Well Deserved App of theYear

Ive been a Photoshop user for more than two decades, and have owned (and paid for) full versions of PS3, PS5, PS7, CS1, CS3, and CS 6. I have always enjjoyed Photoshop, but in recent years have been dismayed with Adobe. I was let down last year the one time I really needed customer support, and it took having personal relationships inside Adobe to get the sort of basic support any loyal customer should expect. The rental model was the last straw. But what was the alternative?

As background, Ive worked as an video editor in broadcast television for over 30 years. While image editing is not the mainstay of my work, when I work in an image editor the results must be outstanding. Needs can include preparing images for both motion graphics and for print. I enjoy image editing and have high standards for professional software.

Last year I tried Pixelmator. Not a bad little program, friendly for non-power users, but not the fully feautured program I’d throw Photoshop over to use. Then this summer the Affinity Photo beta release came out. I was immediately impressed. There was a learning curve (shortened by outstanding tutorial videos produced by the company) and some moments where I felt “this isn’t exactly the way Photoshop does things."

But very quickly I’ve come to like the differences. Virtually everthing I do in Affinity Photo is non-destructive though the use of what Affinity calls “Adjustment Layers,” which allow modification of such things as Levels or Filters at anytime in the process. I also find myself using mask layers much more than I did in Photoshop.

Honesly, while I’ve always liked Photoshop (and still do) I am coming to love working in Affinity Photo. Photoshop now sits largely unopened.

The code for Affinity Photo is streamlined and the program is very responsive.

In the past six months updates keep making the program better and better.

No sottware reaches full maturity in a 1.4 release (which went public today) but boy is this an impressive image editing program for people who require professional level tools. I am looking forward to seeing the aplication grow and develop in the future. it has been a great pleasure to use thus far. I am a fan!

Congratulations to the team at Affinity for the award. Well deserved!

Bill

Update: I’d like to correct the claims of a reviewer who “used” the app fo over an hour before dinging it with a one star rating, and then trashed the program. Despite his claims one can open Photoshop files using Affinity Photo, do work, and then “export” Affinity Photo projects as Photoshop files (and a myriad of other file types (like TIFF, TARGA, PDF, JPEG). This is done via the “Export” option in the File menu (not the Save or Save As options), but the feature are definitely there. Affinity Photo is a professional level image editing program. No one masters programs such as this one in an hour. As mentioned earlier, the Affinity team has produced excellent tutorial videos that help ease the transition , and there are very good user generated video tutorials as well. Anyone contemplating a AP purchase should expect to put some time into mastering an image editing program that is as feature rich as this one. This is not a “lite” program. This is what makes it so valuable for those of us looking for a true competitor to Adobe products.

I’d also like to comment on speed and hardware. I’ve been running AP (and Designer) on a new (trash-can style) Mac Pro maxed out with 64 Gigs of RAM. As one would expect, the program is smoking fast on the system. But I’ve also been running AP on a long-in-the-tooth iMac from 2007 with 4 Gigs of RAM (under both Yosemite and El Capitan) and AP is smoking fast on this machine too. I’m very impressed with the coding, and never feel the need to jump to Mac Pro to do a project when the iMac is more convenient. This iMac is literally the oldest one supported by Apple that runs Yosemite and El Capitan. Not slow.

Additional Update: The 77th Doctor should look at the Affinity website again. While they have many tutorials for the complimentary Affinity Designer program, there are also about 65 very excellent tutorials produced by the Affinity team. In addition, there are user-made tutorials with link on the Affinity forum. Watching these will help one master this very deep and powerful application.

Spy Car about Affinity Photo