truetexan

We signed up for PSP last year along with LR. Both CC. Now my wife thinks and has had suggested to her that we look at Affinity as a replacement. I have just started feeling comfortable with Lightroom, and my wife and i both took an online class together for PSP last year. Just a quick look at reviews and comparisons online have left me a little confused. Obviously price is a huge factor. As an amateur photog I am not totally engrossed in the use of either PSP or LR. Sooo, just wondering how many have used both and those fellow hoggers that have, what are your thoughts...thanks ya'll...

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You've subscribed for a year to the CC. Obviously, the subscription is ongoing. Is the proposed change to Affinity to stop the ongoing monthly payments or just to change? You'd be walking away from the top professional tools and the time, effort and money spent so far to learn and use these tools. Affinity provides a rather robust set of tools, but they're more similar to LR in library and editing capability than Photoshop.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

I assume that PSP is referring to Paint Shop Pro. I have a few concerns about what Adobe's plans for Lightroom are. When they labeled it "Classic," and gave the Lightroom CC name to a currently dumbed-down product, that raised alarm bells with me. "Classic" usually means legacy product, which means nearly at end of life. Nevertheless, I don't think this year is the right time to depart from Adobe. After all, LR Classic CC was given a couple new features, and it's as good as before.

If Adobe starts trying to force me into the cloud version, or raises prices materially, or announces an end-of-support date, then it's time to be thinking about saying adios. But, any replacement product would have to meet these requirements:

1) I'd like the successor to be able to read either the LR catalog or .XMP sidecar files, so I don't lose my edits, and so I can continue to re-edit.
2) It needs to be a non-destructive editor.
3) I'd like the successor file to import keywords, stars, color codes, captions, EXIF data, etc. Especially keywords.
4) It has to have at least 95% of the feature set of LR, not only in the Develop module, but also in the Print and Library Modules. Slideshow capability would be nice, but not a deal killer. Book Module - take it or leave it. Map Module - meh. It never was useful to me anyway.
5) The successor product has to be well-documented, with lots of YouTube videos, web articles, and, hopefully, a few books about it. That pretty much eliminates the open-source products.
6) It should be backed by a pretty good company. I don't want to go through a migration more than one time. For that reason, On1, ACDSee, and Capture 1 look pretty good. A few years ago, Corel let me down when it took way over a year to support my new camera in Aftershot Pro. Unforgivable. I won't buy from them. BTW, they make PSP.

I hope you find this useful.

truetexan

Primarily the change would be because of price and cost. Although i don't want to switch to something that would not have the same capabilities. We both have had some classes and training in PSP. My wife has used it much more than I have. She has used for putting together full marketing programs for her work. I have only used in in my photography work. Thus i am hoping for the apple to apple comparison if possible by UHH'ers...Thanks for all your advice and thoughts in advance...I obviously respect all the
UHH'ers thoughts and comments...

Linary Loc: UK

Today Affinity released an update which has improved speed and removed many bugs. Affinity is fast becoming a serious rival for Photoshop being a raw developer and pixel editor. With HDR and Panorama, layers, more blend modes than Photoshop I am fast becoming a fan. Affinity does not have (yet) a Digital Asset Manager (DAM) built in, so if you like the catalogue system proffered by Lightroom, then stick with LR for a while longer.

I use LR and Photoshop daily and when not on a deadline I use Affinity. Some of the methodology in Affinity is a little strange - for example I would expect "Flatten Layers" to be in the layers menu and panel, but no, it is in the "Document" menu (equivalent to "Image" menu in Photoshop). A very minor thing, but there are several similar instances.

The Library in LR bears no resemblance to anything in Affinity at present. There is neither browser nor catalogue, the tools are very similar to those in ACR and PS. For the price (less than $50 for a perpetual licence) Affinity offers very good value and produces professional results.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Not having experience with Affinity, it would look two Affinity products would be needed (Photo and Designer) to support your family's needs where "full marketing programs" are supported. If this assessment is accurate, that changes the price difference, at least over a 1-year subscription.

Chefneil

Personally, I don't care for the idea of paying for a subscription to work on my photos, so I bought Affinity and liked it a lot. It has some really nice features, some of which were even more intuitive than Photoshop(I don't use Lightroom for anything). I was really happy with Affinity until I compared the same image in RAW between the two. In every case Photoshop had a better interpretation of the RAW file. I could get Affinity to edit the image to the same degree happiness, but it took too many steps. I want to work on my photos as little as possible, a little saturation, maybe some noise reduction and some cloning out of things I don't like, so the first step is important to me.

olc

whitewolfowner

Have you considered purchasing lightroom 6 out right?

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Alert! Affinity has just upgraded [two days ago....free of course] they also include some textures and other extras. If you Adobe [not the clay] cult followers wish to get a copy.. it is on sale til 11/15/17

I had problems finding how to download the updates.. all I could find was the sell.... then I opened affinity and ooops a tag comes up... do not click on OK, click on download.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I bet you're confused because each program has strengths and weaknesses, and there is no clear "winner." There is a substantial difference in price, though. Any modern processing program can make your pictures look better, and after using any one of them for a few weeks, you'll feel comfortable using it. My advice is to minimize expense. It sounds like you're paying $120 a year for PS and LR, and you own Paint Shop Pro. Affinity costs only $50, so it's not a big investment. You can try all three and see if you want to continue paying Adobe every month.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Right. Windows users have to start the program to get the update. Mine worked fine. Mac users can just click on the Download button.

Did you get the freebies? I didn't.

wendallb

Affinity works great for me and have used it since it came out for Windows. Just updated to the latest version and got some nice textures and brushes as freebies.

Stan W. Loc: Tampa, Fl

I use Affinity and can't export but one photo at a time. Is there a way to export multiple photos? Thanks.

Brucej67 Loc: Cary, NC

I would say just the opposite Affinity Photo is more like Photoshop than Lightroom. One of LR main features is the cataloging feature which is lacking in Affinity Photo also the tools are more in line with Photoshop than Lightroom. I own Adobe CC subscription as well as Affinity Photo and a number of other editors.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You can tell I don't know anything about it. The review I found comparing Affinity Photo to LR spoke to the library management in Affinity but the lack of layer-based editing. However, if there's not batch processing for export (mentioned above) or "sync" editing, that would make Affinity a non-starter for consideration for my edit needs.

Oh, I just went back to the comparison and see I misread the pros & cons. I failed to recognize they're organized in columns and the positive attributes I read as applying to Affinity actually refer to LR. Affinity seemingly can't do anything that is critical to my work ...

http://www.slant.co/versus/3819/3822/~affinity-photo_vs_lightroom