Mac users also benefit from Affinity Photo's integrated iCloud online backup and file synchronization capability, and the app can be purchased or provisioned through the Apple App Store. Affinity Photo provides impressive editing power for less than £50 - and, at the time of this review was on special offer for just £23.99. The app's list of features is long and - for less. You can export an image to Photoshop from Affinity Photo by exporting the Affinity Photo file as a PSD. All layers will be preserved, with the exception of adjustment layers. Adjustment layers will be exported, but I find they almost never convert well, even if Photoshop has a similar adjustment layer option.
A new astrophotography processing contender Affinity Photo has entered the Mac…and PC race. Affinity introduced it’s suite of applications to compete against Adobe Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator a few years ago. They are extremely capable applications and in their effort to remain competitive come at a very nice discount in pricing compared to Adobe’s applications. Currently Affinity Photo is for sale at a 50% discount.
They’ve recently upped their game to add features beyond Photoshop’s set of tools by getting into the Astrophotography realm with the following new features in their 1.9 update:
Dedicated Persona for stacking
RAW and FITS image support
Stack light and calibration frames (dark/dark flat/flat/bias)
Stack, tone stretch and retouch entirely in 32-bit
Stack files from different sessions using file groups
Create full color, composite (HaRGB, SHO), grayscale or false color images
One advantage to Affinity Photo compared to existing astrophotography stacking and calibration applications is that it takes advantage of the GPU in your Mac for very fast processing and stacking. I calibrated and stacked a set of 12 images in about 1-2 minutes on my iMac Pro. This compares to about 10 minutes in APP and PixInsight.
Not only does this program calibrate and stack your images, but it’s a full fledged photo editing program, so you have all the tools at your disposal for stretching, sharpening, color enhancement, mask manipulation, and more with a vastly superior interface for ease of use.
Here’s a set of tutorials to get you up and running with Affinity Photo’s new features.
Astrophotography stacking: LRGB composition (mono cameras)
It is natural for any photo editing program to be compared with Photoshop; Adobe's stalwart is the benchmark by which other tools are measured. The vast majority of editors fall well short of Photoshop in any one of a number of areas, but with Affinity Photo, Serif seems to have been able to strike an amazing balance between offering professional-level editing tools and producing a piece of software that it not only approachable in terms of ease of use, but also in terms of price.
Not only is Affinity Photo a fraction of the cost of Photoshop, you need only make a one-time purchase of a license: there's no need to worry about an on-going subscription. But just what does the program have to offer?
From the very start, Affinity Photos makes it clear that it is a serious tool designed with professional photographers -- or anyone who demands a lot of their image editor. Support for RAW editing and the ability to work with Photoshop's PSD and PSB formats will be welcomed by many, as will the presence of non-destructive live filters.
There is, of course, support for layer, layer masks, adjustment masks, image stitching and CMYK/RGB editing. You'll also find dodge, burn, clone, patch and blemish removal tools as well as handy extras such as warp mesh, perspective correction and lens correction -- certainly not tools you would ordinarily expect to find at this price.
Affinity Photo boasts a huge number of filters and effects, but this can be extended further through the use of plugins, and there's support for the DxO Nik Collection 2.5 plug-in suite. The interface for the software is uncomplicated, but it would be fair to say that there is something of a learning curve that you'll have to endure. One slightly unusual quirk is Serif's use of 'personas'. These are different views and modes that are activated when you're performing different tasks such as editing HDR or processing RAW files.
The range of features and tools included really is far too extensive to go into in detail, but it's suffice to say that this is one of a very small number of photo editors that can genuinely make a claim to be a rival to Photoshop.
Ordinarily, there is a trial available that last just 10 days, but at time of writing this has been extended to 90 days. You'll need to register online though, as even the trial needs a serial code, which you can do here.
Affinity Photo Photoshop Actions
Verdict:
Affinity Photo Vs Photoshop Elements
While not a direct competitor to Photoshop, Affinity Photos is an incredibly capable photo editor that comes at a price that just can't be argued with.