Bethanne Loc: Newaygo County, Michigan

Hello everyone, My name is Beth, I have been away from photography for a couple of years and currently have chosen to get back into it. I have decided not to use photoshop via cloud as my photo editing software. I am entertaining Affinity Photo instead. I would appreciate anyone's feedback or recommendation on an alternate photo editing program.

kpmac Loc: Ragley, La

You might want to look at ON1 Photo Raw. Many like it. I know I do.

kpmac Loc: Ragley, La

You might want to look at ON1 Photo Raw. Many like it. I know I do.

gsmith051 Loc: Fairfield Glade, TN

Welcome back Beth. Can’t help you with Affinity. I’ve used Photoshop for years and it has served me well. Good luck.

Bethanne Loc: Newaygo County, Michigan

Thanks, I'll check it out.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Welcome back to photography!

If you haven't bought anything, consider the trial period offer for any candidate software. Use one-at-a-time for the entire trial period, including the available training, possibly always against the same set of 20 to 100 images. Make an informed decisions that hopefully gets it right the first time. Consider the online documentation and free video training (u-tube) in the context of your trial-period comparisons.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

If what you want is a Photoshop clone/replacement then Affinity is an excellent choice at an unbeatable price. Affinity does a great job as a raster, pixel level editor.

If you want to be able to process raw files Affinity is not a good choice. If your preference is to convert a raw file and then continue processing the RGB image you can use Affinity but replace Affinity's raw develop module with some other raw processing software -- even one of the free raw processors like DarkTable will do.

If you want to process raw files and do it completely non-destructively then look elsewhere entirely and pass on Affinity (although it's worth having for the price even for occasional use). To process raw files in a fully non-destructive raw workflow you don't have a lot of options. Lightroom comes first to mind but you want to avoid the subscription so that leaves Capture One which is $$$$ (what camera do you have as there's a free version of C1 for Fuji, Sony, and Nikon). Another option is the free app DarkTable. On1 is pretty good but introduces a destructive element into the workflow if you use it's erase/cloning tools. Luminar -- I got nothing good to say.

An interesting outlier app is ACDSee. It's decent software at a competitive price. Dear lord once the company get's their hooks into you though they come around every chance they get interrupting and trying to sell you something else. Makes you feel like you bought the app from Larry at the OKie DOKie used car lot and then you find out he lives one block over from you.

DXO Photolab is maybe worth a look. They engineer a solid product raw file processor. No Fuji camera support however. And some ugly surprises when you find as soon as you start using it that Oh cr*p you did need to spend another $50.00 bucks and buy the film pack since it contains features you know should have been in the main app but aren't.

Bethanne Loc: Newaygo County, Michigan

Thanks. I did too and loved it. That was before Cloud. I had Photoshop 7. An older program.

Bethanne Loc: Newaygo County, Michigan

Good advice. Thank you. I have Affinity trial right now.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You probably want to use <Quote Reply>. If you can still install and run your old PS in a Windows10 machine, compare that existing investment against new software as part of your usage evaluation.

Bethanne Loc: Newaygo County, Michigan

Thanks for all the info. I have a Nikon 300s. I've always shot and edited in jpeg but just decided to shoot in raw.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Given your past PS experience you should get up to speed with Affinity pretty quickly and can't beat the price -- excellent software. Just add a different option to get the raw files converted. For that matter download Nikon's own (free) Capture NX-D and you're good to go.

You're choosing in that case a workflow that splits your editing between two apps. You start in the raw conversion software and end up in the raster editor. Even if you used Affinity for the raw conversion you're in the same place. Nothing wrong with that and no loss in final quality but that gap between the two apps is a workflow hiccup -- it's a destructive element in your workflow such that if you look at an image say 6 months later and think, "I'd like to see how that would look if I did_________" and if that change needs to be done in the first app it's likely going to force you to do your work over in the second app. To avoid that situation you need a single app parametric editor and we're back to Lightroom or something like C1.

Bethanne Loc: Newaygo County, Michigan

I don't have that software anymore. It is installed on my 11-13 year old laptop. I can still use it there. But that old laptop won't work online any longer. So I had wanted to get it on my new HP windows 10 computer.

Bethanne Loc: Newaygo County, Michigan

Good plan. I'll give the Capture NX-D a try.

Bethanne Loc: Newaygo County, Michigan

I'm not familiar with lightroom. I briefly looked at it during my free trial of photoshop via Cloud. It doesn't appear to have the tools I used in photoshop 7. I enjoy editing by taking elements from one photo and adding it to another And the of course fine tuning it to appear as it's always been there. Adding snd removing objects in addition to adjusting exposures, etc. It it did those things I would rent lightroom from cloud.