Affinity Software

[RAMWolff]

Hi Folks,

I hear many can't afford Photoshop or hate the idea of doing a subscription but really would like something high end that does the job. Well there is an option out there... it used to be Serif but now it's Affinity Professional.

They have 2 main offerings right now and a third in beta.

Affinity Photo: Affinity Photo - Professional image editing software
Affinity Designer: Affinity Designer - Professional graphic design software
Upcoming: Affinity Publisher (Web Designer and PDF and More)
Test video here:

Anyway, on the Affinity Photo info... I'm about 99% sure I'm jumping off of the Photoshop merry go 'round and going full on with APhoto... I opened up my huge Bruno skin file. It opened it up in record time. All my layers, all my groups, all my effects are all there. All editable too. Saved back out in no time. IF you really want a good and stable program please do yourself a favor and check it out.

Oh and these programs are built for PC & MAC! Photo is also built for iPAD as well!

Richard

 

[eclark1894]

Hi Folks,

I hear many can't afford Photoshop or hate the idea of doing a subscription but really would like something high end that does the job. Well there is an option out there... it used to be Serif but now it's Affinity Professional.

They have 2 main offerings right now and a third in beta.

Affinity Photo: Affinity Photo - Professional image editing software
Affinity Designer: Affinity Designer - Professional graphic design software
Upcoming: Affinity Publisher (Web Designer and PDF and More)
Test video here:

Anyway, on the Affinity Photo info... I'm about 99% sure I'm jumping off of the Photoshop merry go 'round and going full on with APhoto... I opened up my huge Bruno skin file. It opened it up in record time. All my layers, all my groups, all my effects are all there. All editable too. Saved back out in no time. IF you really want a good and stable program please do yourself a favor and check it out.

Oh and these programs are built for PC & MAC! Photo is also built for iPAD as well!

Richard

FWIW, about the end of October, I added a new category to the /directory called CONTENT Creation. I listed various software programs that people getting started in creating content for either Studio or Poser could use. Affinity was listed, along with GIMP and Photoshop among others. What you may NOT know is that several of the programs like Blender, Wings 3D and Truespace are free to download and use. Also, the ones that are not free do offer free trial periods, some as long as two or even three months for you to try and see if you like it.

 

[Bonnie2001]

That is good to know Richard, thanks!

 

[RAMWolff]

Thanks for adding the category Earl. I'm well aware of the freebies out there. Own Gimp and Blender but prefer working in Silo and Affinity Photo for now... Thanks again!

 

[James R.]

Hi Folks,

I hear many can't afford Photoshop or hate the idea of doing a subscription but really would like something high end that does the job. Well there is an option out there... it used to be Serif but now it's Affinity Professional.

They have 2 main offerings right now and a third in beta.

Affinity Photo: Affinity Photo - Professional image editing software
Affinity Designer: Affinity Designer - Professional graphic design software
Upcoming: Affinity Publisher (Web Designer and PDF and More)
Test video here:

Anyway, on the Affinity Photo info... I'm about 99% sure I'm jumping off of the Photoshop merry go 'round and going full on with APhoto... I opened up my huge Bruno skin file. It opened it up in record time. All my layers, all my groups, all my effects are all there. All editable too. Saved back out in no time. IF you really want a good and stable program please do yourself a favor and check it out.

Oh and these programs are built for PC & MAC! Photo is also built for iPAD as well!

Richard

I posted about this on my page the other day...I'm glad to see others are interested in Affinity as well!

I've used Affinity Photo for a while now. I got it for macOS and loved it, so I got it for iOS on my iPad Pro as well (I might be wrong, but I think some if not all Affinity's iOS features require the horsepower of the iPad Pro). Affinity Photo is excellent, though I admit I still fall back to my old desktop version of Photoshop for certain things I haven't yet learned how to do with Affinity (really just a matter of expedience).

Though there are free options which are great and all, I prefer Affinity's products. They're very reasonably priced compared to their main competitor (Photoshop, etc.).

I tried Affinity Designer when it was in beta, but I don't do enough vector-type art for it to be useful for me, so I didn't end up buying it.

I'm really looking forward to Affinity Publisher, though.

 

[RAMWolff]

I hope they are able to add back in texture overlays in the Styles dialog. I will truly miss this from Photoshop. I've already set Affinity Photo, or as their forums call it AP, as my default. I'm currently trying to create styles using what is offered from the Style dialog and other bits in the interface. I did find out you can import all of your Photoshop brushes and even do it as a batch operation but currently there is no way to import PS styles to AP. There is a work around as long as you don't have any texture overlays.... just go through and save out each style as a layer in PS and then open up the PS file and in each layer save that out as a new Style in AP. So that's worth it I think. I have some very good home grown styles that I still love to use from PS so that's on the list to do and see how it works.

I've been watching allot of video's over the last couple of days and there are tools there that PS doesn't have but then, as you say James, there are tools that cause one to go back to Photoshop. I think what I'm going to do is cancel my subscription from Adobe and just reinstall the older PS and keep that on board for those moments I really need it but then there's all that hd space being used for a program I'm rarely going to use so perhaps not ..... still thinking on that.

 

[Miss B]

I'm really looking forward to Affinity Publisher, though.

I'm not a fan of web design software that "does it all for you". Then again, I'm a hand-coder, so most of those products don't work the way I want them to with drag & drop. The code never comes out as clean as I'm used to. However, t's not as bad as using M$ Word to write HTML, as that's the worst I've ever seen.

I think I tried Serif graphic software years ago, because the name is definitely familiar. Their Affinity software is definitely priced reasonably, so for someone who can't afford software like Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator, Affinity Photo and Designer look very nice.

 

[James R.]

I hope they are able to add back in texture overlays in the Styles dialog. I will truly miss this from Photoshop. I've already set Affinity Photo, or as their forums call it AP, as my default. I'm currently trying to create styles using what is offered from the Style dialog and other bits in the interface. I did find out you can import all of your Photoshop brushes and even do it as a batch operation but currently there is no way to import PS styles to AP. There is a work around as long as you don't have any texture overlays.... just go through and save out each style as a layer in PS and then open up the PS file and in each layer save that out as a new Style in AP. So that's worth it I think. I have some very good home grown styles that I still love to use from PS so that's on the list to do and see how it works.

I've been watching allot of video's over the last couple of days and there are tools there that PS doesn't have but then, as you say James, there are tools that cause one to go back to Photoshop. I think what I'm going to do is cancel my subscription from Adobe and just reinstall the older PS and keep that on board for those moments I really need it but then there's all that hd space being used for a program I'm rarely going to use so perhaps not ..... still thinking on that.

Yup, transferring your collection styles does sound like it’ll take some work, but I agree it’ll be worth it. I haven’t yet transferred all my brushes to Affinity. Once I do that, I think that might be it for Photoshop as far as I’m concerned. I don’t like Adobe’s subscription business model. I’m being nickel-and-dimed to death by subscriptions, in-app purchases, etc. They all add up way too quickly. I haven’t looked into whether or not I’ll be able to get my brushes onto the iPad, but if I can...? Adios Adobe!

 

[James R.]

I'm not a fan of web design software that "does it all for you". Then again, I'm a hand-coder, so most of those products don't work the way I want them to with drag & drop. The code never comes out as clean as I'm used to. However, t's not as bad as using M$ Word to write HTML, as that's the worst I've ever seen.

I think I tried Serif graphic software years ago, because the name is definitely familiar. Their Affinity software is definitely priced reasonably, so for someone who can't afford software like Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator, Affinity Photo and Designer look very nice.

I haven’t coded a site since... goodness... um, 2000 or so.

My site was so elementary though. Layout done with tables. Let’s pretend it was artistic and say it was “minimalist”. I think I was still using one of the first versions of Dreamweaver (was that even the name?) back then. I barely remember any HTML anymore.

My current site is kind of a hot mess. It was a case of “I knew what I wanted to accomplish, but...” I used a WYSIWYG app because it was easy, quick, and inexpensive. But it’s limited unless you are a coder or want to keep buying other folks’ templates. I may switch back to using Wordpress, though. I used them for ages until this most recent re-do. It was surprisingly flexible.

 

[RAMWolff]

Yup, transferring your collection styles does sound like it’ll take some work, but I agree it’ll be worth it. I haven’t yet transferred all my brushes to Affinity. Once I do that, I think that might be it for Photoshop as far as I’m concerned. I don’t like Adobe’s subscription business model. I’m being nickel-and-dimed to death by subscriptions, in-app purchases, etc. They all add up way too quickly. I haven’t looked into whether or not I’ll be able to get my brushes onto the iPad, but if I can...? Adios Adobe!

Well as a test I did go into Photoshop and created 13 layers (13 is my lucky number considering it's my BDay coming up in January) and I purposely picked styles that had image overlays ... NOPE, the other effects came through in AP but the images did not... shame really! I really hope that Affinity Serif brings back the texture overlay's in their Styles dialog, it's really needed!

 

[RAMWolff]

I'm a WYSIWYG kinda guy so I'm very excited about their Publisher app!

 

[James R.]

Well as a test I did go into Photoshop and created 13 layers (13 is my lucky number considering it's my BDay coming up in January) and I purposely picked styles that had image overlays ... NOPE, the other effects came through in AP but the images did not... shame really! I really hope that Affinity Serif brings back the texture overlay's in their Styles dialog, it's really needed!

Ah that's frustrating. But you surely aren't the only person who'd like them to fix or implement this feature. There must still be hope that it's coming in a future version, or that someone will figure out a way to make it work.

 

[RAMWolff]

I hope they do. I have PhotoPlus and I'm pretty sure that texture overlays are in the styles dialog there... This is a screen grab from WebPlus 8, I no longer have PhotoPlus on board but they shared MANY of the same tools and dialogs.... It's under the 3D section but works very similarly to the Photoshop texture overlay.... cool right?

 

[James R.]

I hope they do. I have PhotoPlus and I'm pretty sure that texture overlays are in the styles dialog there... This is a screen grab from WebPlus 8, I no longer have PhotoPlus on board but they shared MANY of the same tools and dialogs.... It's under the 3D section but works very similarly to the Photoshop texture overlay.... cool right?

View attachment 33470

That is cool!

 

[Miss B]

My site was so elementary though. Layout done with tables. Let’s pretend it was artistic and say it was “minimalist”. I think I was still using one of the first versions of Dreamweaver (was that even the name?) back then. I barely remember any HTML anymore.

My current site is kind of a hot mess. It was a case of “I knew what I wanted to accomplish, but...” I used a WYSIWYG app because it was easy, quick, and inexpensive. But it’s limited unless you are a coder or want to keep buying other folks’ templates. I may switch back to using Wordpress, though. I used them for ages until this most recent re-do. It was surprisingly flexible.

Dreamweaver IS the name, and I have an early version of it, but it too would do things I didn't want it to do. I use HomeSite+, which worked very nicely with Dreamweaver, so back before I took my Javascript classes, I would set up the code in Dreamweaver, but copy/paste it into HomeSite+ because I had more freedom with it. Unfortunately, since Adobe swallowed up Macromedia, HomeSite+ hasn't been updated in years, but that's OK, as I only have my own sites, and 1 or 2 clients, that I still maintain. I'm pretty much retired from web design too.

I think my very first web site, back in the mid-90s, was based on tables as well. Once I took classes, however, especially XHTML and HTML 5, I stopped that.

As far as templates go, I would definitely recommend WordPress. I first learned to use it back in 2005 for a client's site, and have recommended it to a number of folks who had been reluctant to work with it, and it turns out they liked it, and stuck with it. I'm sure you would find a template you like.

 

[HaiGan]

That's what Serif became? I used some of the Serif products at work (school IT lessons) and found all of them quite straightforward (straightforward enough that I had no problem showing eight-year-olds the basics) with a range of useful templates and other content. I haven't seen these latest incarnations (yet), however.

 

[RAMWolff]

They are much improved and more stable than any of their older "PLUS" incarnations. Like I mentioned the only thing so far that's missing is that Style Dialog texture overlay option. I can work around that for the time being. I just finished exporting all of my useful tiles that were part of the Photoshop texture overlay tool in their Styles dialog. So that's done.... YAY!

 

[eclark1894]

Thanks for adding the category Earl. I'm well aware of the freebies out there. Own Gimp and Blender but prefer working in Silo and Affinity Photo for now... Thanks again!

Thought you might like to know, I'm working now on a new section for texture sites, Under the Materials Category, so now you'll have something to use the new software on. Most of the sites I'm listing are free, but there are one or two that cost a pretty penny.

 

[RAMWolff]

Very cool. Thanks Earl!

 

[Darryl]

I'm glad this software is being discussed, but surprised nobody's mentioned that the two Affinity products are $50 each, and on sale at this very moment for 20% off. They've also been giving out free updates as they continue to add missing functionality. As for Affinity Publisher, it's not a web design program but a page layout program, Like InDesign. This would be the most complex software of the power trio so hopefully they get it right.

I haven't moved over yet as Affinity Photo doesn't support Smart objects at the moment, and I don't want to break my workflow. Affinity Designer has fairly robust paint tools built in to their vector package though, and it reminds me of MacroMedia's Fireworks program. I'm looking forward to dumping Adobe the same way I dumped Quark Xpress 15 yrs ago.