Photo Editing - Affinity software for PC/Mac

[target2019]

Starting a new thread for photo editing software known as Affinity.
I downloaded the Windows trial (10 day). It is a winner. Thanks for mentioning, athena53. There is a learning curve, but enough tutorials around to make it simple.
You can save presets, and apply to each photo. Batch processing and macro recording are included.
So it's not Photoshop, but very professional looking, and gave me results I needed, with a few minutes of effort.

If I can make a recommendation on software since PhotoShop is expensive: a friend suggested Affinity as an alternative. It's $50 for a one-time license. I just started using it this AM and there are some decent video tutorials. I hate tutorials (would rather read text or have more intuitive menus) but that's what you get now. My late husband used PhotoShop to rescue old family photos and slides and it was good at correcting the color deterioration. (In a cosmic joke, a year after he died I got a message saying I needed to re-register his PhotoShop, which was at least 10 years old, and it failed to re-register, of course and no longer works.) I'm hoping Affinity will do the same once I poke around in enough menus.

 

[hesperus]

It looks interesting, I will have to look into it.
It does however indicate that it does offer batch processing on their feature list. So you have found that it doesn't?

 

[braumeister]

It does not have macros, like Photoshop. It can't batch process,

What I read on their website indicates that it has both macros and batch processing.

Maybe only the trial version is missing those?

 

[target2019]

I may have been looking at a review of earlier version. It does have BATCH and MACRO.

 

[athena53]

I should warn you that I just got nicked for a 49-cent "foreign exchange transaction fee" on my purchase even though it was in $US. The company is based in the UK.

Still happy with it, though!

 

[Chuckanut]

I have tried using other software in the past.

My psituation is this: As a serious amateur, I use my photo processing software a lot. If I want to do something different with it, or have a problem, there are a ton of sources for information out on the web - Youtube videos, How To sites, helpful hints, and sometimes forums where members all cry on each other's shoulder about things that can't be done. IOW, help is almost always available.

OTOH, I am getting tired of Adobe's yearly fee, though I must admit that overall it isn't much more than I used to pay when I bought every other new release of Photo Shop.

 

[target2019]

athena 53,
I will use my Schwab card. They will pick up that nasty fee, I hope. Otherwise, there'll be another 50-cents for the Brits.

Chuckanut,
I have older copies of PS, and when I really need to, go to an old machine with PS 7 or maybe elements.
I don't use PS enough to warrant a subscription. But I will go $50 for something very much like it.
I still have my PS 1 floppies for Mac if you need'em. LOL. Those were the days.

 

[donheff]

So is the user interface good? I have a teacher's copy of an older version of PS that still meets my needs. The interface is easy to use (or at least feels that way to me). Prior to that I used GIMP (an open source image processor that has a lot of PS's features). I didn't like the GIMP interface although I don't know how it has changed over the years. But you can't argue with free.

 

[athena53]

An update on this: so far I'm very happy. I brought out the scanner and started working on old family pictures. I still don't enjoy having to look up video tutorials to learn how to do things but the good news is that they're all over the Web and you can certainly get answers. One thing I miss that PhotoShop had was a feature that would automatically adjust contrast and brightness to a level determined to be "optimal"- with Affinity I have to use sliders and select the setting I want- but given the price of PhotoShop I'll take Affinity.

I'd noticed GIMP in my searches for PS alternatives but I'm wary of "freemium" software. Too many features that you try to use and you get an "Upgrade to Premium- click here" message, as well as frequent spam urging you to upgrade. Worse, they sometimes reduce the features in the free version. In this case, I was happy to pay $49.

 

[target2019]

I used to bump brightness (10%), and then bump contrast (5%). I haven't found an auto adjustment for both, but it may work better for you to have specific numbers in mind, and add them as preset.

Or maybe try Levels adjustment layer?. Do that, and you see a histogram created from your photo. What I do is move the black slider to the right, until it meets the measured levels (or go further). Then I move the white slider to the left. In my picture, I had to move 20% to the left.

 

[donheff]

An update on this: so far I'm very happy. I brought out the scanner and started working on old family pictures. I still don't enjoy having to look up video tutorials to learn how to do things but the good news is that they're all over the Web and you can certainly get answers. One thing I miss that PhotoShop had was a feature that would automatically adjust contrast and brightness to a level determined to be "optimal"- with Affinity I have to use sliders and select the setting I want- but given the price of PhotoShop I'll take Affinity.

I'd noticed GIMP in my searches for PS alternatives but I'm wary of "freemium" software. Too many features that you try to use and you get an "Upgrade to Premium- click here" message, as well as frequent spam urging you to upgrade. Worse, they sometimes reduce the features in the free version. In this case, I was happy to pay $49.

GIMP is not like that. It is an open source project originally developed for Linux as a component of the GNU free software project. Only later ported to Windows and OS X. It is maintained by a dedicated team of coders. You will never get nagged to pay for any features. Don't be afraid to try it. The main question is whether you are comfortable delving into an editing program with a bazillion features that may be unfamiliar to you. There are a number of good beginners books and free online tutorials. I used it for a while and was very impressed. I only switched to Photoshop because I had access to a free teacher's version when my daughter lived with us for a while.

 

[stepford]

Not to threadjack overmuch, but I never could stomach the idea of subscription services and so make do with an old copy of Photoshop CS6. Is there really that much that the new Creative Cloud versions can do that CS6 can't (and an amateur like me might care about)?

 

[donheff]

I’m happy with CS5

 

[Walt34]

Is there really that much that the new Creative Cloud versions can do that CS6 can't (and an amateur like me might care about)?

That is going to depend on what features are important to you. The improvements are incremental and over time do accumulate to a substantial number of improvements. For example if you shoot a lot of landscape photos the "dehaze" feature added about a year ago would be almost essential.

 

[Chuckanut]

I really like the new feature in Lightroom CC Classic that lets me fix distortion by simply drawing a few lines along the edges of things that I want straight. I still have my LR 6 and PS 6 paid for versions, but as Walt says above, with time more and more features are introduced, some I don't use, but many are very handy.

As I mentioned earlier before CC I usually purchased every other update partly because the difference between the new versions was not huge and partly to save money. The $90 year I spend for the CC subscription is about the same as I spent on my LR and PS updates. So, yes, it's worth it to me to "blow some dough" on this product. YMMV.

 

[SoReady]

That is going to depend on what features are important to you. The improvements are incremental and over time do accumulate to a substantial number of improvements. For example if you shoot a lot of landscape photos the "dehaze" feature added about a year ago would be almost essential.

I couldn't agree with you more. The dehaze function has improved many, many photos for me. Now if they could just make it a batch function!

 

[Walt34]

The dehaze function has improved many, many photos for me. Now if they could just make it a batch function!

You can make it a preset and then apply that preset to a bunch of photos at one time. But all of them would be the same amount and that might not be what you want.

 

[target2019]

Popped for a big $50 for Affinity Photo full version.
The healing tool is quite remarkable.

 

[imoldernu]

Hmmmm... I have been using FREE irfanview since 1997. It does everything I want, and is still free.

https://www.irfanview.com/

 

[donheff]

Popped for a big $50 for Affinity Photo full version.
The healing tool is quite remarkable.

I decided to buy it too. I have been using Photoshop CS5 but so far I like Affinity more. $50 was a lot better than buying a new version of Photoshop.

 

[target2019]

Hmmmm... I have been using FREE irfanview since 1997. It does everything I want, and is still free.

https://www.irfanview.com/

Free is a good price, until you spend too much time trying to solve/fix image problems.
I use Irfanview a lot at work. I work in a Luddite industry (lol) where the graphics format is 1-bit CCITT G4. I have found that with Irfanview I can convert hi-res line work to reasonably-legible raster graphics that are about 50Kb or smaller. So I appreciate many things that Irfanview can do.

However, Irfanview doesn't have a healing brush. It has a clone tool, but retouching scanned images needs something with feathering and similar algorithms so you get a blended result in the healing area.


Adobe PS does this, and probably at a much more professional level. But I don't want to go the SAAS route for $25 a month or so. I considered PS Elements too. But decide it was time to support another company, at least for now.

 

[neihn]

It is not for the faint of heart, darktable is an opensource free software (actively maintain by the opensource community), with lot of powerful features, especially masks and parametric masks. Although stiff learning curve, it has great documentation that explains the details how and why some of the filters work. There are also quite a few in dept tutorials on youtube.

It is available on linux, mac os, and windows (recently added). Check it out at darktable.org

 

[steelyman]

I’m glad to see this thread as I’m about to embark on a photo digitization project (boxes of them). I’m an amateur.

I have a scanner that works well but software for image editing and management is an open question for me.

A couple of friends mentioned they like Lightroom but I’d like to avoid subscription models and don’t want cloud-based solutions.

The packages I’m currently most interested in (both open source) are digiKam (management but also editing) and GIMP.

http://digikam.org
http://gimp.org

I’d be interested in positive/negative experiences.

 

[neihn]

A couple of friends mentioned they like Lightroom but I’d like to avoid subscription models and don’t want cloud-based solutions.

The packages I’m currently most interested in (both open source) are digiKam (management but also editing) and GIMP.

http://digikam.org
http://gimp.org

I’d be interested in positive/negative experiences.

Check out dartable on youtube, there few people quit lightroom and move to darktable. Darktable clearly is lightroom replacement.

I use gimp too, it is photoshop replacement. It is getting better and better. Give it a shot, there are many tutorials on youtube.

 

[steelyman]

Check out dartable on youtube, there few people quit lightroom and move to darktable. Darktable clearly is lightroom replacement.

I use gimp too, it is photoshop replacement. It is getting better and better. Give it a shot, there are many tutorials on youtube.

Thanks - I am early enough in the process to not be locked in to any package at this point. I’ll check it out.

I see a website with an expected name covers it (for others interested):

http://darktable.org

Personal aside: my target platform is Mac.

[Added] A quick search turned up the following review from 2017 that points out these packages can be used together:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/59324818