I strongly encourage you to try these alternatives.
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I think it is highly desirable to have Affinity Designer as well as photo. There are some effects such as text on a line that are easier to manage in Designer. Note also that Serif (the developer of Affinity) are due to bring out Publisher and a DAM (Data Asset Manager) probably during this year
Yes, Designer can be a very valid addition, especially because it is sold in the same fashion of Photo: $49.95, permanent license without subscription.
Thank you for the suggestion.
Well spoken!! I replaced Photoshop with Affinity Photo a year ago and never regret it. Meanwhile I also use Affinity Photo on my iPad – a VERY cool app!
I would love to see a Lightroom replacement by Affinity.
Good point about the iPad version. I have that too and it is very impressive.
Luminar by Macphun ( a D.A.M. is forthcoming)
It’s planed, after inDesign competitor I belive.
Don’t forgot FCPX for Mac users. One price and it’s yours with all updates for free and it is much faster to work in and export than Premier is.
Yes, that is another good option. I selected Resolve because it is available for both Mac OS and Windows, like Premiere, and because it has a free version, something that is not available with FCP. But yes, I did consider FCP for a while.
I followed the Resolve link and it looks like the free version lacks a number of features (motion blur effects, for example) that I’d consider absolutely necessary…but which are only available in the $299 version. Still a bargain compared to Premier but certainly a lot more than free 🙂
It is true that some effects are not available in the free version and how important those effects are, depends on the type of editing that you do. My experience is that a lot of photographers shoot video “on the side” and they need a robust editor but they rarely need “esoteric” features like advanced noise reduction or motion blur. On the other hand, Resolve’s Power Windows and tracking are something that goes easily in most productions, together with Resolves unmatched color correction. All those features are included in the free version. I saw several photographers use PS for editing, which is very poor in comparison to other systems. So I believe that Resolve is a very good solution for many situations. The $299 price tag is also very good. Resolve used to sell for $999 so the new price is good news. With Resolve 14, which is in beta now, there is also a face tracking feature, which is very promising.
Does Affinity give you something which Capture One doesn’t?
Affinity Photo is a fully-featured image editor, similarly to Photoshop. So, yes, it gives you a lot more than what is available with Capture One. You work in Photo in a painterly way, using things like dodge & burn, clone, inpainting/healing brush. You can select areas of the image with a precision that is not available even in Photoshop. For example, the hair of the subject. The selection tools in Photo are bother faster and more precise than anything that I have used previously.
Photo can be used also for HDR merge, for focus merge and to stack multiple takes of the same image to reduce low-light noise.
You can download the 10-day trial version and you can watch the instructional videos for Photo, which are online.
Cheers.
And now all we need a a photo manager to replace Lightroom. I believe they are working on one, but hope they are quick as my Aperture is getting very wobbly and Macphun are about to come out with one. However an Affinity suite will work better together, rather than using a third party alternative. Come on Serif, we need it!
There are several solutions in the market already: Capture One, ON1 Camera RAW, even Alien Skin Exposure X2 could be used. It’s possible the Serif will come up with a version that will be better than all the others but, right now, Capture One is hard to beat, especially for tethered shooting.
I wanna ask. How did You change workflow with Lightroom using affinity product. Because for me I usually use Lightroom and this is my main program.
I did not switch from Lightroom to Affinity Photo. My workflow consisted of Lightroom and Photoshop. I first switched to Capture One, which is faster, more feature-rich, and has much better tethered capture. That prompted me to find an alternative to PS, which is Affinity Photo.
Hope this helps.
Since I have purchased the iPad app , I hardly use the Mac app. I moved from Lightroom and DxO to Affinity.
Having been a Serif user for years. I was one of the Beta testers for Photo and Designer, the Features in these were really mind blowing. My hat goes off to the coders at Serif. T have something like this for under $50 is incredible.
What would you replace Illustrator with?
Serif has a similar app with the same price of $49.95, no subscription. It’s called Affinity Designer. I did not try it but I believe that you can download a trial version at the Serif website: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/
I stood the temptation of subscribing to the CC for years and just when I started giving up of all free software that didn’t deliver and I was considering the subscription plan, I found Affinity Designer, I bought it and started using it, then I got Affinity Photo, DaVinci Resolve, Fusion and Capture One and I think I am all settled to do designer work.
Thank you for sharing your experience. It. Can. Be. Done! 🙂
Affinity Photo is a great product, but it is not a replacement for Lightroom. I’ve not tried Capture One as LR is still available as a standalone. If that ever changes, hello Capture One (unless, by that time, Affinity Photo has caught up to LR’s DAM and Print module – which are both real standouts).
Instead of Lightroom, you could try http://rawtherapee.com/ for raw processing, its great.
I’ve used AP for almost 2 years now and I wouldn’t trade it in for any other photo editing program. It’s simple to learn/use and the results are outstanding.
I feel in the same way. Even though I used PS for years, I find the interface and layout of Affinity Photo more comfortable to work with and I would not switch back to PS.
I was so impressed with my 10-day trial of Affinity Photo, that I also bought Designer! I’ve been a professional graphic artist since 1997 and Adobe PS and AI have always been my primary go-to programs for just about everything. I have tremendous respect for Adobe and their developers with how much they have contributed to industry standards over the years. But more recently, I’ve been noticing some pretty annoying stagnation and bloat with these 2-key programs.
Not to mention the whole subscription model issue… Don’t get me wrong, both programs and some others are still fantastic creative tools, but sometimes I get the sense that they have become too big for their britches by taking on the development of too many other programs under the Adobe brand. To the point that their developers have kind of neglected making some badly needed improvements on their flagship programs, like PS and AI.
For example, how freak’n cool is it that Affinity actually gives you live previews for things like layer effects and blending modes! PS will give you slow previews of filters and layer effects, but not blending modes. And don’t even get me started on AI’s rather clunky and outdated fx options! It’s almost like the Affinity developers took inspiration from some of Adobe’s key workflow features and simply made them better in an intuitive way.
As with all programs, there will always be things to add and improve upon, but for the most part, they are definitely heading in the right direction!
I’m honored to see so many of you reading my article about Affinity Photo, Capture One and Davinci Resolve. It’s great to see the experiences of everybody and how we got to use this fantastic software.
If you have a minute please reply to this message and let me know how you found out about this article.
Thank you.
Hi how much is the investment for Capture one vs. Afinite Photo?
Capture One is not an alternative to Affinity Photo. CO is a raw management program similar to Lightroom. With it you develop the photos, adjusting exposure, highlight/shadows, color temperature. That kind of things. It has an amazing tethered capture feature that is both much faster and more adb] anced than Lightroom. It can apply multiple adjustments to a photo via layers but it is not an image edit.
With Affinity Photo you can edit every part of the image, down to the single pixel. AP is an alternative to Photoshop.
Hope this helps.
Any suggestions for webpage editors to replace Dreamweaver. Don’t use it as much as I used to but it along with Premier is what has been tying me to Adobe’s Cloud model. Photoshop is what I use the most. Thanks. 🙂
Yes, I too got away from Adobe when they went with the magazine subscription thing. I have both Affinity Photo and Designer and they are very mature products in their own right. And that level of maturity at version 1 is great!
Cheers,
Paul Zab | https://www.paulzabphoto.com
Is there IPTC support in Affinity Photo? I use Photo Mechanic for captioning pictures but sometimes look at it in Photoshop, too.
Hi! Being new in this picture world, I want to understand my choices if I do NOT want the LR/Photoshop option: I need Capture One for the raw processing AND Affinity for the photo modifications? And last, what about the photo DAM? Cheers!
Hi Louise.
Capture One is a Digital Asset Manager. It provides cataloging functions, it allows you to search, filter, and import/export photos. It’s also a fantastic RAW editor that provides local adjustments and layers. For example, you can adjust and replace colors in your images right in Capture One. You can change exposure, contrast, tint, and other parameters, by painting the adjustments in a separate layer. For several people, there would be no need for other software.
If you need to modify your photos with functions like clone brush, like erasing elements (inpainting), like hand painting adjustments, then Affinity Photo is the right tool for the job. It all depends on what type of workflow you have.
Hope this helps.