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Affinity's Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months

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Re: Affinity's Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months

#141

Post by sedawk »

lukasgraf wrote: post #56
data-ottawa wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affinity doesn’t have a comparable program to Lightroom. Affinity Photo does have a development mode, but it’s single file focused and more akin to Photoshop’s raw import tool than an app like Lightroom or Bridge. I think RAW support is much lower than Adobe supports as well, at least with Fuji I’ve had issues and only a few programs handle Fuji compressed RAW. One of Affinity’s strengths is a single compatible file…

The big issue with Affinity Photo is that it doesn't support non-destructive editing / a non-linear workflow like Lightroom does. It's not exactly a fair comparison, since AP directly competes with Photoshop, not Lightroom, but that was what made it an immediate non-starter for me when it comes to photography. Affinity Photo starts you in a "Develop Persona" when you open a RAW file, and allows you to develop your RA…

> The current commercial alternatives for Lightroom unfortunately are still lacking, last time I looked at them (Capture One, DxO Photo Lab)

Genuine question, how do you find DxO PhotoLab lacking when compared to LR?

I'm an old-time LR user and due to Adobe's licensing shenanigans exploring alternatives. I am having a pretty good time with trial version of DxO PhotoLab7. So far I haven't come across something that I could do in LR (as a hobbyist) that I can't achieve in PhotoLab7. And, I'm loving the built-in DeNoising algorithm in PL7.

Re: Affinity's Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months

#143

Post by drhelix »

parl_match wrote: post #71

Adobe vs Affinity: Is Photoshop better than Photo? Yes, but not by much. Is Illustrator better than Design? Yes, but not by much. Is there an annoying learning curve? Yes, but not by much. I've put the investment into becoming proficient in Affinity and there's no looking back for me. Adobe's pricing, feature roadmap, and general performance are not even close to being worth 10x the price. If Adobe's suite was 2x, I…

Does affinity have anything resembling Lightroom? I really want to jump ship from adobe

Re: Affinity's Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months

#144

Post by dinglestepup »

ezfe wrote: post #127
dinglestepup wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is more to this argument. Adobe made themselves an industry standard with a perpetual license - pay once, own forever. Once they transitioned to a subscription model with a strict cancellation policy, it became the only option. Saying that designers could have just continued using Photoshop CS on a 2006 MacBook doesn't reflect the reality of hardware updates and the changes in the industry-wide design trends.

Which, I would argue, is why perpetual licenses are not all fun and games... They didn't revoke any of those licenses

The concern is here is clearly not the revocation of licenses.

The cost of not just learning but becoming a professional user of a specific set of tools is very high. Then later as time goes by being forced to either abandon these tools or to accept a different pricing model is - to many people - unfair and unethical.

Re: Affinity's Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months

#146

Post by lukasgraf »

sedawk wrote: post #141
lukasgraf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big issue with Affinity Photo is that it doesn't support non-destructive editing / a non-linear workflow like Lightroom does. It's not exactly a fair comparison, since AP directly competes with Photoshop, not Lightroom, but that was what made it an immediate non-starter for me when it comes to photography. Affinity Photo starts you in a "Develop Persona" when you open a RAW file, and allows you to develop your RA…

> The current commercial alternatives for Lightroom unfortunately are still lacking, last time I looked at them (Capture One, DxO Photo Lab) Genuine question, how do you find DxO PhotoLab lacking when compared to LR? I'm an old-time LR user and due to Adobe's licensing shenanigans exploring alternatives. I am having a pretty good time with trial version of DxO PhotoLab7. So far I haven't come across something that I…

> Genuine question, how do you find DxO PhotoLab lacking when compared to LR?

It's mostly their "no catalog" approach that irks me. From what I understand they use a model that doesn't use a catalog, and requires you to import photos, but instead allow you to point it at any filesystem location, and work on those photos.

Fair enough, but for me the question then immediately becomes how and where the data that I generate in PL7 is stored and managed - and I was struggling to find any comprehensive information on this.

If it doesn't have a catalog, where does it store edits I make to my photos? Does it actually modify and write down some information in RAW files (that would be a non-starter for me)? Does it litter the filesystem with XMP sidecar files next to the originals? How does it keep (and repair) associations between original RAWs and their edits/metadata if they get moved on the file system outside of PL7?

It allows to search/filter photos by metadata attributes "across your whole computer" (according to their tutorial video on organization). So it must keep some index somewhere, otherwise that would be dog slow. So how and when does that index get updated? Do I get any control over when that happens, any UI feedback when its happening and I'm potentially working with outdated metadata, etc..?

LR's catalog approach has some drawbacks, but from an engineering standpoint, it seems to me that's the much simpler and robust approach to implement this. The LR catalog is a simple SQLite DB, and backup is trivial: Backup my originals and the catalog, done. Follow the simple rule "Don't modify originals behind LR's back" and you'll be good. (Or be prepared to do it in a very systematic way, and fix references in LR afterwards).

The catalog approach definitely has its limitations and issues, but I find it very easy to reason about. No surprises. PL7's approach seems to require much more magic behind the scenes, which makes me quite uncomfortable.

In terms of denoising, I have to agree - the DxO stuff is miles ahead in terms of quality for some algorithms, and denoising is one of them. I use NikCollection (as a PS plugin) for those 1 out of a 1000 photos that deserve some serious editing.

Re: Affinity's Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months

#147

Post by ystvn »

omnimus wrote: post #59
jay_kyburz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree they are great software, and I own an old Affinity Design license, but unfortunately not long after I decided to ditch Photoshop, I also decided I needed to ditch windows. At the time there was no Linux support which made me sad. I have no idea if that has changed.

I am in same place. I keep Mac laptop for graphics because of this. I know the win version now works pretty well on linux with wine. But the process to set this up is not yet automated (like 20min) and is being worked on. So i was too lazy to properly try it.

> I know the win version now works pretty well on linux with wine. But the process to set this up is not yet automated (like 20min) and is being worked on

Where did you get the information about it being worked on?

Re: Affinity's Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months

#148

Post by ecjhdnc2025 »

misnome wrote: post #139
ecjhdnc2025 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have actually committed not to switch to a subscription model. Why do you think this is them doing that? > Do we believe they'll build the infrastructure to support a SaaS, then turn it all off after this 6-month trial? It's not a SaaS? It's a series of apps with trial keys that expire. Just like the normal 15 day trial or the pandemic-era three-month trial. Once the key expires, the trial expires.

> They have actually committed not to switch to a subscription mode So did Adobe, with Lightroom.

Only after the fact though.

Affinity are saying they won't switch everyone to subscriptions, that perpetual licensing will always be an option, and they don't yet have a subscription model.

Re: Affinity's Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months

#149

Post by msephton »

Curious.

Likelihood of them fixing bugs that have been outstanding for 6 years during a 6 month trial? Zero.

That's to say that if you try it and don't encounter any of the bugs—great. But if you try it and do encounter the bugs—they're generally unlikely to ever be fixed. In my experience as a user from day one.

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