Photo Editing - Affinity software for PC/Mac

[target2019]

Hummingbird

Almost two years later, and I finally got an old camera (Lumix GF-1) that shoots raw files. Then a new feeder goes up for the hummingbirds. And I find just how hard it is to stop action a hummingbird. After a few days I'm getting something, but need to tune the file in Affinity quite a bit.
f/5.6, 1/500
ISO 3200
200 mm

I'm expecting improvement on sunny days. The feeder is in the shadow of the house for much of the day, and it was cloudy for the shot.

 

[davebarnes]

I use Affinity Designer as a replacement for Adobe Illustrator and it very good. The tutorials are quite helpful.
I use Pixelmator as a replacement for Adobe Photoshop. Excellent and low priced.

 

[FreeBear]

Great thread!

Bottom line: if you want to learn Photoshop editing (not just basic tweaks you can do more easily on a smartphone app) then just get Affinity Photo. Perhaps there are others that can do the job, but AP has a great price and the interface is similar to current Photoshop CC (good and bad depending on your perspective). Caveat: RAW conversion controls are a bit limited, similar to Photoshop 10 years ago, NOT as powerful as current, as detailed below.

Last year, I seriously looked at Affinity Photo and Adobe Photoshop CC (dreaded subscription). Also did a deep dive in Darktable on Linux (Ubuntu). Are of these are amazing, but it all depends on your needs and current workflow (steps in how you process your pics). Actually, none of these is really easy to learn for a rank beginner, but all are extremely powerful.

I have been frozen in Photoshop CS 5 for years, trying to avoid the Adobe CC's subscription model. Wanted to see if could get help with processing subjects shot in terrible light, as in most birding and "tourist" landscape photo where I'm rarely out in good light.Well, I ended up with Photoshop CC subscription and it has been amazing. No regrets. Thinking about playing with Adobe Lightroom, but with the database disabled. I prefer the sidecar database files used by Bridge/PS (also Darktable!)


Here are my thoughts on Affinity Photo (and why I didn't switch).

Affinity Photo
Pros:

- Excellent masking capability (easy to selectively edit only certain regions of a pics, I use this on almost every pictures, esp. w/ birds)
- Amazing content-aware delete (knock out stuff/people and replace with background). Surprised that it was BETTER than Adobe, although Adobe has caught up with their rolling CC updates. Still amazing for the price...
- Full layer capability, including adjustment layers (non destructive editing, burn/dodge that can be increased/decreased with a slider or on/off with a single button)
- Excellent vignette tool (quick burn of corners, helps "settle" a pic, popular for portraits)
- Interface similar to Photoshop (virtually no retraining, but maybe overwhelming for beginner--too much like Photoshop!)
- 16 bit workflow and color management (pretty common now, but NOT always!)


CON (only 1 con for my workflow):
- Very limited RAW conversion controls that make it hard to wrangle difficult lighting (excessive contrast that characterizes 80% of my pics). Don't get me wrong, the controls are decent, comparable to Photoshop 5 of a decade ago, but certainly no longer competitive. Hopefully, Affinity Photo makes great improvement to the RAW module. If so, I'll be back!



Darktable, random thoughts:
- AMAZING "fly-over" slide sorter view that allows you to easily pan and zoom over all your images in a folder. A single click toggles between image sorting and image editing. Crazy fast, just plain slick... Does anyone else have this
- Powerful editing tools, but huge learning curve, even from Photoshop. I should have started with a good workflow tutorial instead of running it like Photoshop.
- Not a true pixel-level editor like Affinity Photo or PS or even GIMP (free-
open source).
- Powerful on ancient hardware-like linux!
- Uses sidecar files to store RAW editing data just like Adobe Bridge+Photoshop (no database issues or importing)




GIMP, random thoughts (I hate this program!):
- No adjustment layers (eg no curves, levels, saturation that can be endless tweaked)-supposed to be coming, eventually, but PS had this 2 decades ago
- No 16-bit editing-supposed to be coming, eventually... (common even 15 yrs ago)
- Masking tools very limited, no functional "quick select/smart select", even PS 3 was far better.
- Content aware fill/delete must be "installed" as a plugin. Got it w*rking, but PS 5 had it w*rking better, a decade ago.
- Even basic navigation pan/zoom was a pain


I really wanted to switch to Linux and Darktable. Nearly did, but couldn't find a true pixel editor like Affinity or PS to do heavier editing after RAW conversion in Darktable. GIMP didn't cut it for me, not even close. Pulled the plug on my Linux development box, continuing to pay the Apple Mac tax...


Feel free to PM w/ any ??

 

[FreeBear]

I use Affinity Designer as a replacement for Adobe Illustrator and it very good. The tutorials are quite helpful.
I use Pixelmator as a replacement for Adobe Photoshop. Excellent and low priced.

Glad to hear that AD has been w*rking well as an Illustrator replacment. Have been thinking about getting the whole Affinity suite for DW, who comes from a pro design background. Can't stomach the $50/mo for the Adobe CC suite, although we do "rent" the PS/Lightroom suite.



How close is the Affinity Designer interface to Adobe Illustrator? How easy is the retraining?? I found that Affinity Photo is very close to Adobe PS.

Why did you go with Pixelmator over Affinity Photo??

Any experience w/ Affinity Publisher vs Adobe InDesign??

 

[FreeBear]

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.

Wow! Scanning boxes of pics. I good way to pass COVID confinement
I'd go crazy though...


If you're not doing heavy editing (say beyond crop, brightness/contrast, color and dust/spot removal), many common photo editors, including Darktable, would work. You can even try multiple editors or change your mind later.

A bigger question is image management. Do you want to "important" everything into a database (eg Lightroom or Apple Photos) or do you prefer to manually organize in file folders on the hard drive (old skool). Personally, I prefer file folders, say organized by date and subject. The big disadvantage is that it is difficult to run a global search. On the other hand, the photo management system can't really "lose" your pics since they are still in the file folders on the drive, not in some proprietary database that can be corrupted.

A good compromise is to keep the pics in some sort file folder structure but let the image management system build a database of where everything is located. I think Digikam does this by default and Lightroom can be set to do this, as your linked article explains.

BTW, I've heard that Lightroom 6 Classic (desktop, not cloud) can be purchased for a one-time fee (not rented). Not sure if this is still true or how how this will continue.

Also, if you do not need database capability (no global search), then you can use the free Adobe Bridge. It's basically a file manager optimized for photos. Excellent key word editing and sorting. Decent zoom & pan w/o opening an photo editor. No need to buy or rent any Adobe product. Unfortunately, no database features like global key word search.

 

[target2019]

Interesting posts. My perspective follows.

Since I started with PS 1.0 (who knows the creator's name, without looking up?) and many other graphics packages since, I understand the fixation with software names, versions, features, and price.

There once was a manic PC person I used to run into once a month at a computer user group meeting. He knew I was Mac only, and would bombard me with a non-stop stream of Harvard Graphics upcoming features for the suits, each one a response to what the latest Mac program offered to real designers. But I did grow weary of the price for PS and abandoned it at CS.

In a nutshell, I picked up and paid for Affinity Photo in 2018 because I can get a decent result IMO for a reasonable cost. I'm an occasional user. The way to analyze these software challenges is to refine expectations. I know with 100% certainty that if I spend enough time with PS, learning, exloring, failing and continuously paying, I can develop into a decent designer. But my expectation is to get a quick result, so I can feel successful, and move onto the next challenge. After all, I'm no spring chicken...

There are probably only a handful of Affinity Photo practitioners around here. The journey has been the reward, they might say.

 

[target2019]

I use Affinity Designer as a replacement for Adobe Illustrator and it very good. The tutorials are quite helpful.
I use Pixelmator as a replacement for Adobe Photoshop. Excellent and low priced.

It's been a while since I used any vector drawing software. It is on my list of things to get re-acquainted with.

Pixelmator is iOS only now. It might run on an old all-in-one if I could find an early version.

 

[davebarnes]

Pixelmator is iOS only now.

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

 

[target2019]

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

These reside in my museum area (the basement).
1) iMac 21.5 late 2012 osX10.8.5
2) iMac 21.5 mid 2010 osX10.10.5

#1 is frozen to that OS because of the Quark Xpress version. Both would require some early copy of pixelmator.