I am an old guy stuck in the film era thinking and concepts, and have had difficulty learning photo editing in general. Over the past 5 years I have tried, in addition to Affinity Photo, LR, PSE 14, FastStone, RawTherapee and darktable. I have found Affinity easiest to learn and have accomplished more with it than the others. It has been a delight to be able to do things such as panoramic stitching, hdr, focus merge (stacking), etc. I know other programs can do these but I found it relatively easy to learn them in Affinity. It is a very capable, advanced program. At a one time fee of $50, currently on sale for $40, with a free trial available, it is also a bargain. Just my embarrassing and painful to reveal personal experiences.
Another satisfied Affinity user here. I am using it on a recently purchased IMac. The performance is good with 16 gb memory and it is rich with features. Lots of tutorials, as mentioned.
elliott937 wrote:
Hi Jay,
I never want to 'differ' with any fellow members, but I rather doubt that Photoshop Elements and Elements Premium will do everything that Photoshop CC can do. I've taught several of my friends, over the years, Photoshop Elements. For the (then) price, compared to the $660 price I paid for my first PS, the Elements offered many new things, but didn't pack the power of full PS.
I hope I have not offended you.
Bill
Your instincts are correct! Right off, PSE gives only 8-bit processing (PSD, TIFF), full Ps gives 8-, 16-, even 32-bit processing (PSD, PDB, TIFF). That alone keeps me away from PSE. I do have PSE 9 on another computer for a few operations that are easier to do with PSE on JPGs or I never figured out how to do on Ps CS6.
I have used affinity photo for over a year now. I like it very much. I still use my last version of PS CS6 regularly, I don't care for the subscription model at this time(maybe in the future) and if it ever gets where CS6 has major issues, then I am comfortable with affinity enough to get the work done (sometimes , quicker than PS).
Mr.Ft
Loc: Central New Jersey
Another satisfied Affinity user here.
I'm using Affinity and find that it runs circles around by Photoshop CS6. I also have Affinity Designer and am eagerly awaiting the full version of Pblisher.
Linda, I saw the topic. I have been using Affinity Photo as my main editor. I am very happy that I decided to buy it when it first appeared.
Affinity has everything any photographer needs to make beautiful editing of digital files. I wish the Curves adjustment was better because I tend to use it even for color correction of my files but that is not available with Affinity. For color correction I use other parameters.
Sharpening is excellent with this program. It is easy to overdo it and I tend to stay on the conservative side. Export is used instead of save because the save parameter saves the file as an Affinity Photo file.
Almost all adjustments are placed automatically on layers. This is very convenient because it allows the operator to go back to the layer for further adjustment or to delete the layer if necessary. All of these adjustments are non destructive.
The RAW machine is easy to work with and yields excellent results. There are many videos available in You Tube for learning and I prefer them to the book offered by the company that makes the software.
It is an excellent editor and its price is very reasonable. Like all other softwares it takes some time to learn it. Here is one of the many tutorials available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsRWBHl4SnM
willmscr@charter.net
I have ben using Affinity for about two to three years. It does everything I need it to do. I chose it after trying several of the trial versions of different packages. I don't know why but the Affinity user interface seemed more intuitive to me that the Photoshop user interface. That and the cost were my main considerations.
I have it, and I have used it - and I like it. However, I am more familiar with Lightroom, so that is my go-to processor. I will gradually increase my usage of Affinity.
elliott937 wrote:
I am in the process of learning Affinity. I'm curious to learn how many of my fellow members here are using Affinity? And to all who respond, 1st. Thanks, and 2nd. how much do you like it?
Hi. Just to get back to your original question, and not try to sell you on PS, I use Affinity and like it. Very much like PS. I also have PS, with the subscription, but hope that someday someone makes a Lightroom clone that works well so I can get off the subscription - just on principal. The subscription is affordable, but I like having more control of my finances.
Anyway, Affinity is very much like PS and Serif publishes a book that is very helpful. It has the typical overviews, and has projects done by pros that use Affinity so you can try some techniques.
One thing to remember is that Layers, Masks, Selects, Brushes, etc are just that. If it is called such in PS, and it works pretty much the same in Affinity. Also, if you find out how something works in PS, you can usually do it in Affinity.
Hope this helps.
I just purchased yesterday. Now need to learn to use
elliott937 wrote:
I am in the process of learning Affinity. I'm curious to learn how many of my fellow members here are using Affinity? And to all who respond, 1st. Thanks, and 2nd. how much do you like it?
I purchased Affinity about 3 months ago. I had been using PS cs3- very old. I like Affinity, and only having some problem getting prints to look like calibrated monitor. Could be my old Canon i9900 printer. Program is fine, i’ m Still learning it. I had to move to something as cs3 is 32 bit and next is update will only run 64 bit. One somewhat negative is Affinity raw converter is permanent, so I started converting in Canon dpp. Not as convenient.
bwana
Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada
elliott937 wrote:
I am in the process of learning Affinity. I'm curious to learn how many of my fellow members here are using Affinity? And to all who respond, 1st. Thanks, and 2nd. how much do you like it?
I've been using it since it came out on the Windows platform. It has pretty much replaced Photoshop as my main highend postprocessing tool. I like it a lot, particularly its integrated Stacking, Panorama, HDR and Focus Merge/Stacking tools.
If you're really serious about Affinity Photo, I would suggest picking up the Affinity Photo Workbook. It covers EVERYTHING in the software and has some excellent projects and how they'd be done.
There is also a 20% discount sale on at present.
bwa
I am still learning Affinity and so far I love it. The workbook is great, holds your hand through various exercises after the basics.
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