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.<p>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.
I'd love to switch to Affinity from Adobe Illustrator, but there's one feature I just can't live without:<p>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]<p>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.<p>[1] <a href="https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/145760-how-do-i-get-dashed-line-with-nice-corners/" rel="nofollow">https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/145760-how...</a>
I migrated to Affinity after Adobe put the last nail in the coffin for me.<p>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").<p>Sometimes I even resort to using photopea web, rather than open affinity.<p>That said, I really appreciate their pricing model and hope they stick to their guns.
I use two Adobe apps routinely:<p>- Illustrator (for making PDF maps from OSM data).
- Lightroom.<p>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.)<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>All that said, good on them for creating this affordable software, with no subscription.
So does version 2 of Affinity Photo add support for AVIF? Can't find it listed on <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/full-feature-list/" rel="nofollow">https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/full-feature-list/</a> (rather hard to search, since sections have to be uncollapsed one by one).<p>Strange price model where existing customers do not get an upgrade discount.
Longtime GIMP user, never spent much time on any alternatives.<p>This hit all my checkboxes:<p>- 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.<p>It's nice to know I'll have Affinity 2 forever, even if Adobe (god forbid) purchases Affinity.
This license, and alternatively the JetBrains licenses, are awesome. I will always try to support them!<p>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”.<p>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.<p>* sans Linux in this case, sadly
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!
I've just bought this without even looking at what's new or different. That's how much I love their software.<p>Hopefully the performance in isometric grid mode is better in v2. My only issue with v1.
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:<p><a href="https://www.pixelmator.com/pro/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pixelmator.com/pro/</a>
Protip for people trapped in an Adobe sub if you want to avoid the fine[^1]:<p>1. change your payment method to PayPal<p>2. cancel your payments in PayPal<p>3. add Adobe to your spam/archive filter<p>[^1] The "pay monthly" (small print: annual) subscription we all love and cherish
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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.
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!
I was preparing myself for disappointment because I expected the new version to be accompanied by subscription pricing, but this is an incredible value.<p>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.
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.
So I bought all V1s back then and now they're gone from the Mac App Store. I see.<p>Edit: Got it, have to download it from the purchase history (which was 2014), not the offical now-gone link.
If you have the version 1 of the Affinty apps, here's a list of the new v2 features:<p><i>What's new</i>: <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/whats-new/" rel="nofollow">https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/whats-new/</a><p>FAQ for version 2 (including answers for v1 users): <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/affinity-2-faq/" rel="nofollow">https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/affinity-2-faq/</a>
No subscription is a big deal. Been using Affinity tools since Adobe introduced their cloud bloatware and subscription model.<p>I'm praying to the design gods that Adobe won't acquire Affinity - surely this must eat into their revenue.
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.<p>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.
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.
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.<p>Not happy with that - would advise against it.
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.<p>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.)<p>"Restore purchase" link is completely unresponsive.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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 <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/serif-labs/id536107177" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/serif-labs/id536107177</a> to be the link to all serif apps on the app store.
As someone who doesn't have the latest and greatest, can anyone figure out what the support cut-off is for iPads?<p>EDIT: Found the app page, and it states "Requires iPadOS 15.0 or later."<p><a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/affinity-designer-2-for-ipad/id1616833418" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/app/affinity-designer-2-for-ipad/id16...</a><p>Assume that means everything that runs the OS?
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.<p>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.<p>I tried Dark Table but the shadow slider would produce some weird artifacting (halos) so it was unusable for me.
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.<p>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.
Wondering if they’ve added WEBP export (I don’t see it in the release notes).<p>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?
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?
Affinity is great but... weird.<p>- 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.<p>- Pasting if there's no document open doesn't work. You have to do 'new from clipboard'.
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.<p>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).<p>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.<p>And I really dislike Adobe.
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.
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.<p>Using the keyboard shortcut to select a tool, also changes which subtool is selected. This is infuriating, and a magnificently stupid UI design.<p>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.
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.<p>$99 for the universal license is an amazing deal. Well done Serif!
Is there any improvement on how Affinity Publisher 2 handles multi column layout? This was one of the neat things that InDesign <i>finally</i> 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.<p>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)
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!<p>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 (<i>cough</i> Adobe)
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.
Is anyone using Affinity for cartography? I’m currently using ArcGIS —> Illustrator workflow but am curious if a QGIS —> Affinity workflow is feasible.
A single licence for all apps on all platforms at a reasonable price? Sweet.<p>Previously I’ve only been using Affinity on Mac. Now I’ll be able to see how it performs on Windows as well.<p>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.
Last time I used Affinity Photo years ago it was well behind Photoshop especially in RAW editing.<p>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.<p>Any recommendations from anyone who used both recently?
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?
When Adobe switched to the subscription only a lot of people looked
at ways to move on.<p>This created a plethora of "replacement" applications and suits.<p>I have tried most of them.<p>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.
I love the Affinity Designer. Also bought the Photo suite.<p>But if you are a serious graphic designer, all the available jobs use Adobe tools. It is a factual thing.<p>Nowadays, I use mainly Figma (which is, again: Adobe) and wait for the next AI thing to remove me from my design job duties. :)
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".<p>The UI was fine.
Great software, at a amazing price - the new universal license discounted is an incredible value.<p>Super easy to start using and great design + functionality.<p>Just hope Adobe doesn’t end up buying Affinity like it has done with many others.
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
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.
How does purchasing work?
How can you purchase from Affinity directly, and get the iPad version. How are they getting around Apple's restrictions?
Serif have always delivered great value. I remember netting last-version packs in the 90s with colossal clipart libraries.<p>Just wish they did Linux versions.
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.