Affinity 2

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/

by synthmeat • 4 years ago

375 214 4 years ago

affinity.serif.com

Kelteseth• 4 years ago

I pretty much use Affinity Designer every day since their Windows launch (2017?) . This saved me hundreds of euros or more in comparison to Photoshop. I will 100% buy this!

marban2• 4 years ago

So I bought all V1s back then and now they're gone from the Mac App Store. I see.

Edit: Got it, have to download it from the purchase history (which was 2014), not the offical now-gone link.

dkdbejwi383• 4 years ago

Apple is at least partly to blame here for stubbornly refusing to add paid upgrades to the app stores, despite developers calling for it for years.

marban2• 4 years ago

Yes but devs usually leave the old version on the MAS and don't remove it entirely.

microtonal• 4 years ago

And if taking 30% wasn't enough of an offense, they are now also stuffing search results of people looking for Affinity products with all kinds of ad crap. I can fully understand why they yanked their products from the Mac App Store and will happily purchase the suite directly from them.

brailsafe• 4 years ago

Can you not download them from your purchases tab?

universenz• 4 years ago

Also it appears the new v2 licensing approach does not support Family Purchases, which is a step backward in my view.

keyle• 4 years ago

I migrated to Affinity after Adobe put the last nail in the coffin for me.

I have to admit that even with some experience, Affinity doesn't get close to Photoshop in terms of shortcuts and ease of use ("getting in the flow").

Sometimes I even resort to using photopea web, rather than open affinity.

That said, I really appreciate their pricing model and hope they stick to their guns.

rpastuszak3• 4 years ago

I'm in the same situation. I used the Photography subscription for LR + PS, as I don't care about any other tools (RIP Fireworks). I've been using Adobe Products since 1999. I just feel like supporting them is unethical.

Figma + Procreate replaced Photoshop for me for design/game dev workflows, but I'm still missing the right tools for Photography and image processing.

The OSS LR replacements feel too clunky, CaptureOne is fantastic but a bit pricey. I'll have to bite the bullet eventually and choose between convenience and cost.

Two questions:

1. Is Affinity desktop better than its iPad version?

2. What's your use case for Affinity as a replacement of PS?

tmikaeld2• 4 years ago

Too bad you're still supporting Adobe, since they purchased Figma.

dividedbyzero• 4 years ago

C1 really is the only thing that comes close to LR right now. There is a version of CaptureOne that only works with Fujifilm cameras which is about 2/3 of the price of the full license and I believe there is (was?) something like that for other manufacturers too. They also still offer perpetual licenses, so this isn't necessarily an annual cost (I'm on 21). Still pricey of course.

detritus• 4 years ago

Yeah, totally this - I recently cropped my Adobe CC suite down to just Illy, which i need, and bought Affinity's wares to replace, but it's no contest. Aside from literal decades of muscle memory, there's just too many speedbumps in the way of my normal workflow. So, I've dug out my copy of Photoshop CS2 so I can do all my cleaning up and processing in there.

Once I've found out what the difference between Affinity versions 1 and 2 is, I might yet buy 2 anyway, just to support Serif some more, because I'm frankly fed up of Adobe's practice of unhinged monolithic greed.

regular6• 4 years ago

I want to support independent, non-rental-scam offerings as well. But Serif's attitude toward fixing bugs in its suite has been pretty bad. And in their presentation of "what's new," they seem to have ignored repeated requests for features that are standard and expected in this type of software.

They're not even complicated requests; stuff like non-printing layers and the ability to resize the selection marquee. I mean... WTF?

jug2• 4 years ago

Yes, I don't even have very advanced needs but there are surprising omissions or ill thought of workflows throughout the software. I'm the most confused by the "personas" and sometimes feel like I need to go "back" because I need some tool, but I think there are some other strange design decisions too even in fairly basic tools.

reaperducer3• 4 years ago

Some smart person should publish an e-book, or a web site "Affinity Photo for Photoshop Users."

It should list every Photoshop function, and how to accomplish the same thing on Affinity.

After 20 years of using Photoshop, I'm forever searching the web for equivalent workflows in Affinity. Sometimes it's just the name or icon of a tool is different. Sometimes it's been completely re-thought. And sometimes, a feature is just missing.

Honestly, this is something that Affinity should publish, itself, to encourage people to switch.

rchaud2• 4 years ago

I do the same: Affinity Photo + Photopea + GIMP

A combination of these usually gets the job done.

Adobe products are boycotted in my work setup. I'm voting with my wallet!

leeches• 4 years ago

I also migrated a few years ago, after having used Photoshop and Illustrator professionally for a long time.

The underlying features are there, but the lack of “flow” is the main source of frustration. A lot of common or frequent actions require needless extra steps, or simple actions require convoluted workarounds.

They would benefit from starting an in-house creative studio, to get constant feedback from professionals using it for daily production. That or just start copying Adobe workflows verbatim, these are already solved problems.

Good product and good business model.

TimTheTinker• 4 years ago

Next month's news: Adobe buys Affinity.

(Please let it not happen!)

rcarmo• 4 years ago

Kudos for not having a subscription. That is _so_ refreshing these days.

shp0ngle• 4 years ago

On the other hand, once the previous version stops working, it stops working. With Apple and their constant changes and bad backward portability, you can end up with broken app.

AlphaOne1• 4 years ago

For all of the old Microsoft's faults, they really did an excellent job with backwards compatibility. Now things are a mess and I fear that you are right. It really isn't the developers fault imo. OS really should be more stable.

vladstudio2• 4 years ago

I've been Photoshop user since, hmm, 2000? Gave up couple of years ago, and spent some time comparing Affinity Designer and Pixelmator Pro. For me personally, Pixelmator won, and it's been my editor of choice:

https://www.pixelmator.com/pro/

hoistbypetard4• 4 years ago

How did it come down to those two? I'd have expected Affinity Photo to be more comparable to Pixelmator. Isn't Designer more similar to Sketch?

CharlesW3• 4 years ago

Yes, Affinity Designer is a vector design tool, like Illustrator. One would want to compare Affinity Photo to Pixelmator (which is also very good).

vladstudio2• 4 years ago

I actually use Pixelmator Pro vector tools a lot, for illustrating, not photo editing - they are quite basic (comparing to Illustrator) but for my specific needs it's quite enough.

regular6• 4 years ago

I bought Pixelmator also, but gave up on it because of incredibly clumsy and baffling UI decisions.

mryingster• 4 years ago

Interesting. I had the opposite outcome. I didn't like how Pixelmator reinvented the wheel as far as interface goes. I felt like Affinity Photo was a much better lateral transition from Photoshop for my needs. I bought both though mostly to support them. I'm glad we have options that aren't Adobe. I just can't abide the idea of licensing software in perpetuity.

tommica• 4 years ago

Exciting - might really want to get these!

dr_faustus• 4 years ago

Serif's Affinity suite has probably the greatest value for money in the whole software industry. I mean 119 bucks ONE-TIME for three pretty comprehensive graphics apps which are polished and get constant updates is very hard to beat.

For people making their living with graphical work (designers, photographers, etc.) Adobe is probably still the way to go (even if just to keep using the muscle memory). However for the many people who only need something like Photoshop or InDesign a couple of times a year, Affinity is just great.

reaperducer3• 4 years ago

In addition to it not being a subscription, I also love this bit from the App Store's Privacy section:

   Data Not Collected
   The developer does not collect any data from this app.

After I post this, I'm off to buy the desktop and iPad versions.

I tried to buy a certain type of simple app a couple of weeks ago, and while there were dozens of options available, not one didn't Hoover up everything it could about me.

Really? You need to know my name, location, and track me across apps for a card game? No sale.

Edit: Purchased. Thanks, Affinity. Go stick your head in a pig, Adobe.

drcongo5• 4 years ago

The Universal Licence gets you all three apps on all platforms now. Incredible deal.

lynndotpy3• 4 years ago

Just so you know, that's not true. After all, they need to collect your email to login for the perpetual license. At the very least, this needs a "Data Linked To You - Contact Info" card.

Generally speaking, 'App Privacy' cards are lies. Apple does not check them, you need to do it yourself. Here is the Privacy Policy: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/privacy/

In the EULA (quoted from Affinity Photo 2 for MacOS), you further agree to, among other terms:

*Consent to Use of Data* a. 16. You agree that Serif and its affiliates may use any information you give to use as part of product support and other services provided to you, if any, related to Serif Software solely to improve products or to provide customised services or technologies to you and will not disclose this information in a form that personally identifies you.

drcongo5• 4 years ago

Amazingly there's people moaning at them about the price in their Twitter announcement.

netr0ute2• 4 years ago

$119 is only affordable if you're got a high-income job, which billions of people on planet Earth don't.

kmeisthax2• 4 years ago

Is $100 for a universal suite license even that much of a price hike? Affinity v1 was $50 a pop with no universal license option - as in, you had to buy each platform's port of the app separately. I happen to have one foot in every tech ecosystem and bought all three apps, so I wound up spending more on Affinity v1 than I will on v2's universal license.

And, of course, it's still hella cheap compared to subscription-licensing Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign over the seven years of updates you got on Affinity v1.

SanjayMehta2• 4 years ago

People on Twitter are only happy when they're unhappy.

jjtheblunt• 4 years ago

I wonder if people forget the joke in Twitter's name, that those writing are "twits".

You just reminded me of it.

jscheel• 4 years ago

Yes, and I'm one of them. I'm not moaning at them about the price, but I think it's fair to consider what they are actually saying. They are telling users that v1 is now completely unsupported. That means, if you bought v1 last week, you cannot expect any compatibility support moving forward. The bugs that already exist? Those aren't getting taken care of either. People like to point out that they've owned Affinity products for a long time, and therefore have gotten their value out of them. I've owned all of the Affinity products for quite a while, so I've gotten plenty of value from them. I also have a (quite) expensive Adobe subscription. But at the end of the day, Affinity was marketed as the answer to subscription bloat. They aren't the first company to have to walk that back a bit with major version releases. They should have a deprecation plan in place for gradually winding down v1. Stopping all new features but still releasing compatibility and security fixes is incredibly common in software when major versions change. Instead, their answer is to cease all development an support immediately.

achow2• 4 years ago

I have developed new muscles with dedication and effort, I had Adobe logo in front of me all the while, I was falling down and crying with pain but one look at Adobe logo would make me get up and get going with newly found vigor - just to kick Adobe's bucket and to embrace loving comfort of Affinity Suite.

Nah.. it was pretty easy to jump. Life is beautiful.

jdcarter• 4 years ago

I used Photoshop and Illustrator for years and years (going back to 1990's) and switched to Affinity about 2 years ago. There's a lot of little details that are different--say, when you grab a resize handle, does aspect ratio stay locked or do you have to hold down shift?--but I found that it wasn't tough to retrain. Most things are where you'd expect. It's certainly not like Gimp or Inkscape, where absolutely everything is different and it feels impossible to get anything done.

amatheus• 4 years ago

And that includes all platforms (Mac, iPad and Windows). Really great value.

samtp• 4 years ago

Not really all platforms is it though. Linux not supported at all

Slow_Hand• 4 years ago

Seconded.

As an infrequent image editor/designer/publisher I'm just casual enough that there is no way to justify an Adobe subscription (even if I'd want to have one).

Affinity occupy a wonderful niche for people like me in that they provide comprehensive, professional, and bullshit-free software options. It's an incredible value for this day and age and I love using their software. I have zero complaints about the company or their products.

Upgrading when they have a release like this is a no-brainer. Even if I don't really need the upgrade I'm eager to support them for doing such a fine job.

ngrilly• 4 years ago

I've been using Affinity Designer 1 and that's a great product! Glad to see version 2 coming.

geenat2• 4 years ago

Wow, first class JPEG XL support! :)

Google / Chromium developers, please take note!

vetinari3• 4 years ago

But still no AVIF support, which is supported by Google / Chromium.

geenat2• 4 years ago

Would be very nice to have both! It's about time we got better image formats.

That said, unfortunately AVIF is not a substitute for JPEG XL...

1. AVIF has an order of magnitude slower saving / encoding speed vs JPEG XL.

2. AVIF in "lossless" mode tends to be bigger than PNG- and it isn't truly lossless, just best effort (based on the AV1 video format).

3. JPEG XL supports orders of magnitude higher resolution, bit depth, and is an actual replacement for lossless PNG.

timeon• 4 years ago

DWG/DXF import is what I was missing from Illustrator.

boomskats2• 4 years ago

I've just bought this without even looking at what's new or different. That's how much I love their software.

Hopefully the performance in isometric grid mode is better in v2. My only issue with v1.

dineshk78• 4 years ago

Same, just commenting to share my love for Affinity! Such a breath of fresh air compared to anti consumer Adobe.

hoistbypetard4• 4 years ago

I did too. I had v1 licenses for Photo and Designer on my Windows laptop and on iPad. I've recently switched my daily driver to Mac, and was planning to get Mac licenses for those, but was holding out for a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. This was a no-brainer for me.

(I'm not a professional user of these... but I find them super useful during game jams or while putting together ideas for web things.)

nailer• 4 years ago

Affinity is great but... weird.

- Designer and Photo keep asking me to download and install a new version manually every time I open it, rather than just taking care of their own updates.

- Pasting if there's no document open doesn't work. You have to do 'new from clipboard'.

ketzu• 4 years ago

Designer and Photo keep asking me to download and install a new version manually every time I open it, rather than just taking care of their own updates.

It's super annoying to upgrade, too. If they added an auto updater I would instantly buy v2. But right now I don't really see a reason yet.

yashg2• 4 years ago

I had shifted to Affinity photo from Photoshop few years ago. I need to use it once in a while so Affinity photo does the job for me. It has its own quirks but I can live with them. There is still no real alternative for Lightroom unfortunately for bulk RAW photo processing.

chillfox• 4 years ago

What’s Capture One or DxO missing to replace Lightroom?

yashg2• 4 years ago

Capture One is expensive. I need to use it a few times a year. Didn't know about DxO PhotoLab, will check it out.

max51• 4 years ago

Last time I tried to completely switch to Capture One, there were major features missing. I currently use both because there are things that Capture One does a lot better than Lightroom (eg. skin tones, tethered shooting)

The biggest one for me is the fact that you can't manually remove chromatic aberration. If your lens is not in their database with a profile, you can't do it at all. The database is also very small; if you are using anything old or with no electronic, it's likely not gonna be there.

fetzu• 4 years ago

There was talk of them working on a DAM solution a few years ago, sadly this never materialized. I would love to be able to move on from Adobe completely, but I still haven’t find the right replacement for Lightroom..

monkin• 4 years ago

I love Affinity, but why on earth there’s no Hand tool in Designer on iPad? It is so frustrating to work with mouse and keyboard.

outcoldman• 4 years ago

It was not very clear about the Universal License, but if you purchase it, using your Account you activate also iPad versions for free. So for $99 you get all 3 apps for macOS, Windows and iPad, that is really cool deal!

rpastuszak3• 4 years ago

Protip for people trapped in an Adobe sub if you want to avoid the fine[^1]:

1. change your payment method to PayPal

2. cancel your payments in PayPal

3. add Adobe to your spam/archive filter

[^1] The "pay monthly" (small print: annual) subscription we all love and cherish

fxtentacle• 4 years ago

This works precisely because Adobe's terms are so exortionary that they don't want to risk testing their validity in court by suing you... Well played!

noizz• 4 years ago

The best thing about Affinity is that Adobe noticed and I've been on "first year only" Creative Cloud promo €30/mo for a couple of years now, all it takes is a mention on chat whenever the promo is about to end.

qubex2• 4 years ago

I’m looking for (and haven’t yet found) any mention of v1 to v2 discounts? Am I missing something or is it an entirely new purchase?

ishitatsuyuki• 4 years ago

Serif mentioned on Twitter that the decision is partly driven by the absence of upgrading pricing options in third party app stores.

https://twitter.com/affinitybyserif/status/15903262690314649...

qubex2• 4 years ago

A pity but it’s reasonable.

lancesells• 4 years ago

Really nice products and a pretty amazing price. I've used the version one for maybe 8 years and think it cost me $49.

kowlo• 4 years ago

Spent £116 through the App Store on version 1 of this software not long ago and now I can't upgrade, but instead, have to buy it all again at a "discount". Downloading my versions means looking through the purchase history too.

Not happy with that - would advise against it.

dangoor• 4 years ago

I suspect this move away from the App Store is probably because the App Store _still_ doesn't have a reasonable way to do upgrade pricing. Affinity v3 (whenever that comes out) would be able to offer specific upgrade pricing because they've left the App Store.

Edit to add link from another comment: https://twitter.com/affinitybyserif/status/15903262690314649...

Serif actually said that this is specifically what happened

mrtksn• 4 years ago

Similar situation(bought Designer V1 about a year ago, directly from them) but I'm not angry. It makes complete sense from their perspective and makes sense for me too.

I completely agree that continued work needs to be payed and I don't expect to buy a software once and receive updates for it forever. If I was using it in a professional capacity all the time, I would have preferred a cheaper monthly subscription but because I'm using it mostly now and then, pay for the V1 and use it forever and pay again if I would like the newer version works very well for me.

xPaw• 4 years ago

I purchased it directly from their site, and there is no upgrade option either.

lidavidm• 4 years ago

Hmm, I bought it about…a couple weeks ago? And they sent me an email with two discount codes: a free copy of Affinity Photo 2, and a heavy discount on the all-apps-all-platforms license.

bj-rn• 4 years ago

Bought it exactly one month ago (all apps). No discount. Feel kind of bummed.

jug2• 4 years ago

Contact them first and explain your situation to be sure.

Tao33004• 4 years ago

Depending on what "not long ago" means, that's pretty unfortunate timing. You should reach out to them. They've been pushing updates and features for V1 for a long time and have an established track record for being a company that isn't nickel-and-diming people. The line does have to be drawn somewhere though. Long term users have known this was coming, but I can see how the short/mid term user might feel pinched.

johnymontana2• 4 years ago

Is anyone using Affinity for cartography? I’m currently using ArcGIS —> Illustrator workflow but am curious if a QGIS —> Affinity workflow is feasible.

c0nsumer5• 4 years ago

So, I've been using Illustrator for years with an OSM -> Illustrator workflow where I start with OSM XML, feed it to osm2ai.pl, and then wholly style it by hand. It's... fine... but Illustrator's cost is getting to me.

I gave QGIS -> Affinity a cursory look the other day and had no problem taking my results from an Overpass query and exporting it from QGIS as SVG and bringing it into Affinity. So, that gave me a ton of hope.

The opening of Illustrator files in Affinity Designer kinda sucks (my dashed paths for trails come in as tons of different objects, like it's actually only bringing in the PDF preview) but if I start anew on some of the maps I think it'll be fine.

I just bought the 2.0 package mentioned here and the next map I do I'll be doing in Affinity Designer to see how it goes. Fingers crossed!

johnymontana2• 4 years ago

Thanks for sharing. I wasn't aware of osm2ai - looks helpful!

I'm starting a new project this week and will test out the QGIS -> Affinity workflow and write up any findings.

corry2• 4 years ago

Has anyone switched to Affinity Designer from Illustrator for vector work (logos, svg, icons, etc) and liked it? I've been avoiding paying for Illustrator given the extreme monthly cost for my use-case, but found Inkspace and other alternatives pretty lacking. I pay for Photoshop since I'm so comfortable with it, but can't justify the extra $$$ to add Illustrator given I'd use it a handful of times a month max.

latexr• 4 years ago

Has anyone switched to Affinity Designer from Illustrator for vector work (logos, svg, icons, etc) and liked it?

I found v1 frustrating. They’ve been touting their “precision” from the get go, but in my experience it was anything but precise. And I mean going into the transform panel, inserting exact values by hand, and then the software moves it 0.1 points to the right.

Making separate shapes then connecting them was also a fool’s errand. When it works at all, it often leaves two connected points in the same location, as opposed to merging them. Even if you insert their locations manually and exactly. I’ve wasted many many hours due to their imprecision.

With all that out of the way, I’m trialing v2 and am cautiously optimistic. I haven’t been able to trigger any of the bugs so far. Doesn’t mean they’re not there, but maybe they’re fixed.

corry2• 4 years ago

Thanks! I'll give it a try. V1 sounds frustrating since those use-cases are precisely what I do with Illustrator lol.

Eric_WVGG2• 4 years ago

Wondering if they’ve added WEBP export (I don’t see it in the release notes).

I’ve been prodding Affinity on their forums with a feature request over the past few years, but other forum-dwellers get weirdly hostile over it… like, yeah, I wish JPEG-2000 had made it too, but it didn’t, and WEBP is here today and it works, should our graphics apps not live in the present?

vetinari3• 4 years ago

WEBP and JPEG-XL yes, AVIF no.

Eric_WVGG2• 4 years ago

Awesome! Upgrading for the feature alone, everything else is a bonus.

yakubin• 4 years ago

A single licence for all apps on all platforms at a reasonable price? Sweet.

Previously I’ve only been using Affinity on Mac. Now I’ll be able to see how it performs on Windows as well.

I wonder though if they fixed the crop tool. The rectangle wouldn’t stay within photo borders, i.e. any “constrain proportion” setting would be useless, and trying to align the crop with one of the borders was very mundane, pushing me to do all my cropping in ACDSee.

boomskats2• 4 years ago

89 GBP vs 119 USD. Something is finally cheaper in GBP than it is in USD. Wow.

ubercow13• 4 years ago

Might be something to do with it being a British company!

Tao33004• 4 years ago

I'd been meaning to become a paid subscriber to a certain British podcast, and the recent Tory discount was the perfect time to do it.

beardedman• 4 years ago

Love Affinity products. Absolute steal for the price.

bowsamic• 4 years ago

I was so convinced that they would have moved to a subscription model out of pure fear that it took me ages to even convince myself it was a one time payment even though it was on giant letters on the page

AtticHacker2• 4 years ago

Darn I got excited for no reason. I first read "ALL PLATFORMS" and thought that version 2 would also work on Linux. But alas!

seanw444• 4 years ago

Supposedly they're a relatively small team. According to another comment (I don't use it personally), they're missing a lot of features Adobe has had for decades, so they would probably understandably prioritize porting to Linux under even that.

AtticHacker2• 4 years ago

I sympathize with them completely. The effort needed to port it to Linux most likely won't be worth the small user base (and the even smaller percentage of Linux users that'll use proprietary software)

zxspectrum1982• 4 years ago

Same here. I'll gladly pay for Affinity on Linux.

pessimizer• 4 years ago

It looks like there are only two big bugs keeping it from running in Wine, etc., a flickering issue and the fact that they're using a deprecated Windows API call to save to disk. However, they also seem to show no interest in making it work. They'll still have to update that call eventually, though.

They really should fix it. The fact that they're selling software and not subscriptions (unlike the competition) means that if they get one version running well on Wine, they could take as long as they wanted to get any later version running. Linux users will just be a year or two behind everyone else, but they'd be grateful.

nbzso• 4 years ago

I love the Affinity Designer. Also bought the Photo suite.

But if you are a serious graphic designer, all the available jobs use Adobe tools. It is a factual thing.

Nowadays, I use mainly Figma (which is, again: Adobe) and wait for the next AI thing to remove me from my design job duties. :)

uxcolumbo• 4 years ago

No subscription is a big deal. Been using Affinity tools since Adobe introduced their cloud bloatware and subscription model.

I'm praying to the design gods that Adobe won't acquire Affinity - surely this must eat into their revenue.

beingflo• 4 years ago

Is my understanding correct that Affinity Photo doesn't have any photo management capability? If you want to edit a series of images similarly, do you create a custom preset that you then apply to the other images and just reopen the editor for every image?

moelf2• 4 years ago

you're right and it's a pain point for YEARS

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/42372-file...

0xFEE1DEAD• 4 years ago

Just 4h ago I went to affinitys website because I wanted to download photos for my work laptop and I got a page "we're working on something big. stay tuned". And now I'm seing this. I'm hyped.

Edit: Looks like there's no discount if you already own a license which is a bummer considering they advertised with selling you a lifetime license.

hoistbypetard4• 4 years ago

If you bought a lifetime license to the previous version, you can still use the previous version. (That's most commonly what "lifetime" license means... it's called that in contrast to a "subscription" where you can't keep using it if you stop paying.)

Usually people who offer upgrades for life will use those words.

I bought photos and designer for Windows and iPad. My daily driver is now a Mac, and I was hoping for a cyber Monday type sale to pick up a Mac version. This seems good to me, and the sale feels like a nice upgrade discount.

Espressosaurus• 4 years ago

It's life time for that version. You can continue using your old version forever. I paid my $40 or $60 whatever 3 years ago and have gotten way more than $40 of value out of it.

I'm about to happily plunk down money again because the price is right, it's a perpetual license, and it's a solid product.

I just wish they'd release a DAM, because that's the one item I need right now.

sleepless• 4 years ago

So does version 2 of Affinity Photo add support for AVIF? Can't find it listed on https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/full-feature-list/ (rather hard to search, since sections have to be uncollapsed one by one).

Strange price model where existing customers do not get an upgrade discount.

reaperducer3• 4 years ago

Strange price model where existing customers do not get an upgrade discount.

I'm an existing customer, and I look at it as 40% off for existing customers to upgrade, and also 40% off for people upgrading from Adobe.

jbverschoor2• 4 years ago

That's a strange way of reasoning..

least• 4 years ago

I bought Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer in May of this year, less than 6 months ago. Some companies that offer perpetual licenses would simply give me the upgrade to the next version for free since it came out within a year, and basically all of them would offer an upgrade discount that isn't simply a launch sale, into perpetuity.

The price is good for decent software but it's kind of discouraging me from wanting to upgrade, when their goal should be the exact opposite of that.

kyrra• 4 years ago

This was one thing that annoyed me about Affinity as well, no AVIF or WEBP support. There are a number of threads on their forums asking for it, but Serif staff stopped responding to those a while ago.

wdb• 4 years ago

Problem is that it's difficult to give discounts in the different App Stores so they give the discount to everyone

regular6• 4 years ago

App stores? You can buy the apps directly.

jbverschoor2• 4 years ago

Yeah I used them since some beta, and got the paid version almost immediately, also just to support some good competition against adobe malware suite.

moelf2• 4 years ago

All platform is a lie, IIRC a long time ago they actually promised a Linux version, but never realized that.

alpaca1282• 4 years ago

It includes licenses for all supported platforms. No, it doesn't support the Nintendo Switch, Android, Linux and many others, but calling it a lie because of that is a bit much.

IIRC a long time ago they actually promised a Linux version

Did they actually "promise" it or just didn't outright reject it from the start?

etra0• 4 years ago

Nice, I'm really vouching for Affinity since Adobe went to SaaS. It has performed quite well for me and one time purchases are welcomed.

I'd love for them to do a Lightroom replacement, since it's one of the last tools I'd like to replace from the Adobe subset.

I tried Dark Table but the shadow slider would produce some weird artifacting (halos) so it was unusable for me.

open-source-ux• 4 years ago

If you have the version 1 of the Affinty apps, here's a list of the new v2 features:

What's new: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/whats-new/

FAQ for version 2 (including answers for v1 users): https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/affinity-2-faq/

AuryGlenz2• 4 years ago

I don't know why Photoshop doesn't have built in masking tools like they now have. I shouldn't have to use an extension so (easily) make luminosity or color masks.

microflash• 4 years ago

I have used Affinity products for years so this was a no-brainer buy. It is a pity though that V2 products can't be activated offline; they require you to login with your account to activate.

kiawe_fire• 4 years ago

This license, and alternatively the JetBrains licenses, are awesome. I will always try to support them!

Being given the freedom to install this on whatever computers I own, regardless of OS*, for one very reasonable fee, is amazing compared to the standard guard of “only one OS and only x computers”, or worse, “subscription based and you lose it all if you stop subscribing”.

I’ve been living in Linux using GIMP for what I’ve needed, but I’m definitely buying and supporting this for when I need a little more than GIMP.

* sans Linux in this case, sadly

laurieg• 4 years ago

I'd love to switch to Affinity from Adobe Illustrator, but there's one feature I just can't live without:

In illustrator you can make a dashed line that nicely lines up with the corners of a square (putting one dash in each corner). Nothing else seems to handle this case. [1]

I use Illustrator to make stitching patterns and lining up the corners in this way is absolutely essential, otherwise the stitches come out looking lopsided.

[1] https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/145760-how...

azalemeth• 4 years ago

The other thing I really miss is the simple artboard tool to effectively crop pdfs. Designer does have this, but it's not quite as "nice", iirc.

regular6• 4 years ago

But Illustrator is ruined by a glaring omission that people have been complaining about for years (if not decades): There's no way to select only the objects that are totally within the selection marquee. Every other vector art application offers this critical selection mode (Affinity Designer defaults to it, I think).

I consider Illustrator unusable as a result. It's also essentially abandonware.

kmfrk• 4 years ago

As someone who doesn't have the latest and greatest, can anyone figure out what the support cut-off is for iPads?

EDIT: Found the app page, and it states "Requires iPadOS 15.0 or later."

https://apps.apple.com/app/affinity-designer-2-for-ipad/id16...

Assume that means everything that runs the OS?

lynndotpy3• 4 years ago

Longtime GIMP user, never spent much time on any alternatives.

This hit all my checkboxes:

- No arbitration clause in the ToS - Rest of the ToS, PP is a breath of fresh air (comparatively speaking.) - One-time payment, not subscription based - License across all platforms is surprising and good, and is what made this an instant purchase.

It's nice to know I'll have Affinity 2 forever, even if Adobe (god forbid) purchases Affinity.

rchaud2• 4 years ago

The good news here is that Adobe suite is not really threatened by Affinity products, as they're ahead in terms of features and enterprise presence.

They acquired Figma because Figma was quickly becoming the go-to collaborative UI design tool in the workplace, something Adobe did not have with AdobeXD. If they were to try to acquire another company in this space, it would likely be Canva, rather than a comparatively small player like Serif.

bogwog2• 4 years ago

Consumers/the free market told Adobe to fuck off, but Adobe ignored them and forced their way in by buying the competition. This is something they've consistently done throughout their history, and it doesn't seem like there's anything consumers can do about it.

/end-lossely-related-rant

mortenjorck• 4 years ago

It's great to see Serif finally offering a paid upgrade for the Affinity suite. Serif is a tiny company, and their size versus the incredible ambition of their products has resulted in some often frustratingly slow development ever since the first release of Affinity Designer back in 2014.

Even in the long-awaited V2, there are still popular features Adobe Illustrator had twenty years ago that Affinity has yet to offer an alternative to, such as vector pattern brushes, auto-trace, and even shape blends, something Illustrator has had for closer to 30 years. I really hope the infusion of cash from this new release allows them to staff up and further realize the potential of this excellent alternative to the Adobe hegemony.

adfm• 4 years ago

I can’t recommend Affinity enough. It’s well worth the spend. It really shines as a complete set of integrated tools, even on an old iPad! That’s what Adobe is up against, IMO. The brushes could use some work, but if you’re looking for missing features, I suggest taking a look at Vectornator[^1], which has Auto-trace and brushes at a reasonable price. (no affiliation)

[^1]: https://www.vectornator.io/

c0nsumer5• 4 years ago

I use two Adobe apps routinely:

- Illustrator (for making PDF maps from OSM data). - Lightroom.

It'll take a bit of work to move my workflow to Affinity, but I think I've got a solid plan for that. (No, Affinity Designer does not open AIs properly... It does funky things with lines.)

But, I can't find a solid replacement for Lightroom. All I need is basic DAM (digital asset management) and crop/rotate/color. Can any of you suggest a GOOD alternative? Something that can import my library from Lightroom Classic would be ideal, but I can work around it if not. I'm very much willing to pay, and would prefer well-supported closed-source to OSS.

Kye• 4 years ago

This is probably next on their list. I know they were at least thinking about one the last time I saw someone ask about it.

datalopers• 4 years ago

darktable

t0bia_s3• 4 years ago

Not a chance if you need it for professional editing. No clone tools, no camera profiles, probably lack of lens correction profiles as well. UI is prehistoric. RawTherapee is little bit less nerdy than darktable but still not suitable for serious photography work.

highhedgehog• 4 years ago

Maybe RawTherapee?

AuryGlenz2• 4 years ago

CaptureOne. Many of us pros use it for a reason. They have both a subscription option and a one time fee.

belthesar• 4 years ago

I know folks are going to recommend RawTherapee and Darktable, and those are some admirable projects, but I also know that a lot of long-time Lightroom users bounce off of them. I'd still encourage you to give them a try, but also if you're willing to catalog what things are missing and provide feedback to those teams. Even better if you're willing and able to help make the change you want to see in OSS, but additional reinforcement on the things that are misses currently in their offerings will help strengthen those projects.

CharlesW3• 4 years ago

(No, Affinity Designer does not open AIs properly... It does funky things with lines.)

I hope you'll report that! They seem to be pretty on top of fixing interop issues.

Can any of you suggest a GOOD alternative?

If you need traditional DAM you'll want to look elsewhere, but if you're macOS-based I finally landed on Apple Photos with its extensions ecosystem (which includes software from Affinity, ON1, etc.). It also works great with RAW Power¹ — by Nik Bhatt, who previously led Aperture and iPhoto development at Apple — which is itself looking more and more like a complete Lightroom replacement.

¹ https://www.gentlemencoders.com/raw-power-for-macos/index.ht...

c0nsumer5• 4 years ago

Huh... I am on macOS and I never even considered Apple Photos. Thank you, I'll give that a look. This could work out very well. Thanks!

Tagbert• 4 years ago

AI is a closed proprietary format that is not published. What Affinity had said in the past is that they don’t read AI but do read the PDF portion of Illustrator files

SanjayMehta2• 4 years ago

Check out dxo.com - recommended to me by a professional photographer.

I'm stuck on LR 5 myself as I'm too lazy to move my library.

darekkay• 4 years ago

All I need is basic DAM (digital asset management) and crop/rotate/color. Can any of you suggest a GOOD alternative?

Check out digikam. I'm using it as DAM only and Affinity Photo for RAW development and image manipulation (but digikam can handle that as well).

mr_tristan• 4 years ago

I've been using digiKam in a similar way, where Affinity Photo is where I do manipulation, and digiKam for organization. It's been working well enough, though, I am very much an amateur hobbyist.

herval• 4 years ago

Just some quick feedback, tioli - I read most of the page and had no idea what this is, before going back to the top and reading the small grayed text

eye_street• 4 years ago

After using Adobe stuff for many years, my stubbornness, with regards to subscriptions and cloud things, led me to buy the various bits of desktop Affinity software. I think they were only about £30 a piece, which isn't bad, but you really aren't buying Photoshop or Illustrator. Designer is a bit of a kludge, and V1 did seem like a work-in-progress. I was hoping a knife tool would be added before we got to V2.

There are techniques I'd been using for a long time, complicated little tasks with, on the face of it, simple results, that I wasn't able to reproduce in AD without a lot of thinking and farting around. For better or worse, this pushed me to change things up and explore other methods, and now I've learnt how to achieve things with programming, whether that's Processing or little things for Blender.

I know people operating businesses who've just stuck with an old computer running an old non-subscription version of the Adobe software they depend on. They don't really need anything from modern versions (some have been doing things since the '70s, adding computers to the mix in the '90s, and their techniques have not really changed all that much), and its Affinity kinda-equivalent is missing some little thing.

For me, just looking at the changes, V2 isn't terribly compelling. There are things I was doing ages ago in Illustrator that don't seem to be in Designer v2, like vector pattern swatches. Once you really get going with it, the absence of features or rough edges (see post in this thread about dashed borders) will leave you frustrated.

All that said, good on them for creating this affordable software, with no subscription.

CharlesW3• 4 years ago

Illustrator is the undefeated champ, and I've loved it deeply since 1987. You're right that nothing can replace it at the high-end. For that audience, a $20/month subscription for Illustrator or an all-apps subscription is a given.

Still, this Affinity upgrade is an insta-upgrade for me. On a practical level, I'm lucky enough to be able to "vote with my dollars" to support small developers and non-subscription software. From a creative perspective, sometimes it's helpful (or just fun!) to work with different tools.

regular6• 4 years ago

Pfff. Illustrator was and is roundly defeated by Corel Draw. Unfortunately the attempt at a Mac version of Draw was a hideously defective failure.

Before that, I'm confident that Aldus Freehand kicked Illustrator's ass.

H1Supreme• 4 years ago

When I couldn't get my copy of Adobe CS3 (from 2007) to install on a new Mac (64-bit only), I bought Designer and Photo from Affinity. Up until 2015, I made my living as designer, and was intimately familiar with Adobe's tools.

Unlike everything else available (mostly open source), I slid right into Affinity's workflow without a hitch. Compared to CS3, this was actually quite the upgrade in terms of functionality. I suspect that might not be the case for people using the latest versions.

If I were still designing with these tools day-in and day-out, I might have a different view on Affinity's offerings. But, for my light usage, they tick every box.

Pulcinella• 4 years ago

Thank god it looks like they finally fixed the slider UI on iPad. Previously the slider for something like a a stroke size appeared radially which was awkward. Worse, it didn’t actually function radially. You could not drag the slider around the circle. Instead dragging to the right increased the value and dragging left decreased the value; also dragging up increased the value and dragging down decreased the value. Both axis operated at the same time so if you dragged right but also down slightly, some of the dragging would cancel itself out. The only way to get it to work properly was to drag diagonally between the bottom left of the screen to the top right. Now it appears the sliders just go up and down like every other UI on the planet.

It does not appear that they have added free form and mesh gradients or gradients along a path. I really really don’t like Adobe, but it’s all the little long tail features that makes it hard for me to switch away.

regular6• 4 years ago

I wonder if they fixed the defect that repeatedly and incrementally blurs your images in Photo when you merge layers. I mean... how can you use a product that degrades your images continually as you work with your compositions?

Does Photo finally have a "transform selection" option, which lets you resize the selection marquee? Yes, it was released without a way to adjust the selection... and has stayed that way for years.

Does Photo finally have a crop tool that actually crops the image?

Does Designer finally have a function to trim the canvas to the objects on it?

Do the apps finally have a "do not print" option on layers?

It doesn't appear that Serif has fixed profound UI defects that have hobbled the suite from the beginning...

The gradient-fill dialog hasn't been revised at all; it is still baffling and dysfunctional, and lacks any way to control gradient angle: https://i.imgur.com/OUh5Ase.png And there's only one color well.

The eyedropper's functionality is still backward... or I should say eyedroppers', because they're all over the place. You can have three or four on the screen at once. Why?

You still can't set things to be the same size by selecting them all and then entering dimensions in the transform panel. It irritatingly resizes THE SELECTION BOX around the objects to the size you enter, mashing the objects to unintended sizes within it. WTF?

This is not looking good. Historically they've had a smug, shitty attitude toward defects and sure enough, they persist for years.

mhd• 4 years ago

Is there any improvement on how Affinity Publisher 2 handles multi column layout? This was one of the neat things that InDesign finally imported from Ventura Publisher etc. who did this in the early 90s: You can have a paragraph style span columns. Without that, the interaction of sections and columns often gets rather tedious.

AP1 was a lot closer to the PageMaker style of things. (I don't have a use case for vector graphics, and my limited bitmap needs are more than served by Pixelmator, Gimp, ImageMagick and Paint Shop Pro 7 via wine)

stevenkkim• 4 years ago

I migrated from Adobe to Affinity years ago and have absolutely loved it. In particular the abiilty to use both vector and raster graphics in Designer is a game changer.

$99 for the universal license is an amazing deal. Well done Serif!

65• 4 years ago

It's great Serif added the shape builder tool to Affinity. It's one of the most useful tools in Illustrator. Now that Affinity has it, I don't see any reason to keep using Illustrator.

pier25• 4 years ago

Interesting Affinity has removed their products from the Mac App store and only selling through their website now.

can16358p• 4 years ago

Last time I used Affinity Photo years ago it was well behind Photoshop especially in RAW editing.

Has it come to somewhere comparable? I really want to go Affinity instead of paying Adobe every month but I want something at least capable as Photoshop and Camera Raw. I heavily do astrophotography/night photo editing and Affinity was just not good enough. But it was years ago.

Any recommendations from anyone who used both recently?

Tao33004• 4 years ago

Can't you download the latest version of the one you own and see?

oliwarner• 4 years ago

Serif have always delivered great value. I remember netting last-version packs in the 90s with colossal clipart libraries.

Just wish they did Linux versions.

TeddyDD• 4 years ago

I would gladly buy the whole package if they supported Linux. One can dream.

rychco• 4 years ago

I was preparing myself for disappointment because I expected the new version to be accompanied by subscription pricing, but this is an incredible value.

I only casually mess around with the ipad version at the moment, but I'm tempted to purchase the whole suite because it's such a friendly deal.

awill• 4 years ago

How does purchasing work? How can you purchase from Affinity directly, and get the iPad version. How are they getting around Apple's restrictions?

mikece• 4 years ago

I don't want to renew my (annual) subscription for Lightroom and Photoshop when it's up; ideally I would like to move this workflow Linux (it's one of the few things keeping me on macOS). Are there Linux alternatives besides Darktable and Gimp and are they really able to compete with the Adobe (or Affinity) offerings?

commoner• 4 years ago

Krita (https://krita.org) is a Linux-compatible alternative to GIMP, Affinity Photo, and Photoshop.

Linux-compatible alternatives to Darktable and Lightroom include digiKam (https://www.digikam.org) and RawTherapee (https://rawtherapee.com).

piperswe• 4 years ago

I've bought the whole Affinity suite (v1) on Mac, Windows, and iPadOS over the course of the past couple of years, and I'm happy to pay $100 to support further development and get access to v2 of all of it at once!

I only use Affinity software casually every now and then, but it's a lifesaver when I do need it. Paying $100 every several years for a new major version is absolutely a worthwhile cost, and it's especially nice that it's not required (cough Adobe)

jiveturkey2• 4 years ago

I've been wishing for a long time that they would charge more money -- so as to fund development of more features. Hopefully this is that! I'm optimistic but only slightly, since the banner feature is "completely redesigned UI".

The UI was fine.

yosef123• 4 years ago

Great value indeed

dreamyfigment• 4 years ago

I'm very tempted to get Affinity 2 for that price but lately I've found that most Mac apps tend to release major versions weirdly often and in that case there's not a lot of difference between having yearly subscription and paying to update once a year.

spiderice• 4 years ago

The difference would be the ability to stop paying at any point and keep the software you bought. I thought that was the whole point of buying software outright as opposed to subscriptions. Not paying developers less for ongoing development.

jiveturkey2• 4 years ago

Warning: To buy the bundle, you apparently need to have an affinity id/registration. At least I can't figure out how to buy it in the mac app store.

All the apps are "free" with in-app purchase. I did the in-app bundle purchase for Designer 2. Now it won't let me apply that to Photo 2, without "activating" (requires registration with serif) or re-buying. Purchasing the bundle again asks for authentication which I didn't complete because I don't want to get charged twice. I was hoping it would recognize my previous purchase and just be a pass-through. I suppose because it's an in-app purchase, it will happily purchase as many times as I click. (As opposed to straight-up app purchases, which you can only do once per apple id.)

"Restore purchase" link is completely unresponsive.

One of the selling points of app store is that I don't give any info to the developer. So even though I could (and always do) use a one-time generated email address, they can still link that to my apple id. bah.

If I had known this in advance I would have paid the extra $20 to buy each individually, rather than the bundle. So maybe this will help a scant few others.

The mac app store can have bundles, so either serif chose not to create such bundle, or the app store simply didn't show that to me. Indeed search doesn't find any of these apps at all. I had to follow a deep link I got from I don't know where. That part also is very mysterious. I believe https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/serif-labs/id536107177 to be the link to all serif apps on the app store.

magic_hamster• 4 years ago

They undoubtedly have the most friendly business model, but as some commenters noted, it isn't a drop-in replacement and Adobe's workflow is still (sadly) unmatched.

However there's another problem: Adobe is still the industry standard. Employers are looking for Adobe on resumes, they provide employees with Adobe products and they expect a certain compatibility between their employees (i.e. Alice and Bob can work on the same files).

Learning the Affinity suite might actually hurt your career as long as this is the case. As a career decision it is still a better move to put your time into Adobe.

And I really dislike Adobe.

ThinkBeat• 4 years ago

When Adobe switched to the subscription only a lot of people looked at ways to move on.

This created a plethora of "replacement" applications and suits.

I have tried most of them.

Affinity is a great alternative that has in my opinion stood the test best. They are remarkably good and not weighed down with all sorts of gimmicks and fluff.

lastdong• 4 years ago

Great software, at a amazing price - the new universal license discounted is an incredible value.

Super easy to start using and great design + functionality.

Just hope Adobe doesn’t end up buying Affinity like it has done with many others.

sanitycheck• 4 years ago

I bought the bundle yesterday. So far, about 40 minutes of use of Affinity Photo and 8 crashes. Not super impressed.

plasticeagle• 4 years ago

I bought Affinity Photo. The keyboard shortcuts don't work unless "focus" is on the image, I think. So often, they don't, and you have to click on the image to make them work. This rather defeats the purpose of shortcuts.

Using the keyboard shortcut to select a tool, also changes which subtool is selected. This is infuriating, and a magnificently stupid UI design.

I really wanted to like Affinity Photo, and I certainly use it as a photo editor, but every time I do I just wish I'd paid for Photoshop instead. It's pretty bad.

Affinity 2

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