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Adobe vs Affinity
- Thread starter sparkie7
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My subscription was expiring in a week and, when I cancelled, I was given a two month grace period. So, I have until March to either extend my subscription or find an alternate application. I, too, am tired of paying for a subscription. I don't know much about Affinity so I'm also interested in what the opinions are. Ideally, I want an application that can work with the Photos and the Lightroom Classic libraries. Working with Aperture libraries would be a nice bonus.
I miss Aperture!
My subscription was expiring in a week and, when I cancelled, I was given a two month grace period. So, I have until March to either extend my subscription or find an alternate application. I, too, am tired of paying for a subscription. I don't know much about Affinity so I'm also interested in what the opinions are. Ideally, I want an application that can work with the Photos and the Lightroom Classic libraries. Working with Aperture libraries would be a nice bonus.
I miss Aperture!
There are more threads on Affinity tools in the Photography forum.
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Photography
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The internal format of LR libraries is not public and is liable to charge with version upgrade. But you can use external photo editors. There are no products which directly use LR (or Photos) libraries.
With LR the photos themselves are easily accessed by Finder and can be edited by other photo editors (e.g. Affinity). But you lose edits which have been done inside LR and all access to metadata added by Lightroom (keywords and faces).
For just editing (not managing photos or added metadata), only you can decide if Affinity can replace the functionality you use in LR.
Much the same is true when deciding to change or give up any photo management product.
Thanks for the replies, but the query is more than just photo related applications, ie. Illustrator and Indesign alternatives..
There is quite a lot you can do with Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher 2.5.7 - to what extend these can integrate/replace Adobe products depends on your use cases.
For example: if you do a lot of auto tracing vectors in Illustrator - Designer does not offer that currently; Photoshop offers a lot more options to composite a panorama than Photo; InDesign has extensive plug-in support, etc. yadayada 🙃
But: the mere mortals and semi-professionals for sure are well served by the Affinity apps IMHO, particularly when you do not have established workflows, and particularly when you use an iPad and a Desktop/laptop together and switch between these. The Affinity versions on all of them are equal in functionality, something not available for Adobe’s collection.
@sparkie7 : anything you are particularly interested?
For example: if you do a lot of auto tracing vectors in Illustrator - Designer does not offer that currently; Photoshop offers a lot more options to composite a panorama than Photo; InDesign has extensive plug-in support, etc. yadayada 🙃
But: the mere mortals and semi-professionals for sure are well served by the Affinity apps IMHO, particularly when you do not have established workflows, and particularly when you use an iPad and a Desktop/laptop together and switch between these. The Affinity versions on all of them are equal in functionality, something not available for Adobe’s collection.
@sparkie7 : anything you are particularly interested?
yes,
i never mastered Affinity Design and have a bad learning curve while using that program.
PS is better and easier to use commands and execution wise
Affinity is very busy and limited, hard to see tools and uses extra steps to execute a task.
when i need to design a poster or resize, edit or even store comics on my macs formatted HDs,
i use my macbook air i5 2010 with CS4 instead of the Macbook air 2020 m1 using Affinity design.
Affinity also i cumbersome using windows 11 on a asus zenbook as i avoid that now.
i have been using photoshop and illustrator since 1990 at the newspaper
that purchased macs and the software as a graphic designer. therefore im used to CS more than Affinity.
i hoped this helped!
i never mastered Affinity Design and have a bad learning curve while using that program.
PS is better and easier to use commands and execution wise
Affinity is very busy and limited, hard to see tools and uses extra steps to execute a task.
when i need to design a poster or resize, edit or even store comics on my macs formatted HDs,
i use my macbook air i5 2010 with CS4 instead of the Macbook air 2020 m1 using Affinity design.
Affinity also i cumbersome using windows 11 on a asus zenbook as i avoid that now.
i have been using photoshop and illustrator since 1990 at the newspaper
that purchased macs and the software as a graphic designer. therefore im used to CS more than Affinity.
i hoped this helped!
I'd say the catch is Affinity is now owned by Canva. So the payment model could change over time. Pure speculation though.
Left PS before the subscriptions started as producing sharp, colour balanced images of correctly taken photographs with one or two background removals (not in my control) was all I needed and even then PS was a cumbersome beast. Really was and is for either the professional/fulltime editor or really intense manipulation manic fan. In other words just too big and complex to switch on and use once a week.
Having tried other smaller more user friendly apps (allegedly) I settled on the first Affinity Photo. Their second release is going the "do everything" way and therefor beyond what I need.
In this case I find just using the stuff I know and not being drawn into to the tech. maelstrom easier to do than yet another learning curve (mountain) to climb.
Editing is very subjective (as the darkroom was). If you are in to it then bigger and better is best and power to your elbow; however if the original love is taking photographs then simple and repeatable is your friend (so you can get out and take more images).
What I am trying to say (I think) is. If an editor has far more capability than you want/need then just stay away and find one that just enables you to do what YOU want/need and stick with it; if possible. I have an ex league still using Aperture to edit his archive (many TB); horses for courses or don't put a carthorse in the Derby. Oh Jobs said lorries and cars but you get the drift.
Oh reference PS "better and easier"; I think it probably is for you but the new user?????
For a newbie I totally agree.
None of the editors are easy though when moving from a long term previous product.
I forgot to include that i am using (i cant see on this MBA) umm the first version
and checking that.....the program just crashed!
seems to me using the force quit option in Monterey is a norm now!
anyways, my biggest nuisance is using the tool bars up top since they are icons that mean nothing.
also i own CS4 which does everything i need when a design project approaches my way as no subscription needed.
and the Affinity iPad app wont draw a con·tin·u·ous line no matter how "raterizeing the vectors" are adjusted!
i might look for a windows graphic design program in the future and Affinity wont do.
perhaps Pixelmator and Photomator might be the Asus' new best friends, as Ctrlos posted!
and checking that.....the program just crashed!
seems to me using the force quit option in Monterey is a norm now!
anyways, my biggest nuisance is using the tool bars up top since they are icons that mean nothing.
also i own CS4 which does everything i need when a design project approaches my way as no subscription needed.
and the Affinity iPad app wont draw a con·tin·u·ous line no matter how "raterizeing the vectors" are adjusted!
i might look for a windows graphic design program in the future and Affinity wont do.
perhaps Pixelmator and Photomator might be the Asus' new best friends, as Ctrlos posted!
I presume you have asked about your line problem - I've yet to have them fail on one of my questions?
I do find the UI a bit small but muscle memory sorted for what I need.
Cheaper than Lightroom and works durectly with your iCloud library, freeing your images from being imprisoned in Adobe's servers. Apple also bought them out recently meaning its going to be integrated into the Photos app or they are looking to revive Aperture.
Thank you; this alone would make me hesitant. I was burned by the Apple Aperture debacle. Based on Apple's history of screwing people over via software being cancelled, changed, whatever; I think I'll stick with Adobe, who has a better track record (although not perfect.)
Have to agree with this...the Affinity apps are really clunky to use and lots of features just seem tacked on and can be needlessly complex to execute.
My images are on $100 hard drives, and backed up on addl. $100 hard drives. No cloud needed.
I owned and upgraded the expensive full Adobe Design Collection for years. However when Adobe switched to the subscription model it meant that if one did not pay Adobe every month, one lost [layers] access to one's work that had been done in Adobe. That was unconscionable to me, so I quit Adobe for Affinity and never again updated the Adobe Design Collection. The un-updated old pre-CC app [PS primarily] worked fine for years as I slowly investigated other alternative editing apps.
Unfortunately Adobe apps remain dominant among pros because that is what we all learned and shared. So folks working full time designing just pay Adobe every month because they must. In my case I now spend far less monthly hours on design issues so I can do without Adobe. Affinity apps are plenty competent and do not disable one's intellectual property when a monthly payment is missed. Also the cost of Affinity is much, much less, but cost is not why I personally left Adobe.
Other apps like Pixlemator Pro are also competent and very worth looking at.
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I too miss Aperture! Apple scr*wed us big time with that one.
I doubt if Affinity will ever steal our IP like Adobe does with CC even if a subscription pricing model is added. Affinity knows that many current users like me went to Affinitiy solely because of Adobe CC pricing and intellectual property theft issues. E.g. Affinity now manages to capture and use many layers from PSD files, which took some challenging reverse-engineering.
If you are on an old MBA that only updates to Monterey you have inadequate RAM to properly drive modern image editing apps like Affinity or Adobe products. I suggest:
1) Only run one app at a time.
2) Reboot before images work.
3) Maintain the boot SSD as no more than ~ half full; do not have any HD in the mix except for backup.
Back up your work frequently, because when doing images work with less than adequate RAM unpleasant anomalies will occur. Operation will not be smooth, and that will negatively affect the creative process.
I too remain livid about how Apple scr*wed us with Aperture. However Canva bought Affinity for ~$0.5B, not Apple. I doubt if Canva intends to change Affinity for the worse.
Adobe's track record is to switch their pricing model to prevent users from accessing their own layers data in PSD files unless monthly payments are made forever. That was/is grossly unacceptable. I have now left Adobe after paying them $thousands for years.