Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Affinity Studio now free

affinity.studio

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

611–620 of 825 posts

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#611

Post by Daub »

For those of you puzzled as to how three separate apps (Photo, Designer and Publsher) have become one (Studio), as a long-time user it was always clear that under the hood this was always the case. Indeed such interoperability has clearly been built into the Affinity suite from the ground up.

This is 100 miles away from the interoperability of Adobe's Dynamic Link whereby apps such as Premier and After Effects are 'united' in a manner that feels clunky and forced. Almost all Adobe apps were acquisitions, and most of them are now horrendously long in the tooth. Uniting them seamlessly would be impossible.

I adore Affinity photo for its top to bottom support for high dynamic range images. Editing RAW images is a buttery smooth dream, compared to Photoshop, which feels like I am banging my head against the software.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#612

Post by ineedasername »

aeonfox wrote: post #608
ineedasername wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am unclear on the problem: are the apps, previously free, significantly more limited than their prior free versions unless/until you also purchase a subscription for the CanvaAI portions? That aside, this isn’t a new thing for Canva, they aren’t chasing AI here, in this space GenAI is chasing the use case that Canva has been filling for a while, and incorporating genai as part of that is just, you know, “hey lots o…

> are the apps, previously free, significantly more limited than their prior free versions unless/until you also purchase a subscription for the CanvaAI portions? I was curious too. The FAQ says this: > Yes, Affinity really is free. That doesn’t mean you’re getting a watered-down version of the app though. You can use every tool in the Pixel, Vector, and Layout studios, plus all of the customization and export featur…

Not sure I see the problem then. Canva has a long enough track record that I don’t suspect they’re going to pull a bait and switch on the freemium and start gate keeping new features any time soon.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#613

Post by chemotaxis »

mung wrote: post #447

I feel like everyone is very negative about something that hasn't happened yet. This gives a desktop environment to Canva users, where the revenue actually is. It's both a trojan horse and a usable product. Will everyone's worse fears come true? Maybe, maybe not. Mean time you have an excellent app, for free, and very few software products, free, open source, closed source, perpetual, subscription.... last "forever".…

> Will everyone's worse fears come true?

I mean, it's sort of inevitable. Eventually, Canva will find itself under pressure to grow revenue (or even just weather a downturn). The maintenance of a complex desktop application is expensive and there will be pressure to increase "conversions" by putting more and more of the useful functions behind a paywall.

That said, their immediate goal is probably to take away customers from Adobe, and right now, the product is free, has more features than the old Affinity, doesn't need to talk to activation servers on an ongoing basis, and doesn't auto-update. So we should enjoy it while it lasts.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#614

Post by Torn »

Gigachad wrote: post #474
alwillis wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> free is unsustainable Canva makes $3+ billion (up from $1.5 in 2023) per year; they have 21 million paying customers out of 240 million users. "Only" 8.75% are paying customers. They don't need huge uptake in AI subscriptions from Affinity. So yeah, free is sustainable for the foreseeable future.

Would they continue to invest in Affinity development if it isn’t converting in to paying users?

I imagine enough folks will pay for the Canva account subscription to upsell - and then it's also a funnel into Canva

Plus it directly attacks Adobe's moat if a solid desktop app competitor is free

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#615

Post by Torn »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #572
mythz wrote: post #33

Awesome, expected Canva were going to jack up the prices or turn it into a subscription after acquisition. A freemium version is very welcome for the rare times I need to use it. No plans to ever be a paying customer myself (sorry Canva), but nice to know it's still being actively developed. Just noticed the AI feature integrations are locked behind a premium sub, makes sense to go for a wide funnel with a premium fr…

I doubt this is good, I'd expect minimal investment in the free version and ever increasing subscriptions. I WANT to pay for my software.

Is enshittification truly inevitable? Perhaps, but as an occasional affinity user this is good news and I don't see a reason to spell doom just yet

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#616

Post by ryandrake »

eldaisfish wrote: post #603
pikewood wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This already happened with Affinity Photo v1 on iOS; a lot of functionality did not work after an iOS update. It feels like Apple changed something in their libraries, so it doesn't even matter how robust your software is if the underlying OS doesn't honor compatibility.

ok, but if you depend on software for work or business, you do not update your OS until you can guarantee and verify that your software will work. The original iOS version worked. Maybe don't update iOS if you want to continue using affinity's software?

The Apple ecosystem, in general, is notorious for this: If you update your OS, some 3rd party applications will suddenly no longer work, because Apple keeps introducing breaking changes. But, if you don't update your software, other 3rd party applications will quickly abandon you and block you from using their software until you update. So, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Complicating this is: if your hardware is "too old" (as deemed by Apple), you can't update your software, so eventually you're left in the dust. You can't win.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#617

Post by garganzol »

Despite the mixed feelings I have about this direction, Canva's AI deal seems to be legit. Usually, AI does a fairly limited job when it comes to vector graphics, but this is what I've got with Affinity Studio:

> Generate a playful logo for product named "Serenity" using the style of Robin Hood forest and freedom themes

The result for such a simple prompt is pretty impressive: https://imgur.com/a/xLZlfQM, the produced artifact is already in vector format with tweakable curves, lines, and colors.

Well played, Canva. Maybe Affinity Studio is a smart move in the long run. I think I will be among Pro subscribers.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#618

Post by Torn »

danpalmer wrote: post #544

Using this free desktop app requires Canva sign-in, ok fine, I can stomach that, it's free after all. Signing in launches a browser to complete the sign-in process, but on macOS it launches Safari, not my OS default browser – this takes extra work to do over just using the `openUrl` call on macOS. Safari is blocked. Thankfully something on my system redirects the URL opening to pass it to my orgs enforced browser, I…

I've had good experience contacting canva support in the past who've checked things with engineering teams, you should be able to contact them about their new affinity sign-in

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#619

Post by makeitdouble »

karel-3d wrote: post #397
pmkary wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was so in love with the idea of "purchase and own for life" I thought every now and then I will buy the license and have a piece of mind. What started after SaaS is now at its closing days to have fully ruined software and from now on there will be hell like we have never seen before. Free Software is dead, Indie software as we used to is dead, and great businesses like Serif are down the road of being dead. I'm so…

yeah I liked it too but then, I realize how little I pay for this type of software vs how much I pay for subscription for services that I honestly barely use. financially, subscriptions just make more sense sadly. People vote with their wallets, and they vote subscription. It's sad, I loooooved Affinity and their licensing schemes, but honestly... I can see why they are moving. The AI stuff though makes no sense to m…

> People vote with their wallets

In a very real sense, yes.

Just like real votes, candidates will collude on issues that are bad for them, and push the discussion on trivial and/or bikesheddy issues people shouldn't really care about, keeping important arguments out of the public place.

To people who ever felt their vote were almost useless and not voting would also only make the situation worse...that's exactly how "voting with one's wallet" feel like.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#620

Post by roywiggins »

ezfe wrote: post #577
roywiggins wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of my photos are stored in a big Lightroom database. If I wasn't using an old camera supported by Lightroom 5 (that I bought outright in 2011), and was using modern Lightroom instead, I would have to pay an ongoing cost just to maintain access to my photo database, in perpetuity . This sucks no matter how much the subscription actually is right now. Losing access to all your old work in its original format if you…

I understand what you're saying, and yeah, that does suck. > Losing access to all your old work in its original format Most photo editing apps retain your originals, even when they're in a database. For example, Apple Photos has a folder full of originals with no modifications. Does Lightroom not have this? I understand that there is a lot of metadata that you also want, I'm just curious about this detail?

Lightroom's edits are non-destructive, so the original format of the edited photos exists within Lightroom's database or inside Lightroom's sidecar files. Yes, all my original photos are safe, but they are unprocessed raw and jpegs. I could plausibly render out my entire library and probably should, but it's the difference between a PSD and a PNG.

(I did investigate open source tools back in 2011 but essentially no libraries could even decode the raw format my camera uses for years)

Post reply on HN