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Affinity Studio now free

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Re: Affinity Studio now free

#771

Post by eitally »

roywiggins wrote: post #620
ezfe wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

I've adopted a workflow like this:

Camera -> Photo Mechanic ingest/culling onto laptop -> edit RAWs in DxO Photolab -> export .jpg 100% for web into "Web" subfolder for event -> pick top shots for socials, export insta-optimized shape & quality into "Socials" subfolder for event -> backup RAW/Web/Socials folder hierarchy to external SSD for backup and upload "Web" subfolder to Google Photos for sharing & "JPG backup".

I keep about a year's worth of RAW edits + JPGs on my laptop before periodically clearing space, and I have some of my overall top shots stored separately on my Pixieset site.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#773

Post by dangus »

turnsout wrote: post #730
dangus wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the ashes or NeXT. If Apple hadn’t bought them, they’d have to make their own OS or license something else, and NeXT would potentially still be here making their OS. We have one less choice on the market because Apple acquired them. See also: DarkSky. No more Android version!

Hate to break it to you, but NeXTSTEP failed in the marketplace. If Apple hadn't bought them, they'd still be gone. But more importantly: who cares? There is no moral imperative to keep products alive. It's just stuff that people make. Products come and go, and founders owe you nothing.

Who cares right? Maybe Apple and Google and Microsoft should just merge. Then we can just use the same operating system for everything.

Can’t think of any downside!

I’m not mourning the loss of a product, I’m lamenting the negative externalities of acquisitions. Some of them are a net positive for sure but it seems like those are in the minority.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#774

Post by pier25 »

sethaurus wrote: post #686
pier25 wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is free. If they can't monetize the product with ai subscriptions they sure as hell will end up monetizing their users and their content.

I suspect Canva is willing to offer Affinity for free because it holds Adobe's feet to the fire and forces them to compete on Canva's home turf: the nonprofessional design market. There's clearly a funnel for Canva Pro upgrades, but (to my knowledge) they've never paywalled formerly-free features, and it seems to be a profitable strategy so far.

> it seems to be a profitable strategy so far

OTOH some sources report Canva paid like $400M for Affinity. Even for a company like Canva it does seem significant. They might need to adapt their strategy if the investment doesn't pan out as expected.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#775

Post by Slow_Hand »

greggh wrote: post #741
Slow_Hand wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These three pieces of software are not the same tool and them all being shoehorned into one UI is just idiotic. Have you used it yet? It's a very elegant implementation. I, for one, am very excited about the workflow advantages of being able to easily switch between all three modalities with a click.

I have, and I still think it's idiotic. I don't do any layout work, ever. And I see no future where I will. I don't need all of that in the software I use to do any photo editing.

Then don't ever click the layout tab? Its features all stay hidden until you switch over to that mode.

It's an elegant solution to compartmentalize the different work modes in this way.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#776

Post by citrus1330 »

alt227 wrote: post #253
pentagrama wrote: post #143

I used Affinity for several years, so to add some background here: Serif is the company that originally built this software. -------- 2014–2024 Serif developed the Affinity suite, a collection of three independent desktop apps sold with a one-time payment model: - Affinity Designer: vector graphic design (Adobe Illustrator equivalent) - Affinity Photo: digital image editing (Adobe Photoshop equivalent) - Affinity Pub…

This is such a shame IMO. The Serif suite was great, and I used to try to get every designer I could to dump adobe and switch to serif. Now that it has switched to a freemium model trying to get you to subscribe to AI, I wont be using this or telling other people about it any more. Their priorities have changed. No longer are they trying to to beat adobe at their own game, they are just chasing AI money like everyone…

there is genuinely no pleasing some people

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#777

Post by Atalocke »

I've been using the affinity suite since v1 for nearly a decade. Upgraded to v2 when that came out, and use it weekly on my iPad and Desktop. I was warry of Canva for a while, but my wife really got into it for designing and printing signage, invitations, and cards for our wedding. She's a light prosumer, and seeing her be able to create some really awesome stuff and fuel her creativity made me quite happy. Well worth the $15/m for pro to see her smile and be proud of herself.

I was worried when they bought Serif, but this new Affinity gives me hope. Canva makes good design products but they've been missing from the pro market. We all know Adobe runs that arena, and that most consumers are sick of their business practices. Canva is probably the best company positioned right now to compete with Adobe, and they have a huge incentive to bring users over. Keeping the base app free while enabling an optional subscriptions for the only remote component with operating costs lets Canva keep their top level funnel wide open. Even if most users don't pay for AI, that's still a huge number of people in the Canva ecosystem.

Of all the companies to buy Serif, Canva is probably the best case scenario.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#778

Post by Atalocke »

I think a lot of commentor here forget that Canva is a large, profitable company that has a long track record of putting its consumers first. I'm not going to pretend that the fruit won't ever sour, but a company that wants to get more people in design, upsell them on fremium optional features, and has other profitable businesses to support the funnel is a hell of a lot better than Adobe.

If Serif was going to be acquired, I can't think of a better company to have done it.

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#779

Post by cultofmetatron »

blackqueeriroh wrote: post #418
cultofmetatron wrote: post #68

so basically there's no more incentive to maintain or improve the affinity suite..

Except their competitors? Why do you think Canva bought them?

a giant mailing list for sales. not all acquisiions end up as a benefit to the product. just look at what happenned to screenhero

Re: Affinity Studio now free

#780

Post by paavohtl »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #289
qingcharles wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need the new features, but they sure do help. The AI features in Photoshop easily cut my editing time in half. Doing denoise, color grading, object selections, object removals. Like magic.

I hate to say it but some of the newer PS features have become indispensable in my usage - mainly smart objects. nondestructive layer effects are a godsend when you want to tweak and retweak stuff that would otherwise require a ton of time and effort to undo/redo or duplicate layers/groups to A/B changes.

Photoshop has had smart objects for quite literally 20 years - have they gained some important features recently? Smart filters have also been included since CS3 in 2007.
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