# Affinity photo is a nice deal



## martti (Nov 11, 2015)

First, I am not a fanboy nor a disser. For many years I have been using Adobe Photoshot, PageMaker and Lightroom ever since it came out of the beta phase. yes, I have enjoyed Photoshopping my pictures, taking whrinkles out of people's face, correcting this and that. Ligghtroom changed it all, it is just so much easir.
Still there are things where you have to go and hit the pixel and other than Photoshop, there has not been anything else.

Try GIMP. You cannot even see the original photo or what's wrong with it. How in the world could you edit something you cannot see? Try Enem...Elements. No, don't. You'll get very upset because the culture is not yours. It is an Alienware, A very strange piece of software. Then you have Apple's Photos which is nice but has nothing to offer on pixel level editing.

Then there is this thing Affinity Photos that just moved from alpha phase to a commercial software.
for the pretty unbelievable price of 50 euros you get most of the Photoshop CS4-5 capabilities that you actually use. The download is light. Unlike with Adobe, the client might sometimes have a point. Is there anything more frustrating in the world of customer care than the outsourced slaves that Adobe has employed somewhere in the isles of Pacific Ocean?

Now, I downloaded this Affinity Photos today from Apple store. I hate Apple store. No choice.
And strangely, for this ridiculous price, I am actually able to do most of the stuff that I'd have to get the CS/CC product line for 12 times more. 

Is this ridiculous or what? What is happening in Adobe? Don't they see the times are a'changing?

So...my old CS3 does not install on 'El Capitan'. No torrent hacks seem to penetrate the iron Curtain of Adobe's defences. What I say is 'goodbye, Lenin, goodbye Putin and goodbye Photoshop'.

It is a philosophical question. I know that the Adobe products are superior. I know they have to protect their turf.
But I have absolutely no way of getting a legal version of Photoshop where I live. Adobe gives no CC service here, Amazon does not ship here (not even Amazon.fr), the guys on eBay won't send things here...of course I could use my nephew who lives in Texas to hunt me a CD with a code...
This has become a question of principle now.

These people talk about free enterprise and capitalism and free market and all that crap while they are not practising what they preach at all. Let the other follow the principles, we follow the easy monopole money.

Welcome, Serif and thank you. You are a breeze of fresh air in the Putino-Syndicalist ambience of modern cybertrade. What ever clitches there are, I won't tell anybody. Whenever I find something smart, I'll tell the world about it.

And I will enjoy working on something that is not Adobe, just for the sake of my own love of personal freedom.
What happened with Adobe, really? Was it captured by aliens?


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## Aglet (Nov 11, 2015)

it must be tough living an a part of the world where so many things are embargoed 

Affinity's DESIGNER product looks pretty good too.
I haven't looked at them since they were betas but time to check them out again.
I continue to use older Adobe products; their CC model and tabletized junk is of no interest to me.
I'll be migrated away from Apple's OS too; it's become .. well, overly-simplified junk, IMO. the OS gets in my way.
hello various flavors of linux and whatever I'll run on them. (& Win7)
new challenges offer learning opportunities and possible new ways to be creative. (if you've got the time)

BTW, have you looked into Corel products?


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## scyrene (Nov 11, 2015)

tl;dr

But I have been using Affinity Photo for a few months. Not for regular processing, for which I have Lightroom, but for more advanced work, especially fine-tuning macro image stacks. I've found it excellent - more user-friendly than Gimp, albeit not as powerful for some purposes.


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## martti (Nov 12, 2015)

Aglet said:


> it must be tough living an a part of the world where so many things are embargoed
> 
> Affinity's DESIGNER product looks pretty good too.
> I haven't looked at them since they were betas but time to check them out again.
> ...



I tried to find PaintshopPro for Mac yesterday but couldn't. The dowload said .exe on it so I canceled it.

My son has tried to make his sound studio run Linux but he said there is work to do, and he does not get paid for installing and debugging his setup. Linux works for some people. I think it is great.

The way I see it, things could be really easy today with great fast machines, broadband connections and PayPal etc., for secured trade. But what is happening...we have the manufacturers and the dealers restricting business from their own initiative. DVDs have area codes and legally you are not even supposed to watch the film you bought on your mobile device. Of course you do, you rip it and make a backup and a version for your whatever device illegally and nobody, not even KGB, can control all the people doing it.

Amazon tells me that a certain item cannot be shipped to where I live. Strangely, Amazon.com and Amazon.fr are much stricter in this respect than Amazon.de...I have got the impression that the French Amazon is not really interested in doing business at all. 

More and more I turn to Alibaba and other Chinese, Taiwanese and South Corean sellers on eBay. The Chinese gouvernment is subsidizing postal services to get foreign money. Makes sense if you are Chinese. Unfair competition if you are not. While the West is doing what it can to restrict and complicate things, the Asians take advantage of the situation and carp the diem or how was it again.


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## Zeidora (Nov 12, 2015)

I'm with you re Adobyebye. For layout I already moved to QuarkXPress 10 and 2015, both work great. For PSD, I still have 5.5 running, but once it no longer does, then I will be moving to something else; my wife is using Acorn and is quite happy with it for here limited uses. I see Affinity even supports Lab color space, which pretty much is all I need.

The biggest problem is Website development with Dreamweaver. Haven't found a good alternative, and need templates. Hopefully by the time my Dreamweaver no longer works, there will be something else.

Adobe really screwed up with the CC racket.


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## scyrene (Nov 12, 2015)

martti said:


> More and more I turn to Alibaba and other Chinese, Taiwanese and South Corean sellers on eBay. The Chinese gouvernment is subsidizing postal services to get foreign money. Makes sense if you are Chinese. Unfair competition if you are not. While the West is doing what it can to restrict and complicate things, the Asians take advantage of the situation and carp the diem or how was it again.



Maybe, but also caveat emptor. Buying direct from China is a lottery - sometimes it's good, sometimes it's terrible. Plus there are import duties on a lot of goods.


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## martti (Nov 13, 2015)

scyrene said:


> martti said:
> 
> 
> > More and more I turn to Alibaba and other Chinese, Taiwanese and South Corean sellers on eBay. The Chinese gouvernment is subsidizing postal services to get foreign money. Makes sense if you are Chinese. Unfair competition if you are not. While the West is doing what it can to restrict and complicate things, the Asians take advantage of the situation and carp the diem or how was it again.
> ...



Fully agree. Cave Canem also.

Of course _somebody_ has to pay the import duties and the VAT. They are included (in Europe) in the selling price and when you are buying something that looks temptingly cheap you have to keep in mind that what you see on the website is not the whole truth. Some not-so-smart sellers mark their merchandise as 'gift' or give a ridiculously small price on the top of the package while lying about the content.
Of course, the customs people know all the tricks of the trade and will not deliver your stuff until they have seen a real receipt, sometimes with a French translation.

In my particular situation I am left with little choice. I have to do my homework and accept the risk.


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## Ladislav (Nov 13, 2015)

Zeidora said:


> Adobe really screwed up with the CC racket.



It is very questionable. I could not afford standalone version of Photoshop but CC made it affordable for me and I really enjoy the new model. I signed up for MS Office subscription as well and there are other software subscriptions I may sign up for in the future. Subscription model suits me well and it must be working otherwise other companies would not follow Adobe to the "doom" many haters on the internet are predicting.

But yes, competition is always welcome and situation where Adobe has almost monopoly in the area is not good for customers.


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## Zeidora (Nov 13, 2015)

Ladislav said:


> Zeidora said:
> 
> 
> > Adobe really screwed up with the CC racket.
> ...



Do the basic calculation. The price of 1 year CC subscription is about the same as a stand alone copy was. How long do you plan on using Adobe products? There's your answer. 
On top of it, you do not own anything after spending all that cash. Buying something like Affinity is also WAY better financial deal than renting Adobyebye.
If there is an affordability question, then long-term renting is the worst of all possibilities. That's finance 101.


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## martti (Nov 14, 2015)

It is good to have choices. Certainly, Adobe has done its market research and is now having a steadier cash flow which is good for the company. With its monopoly it can do pretty much what it wishes with no fear of losing the corporate business share. Obviously we the little people are not essential to Adobe's cash flow. We are left with (especially we in far away countries) Elements or old CS5 discs still available on eBay. Don't say GIMP.

After having watched some tutorial videos and now starting to find stuff that I know must be there, the first commercial launch is starting to seem pretty impressive. Of course it cannot be a perfect product at this stage but the attitude of its developers seems a lot more fruitful than that of Adobe's aliens.

They say there is an application called 'Lyn' that could nicely do the library and organisation part of the process.
Experiences, anyone?


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## Ladislav (Nov 15, 2015)

Zeidora said:


> Ladislav said:
> 
> 
> > Zeidora said:
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I'm not sure what CC subscription are you talking about? I'm paying monthly for CC Photography Plan: http://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/photography.html It is £8.57 per month and I would not get Ligthroom and Photoshop for £100. I would need £500+ before subscription model was introduced.

Honestly I don't care about ownership of SW anymore. I own multiple old versions of Lightroom, Photoshop Elements, MS Office and ton of development SW and plugins. Especially with development stuff, I did upgrades regularly to every new version. In my opinion there is nothing like going back to five years old SW. Sometimes you are even lucky if it still works properly with your new HW, OS, accessories, camera or whatever. With subscription model I can stop paying tomorrow and start next year if I need SW again + I will get the latest version again.


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## PhotographyFirst (Nov 15, 2015)

I've heard Affinity is still a little buggy and needs a couple of features to match Photoshop, but it does sound like a good program. I would try out Affinity, but I am allergic to Macs.


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## privatebydesign (Nov 15, 2015)

PhotographyFirst said:


> I would never otherwise recommend this to anyone, but in your situation, it seems perfectly fine to pirate Photoshop, if possible. Seeing as how Adobe won't even take your money, then who cares?
> 
> There's probably some way to keep a free trial version of Photoshop going perpetually by tricking the software.
> 
> I've heard Affinity is still a little buggy and needs a couple of features to match Photoshop, but it does sound like a good program. I would try out Affinity, but I am allergic to Macs.



That is bullshit, theft is never OK.

I used to live on a boat in the Caribbean in limbo between the USA and Central/South American distribution areas,neither of them wanted me, but it still wasn't difficult to get legitimate copies of Adobe software.


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## Zeidora (Nov 15, 2015)

PhotographyFirst said:


> I've heard Affinity is still a little buggy and needs a couple of features to match Photoshop, but it does sound like a good program. I would try out Affinity, but I am allergic to Macs.



What is missing in Affinity?


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## Zeidora (Nov 15, 2015)

Ladislav said:


> Zeidora said:
> 
> 
> > Ladislav said:
> ...


Never bought PS on its own just as Creative Suite bundle. Upgrades are around $250/300 for PS ID DW AP, so $100 for PS alone is generous price. I only upgraded every other or third version, so it is around $250/300 for 4-5 years. with CC, it is more than upgrade price EACH year! Very easy calculation.
I guess you never had an upgrade corrupt your work beyond repair. ID3 -> ID5.5 was an utter disaster. Without backups (which I keep religiously) I would have lost several years of work. Thanks Adobe! I used Statistica for 20 years. A MANCOVA is still a MANCOVA. I shudder to think the cost of renting it for 20 years. The only question there is with any sort of upgrade is "What's the f-up this time?". Stability and predictability is a good thing.


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## martti (Nov 15, 2015)

*It is about Adobe's policy*

I have had lots of trouble with Adobe's policy. They do not seem very keen to get people to buy their stuff but rather the opposite. Even getting the last LR6 single shot needed calling the customer care. The French guy could not help me whereas the guy in Helsinki walked me through the ordering process...the problem was that once I had taken the CC trial membership there was no way to get to other alternatives than the CC. What I needed was another Adobe ID. And now, having ran the upgrade to LR 6.2.1 my iMac went crazy and I had to reinstall the SW to get it to work. My patience has run thin with the Adobe Incorporated.

My perfectly legal CS3 does not launch on El Capitan. To get an illegal torrent with my internet connection would mean a download time of like two days. And then you launch and notice that the version is in Danish or in Russian.So I am happy about Affinity and Lyn. LR6 is very much OK also as long as I don't upgrade it.

I have an impression that Adobe has outsourced some of its core services to the wrong people.


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## martti (Nov 16, 2015)

Zeidora said:


> PhotographyFirst said:
> 
> 
> > I've heard Affinity is still a little buggy and needs a couple of features to match Photoshop, but it does sound like a good program. I would try out Affinity, but I am allergic to Macs.
> ...



I have been trying to use it now for a couple of days and I have trouble with the microscopic icons. 
Also, I have not found 'merge to new layer' so I make a snapshot and then a new layer from snapshot.
Mixing layers is OK if you just stick to the basic modes but beyond that it becomes rocket science.
I cannot seem go get the 'transparency' as I used to with PS.
The biggest problem is the terminology and the organisation of various functions and –at least for now– kbd shortcuts. Some of the old ones from PS work while others don't.

A guide book would be nice though the tutorials are quite well done.
My problem is that t-they st-tutter a lot with the local internet connection.


edit: Got the tools text a bit bigger from preferences.


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