The only blocker to me is it doesn’t have native Linux support
Affinity’s Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months
Submitted 4 months ago by otter@lemmy.ca to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
otter@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Important point, and they also said they didn’t plan on supporting Linux.
They’re changing things up after being bought up, but I’m not sure if Linux is a priority for them yet
philpo@feddit.de 4 months ago
Had a lengthy mail exchange on that topix with them - before them being bought, though.
While they don’t plan a native Linux version they absolutely were open to optimise towards better Wine usability - which I totally could live with for now.
But I have no idea how the buying by Canva influenced things - Canva does have a linux app so maybe there are more resources and a different focus now.
Mihies@programming.dev 4 months ago
This means it runs with WINE? Or something similar?
asap@lemmy.world 4 months ago
WineDB says all their apps are “Garbage” status - eg does not run.
RoyaltyInTraining@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I tried it with bottles. It installed fine after manually installing dotnet 4.8, but I couldn’t get Affinity Photo itself to run, even after extensive tweaks. All I get is an exception without any description in the terminal output.
einlander@lemmy.world 4 months ago
The Canva ownership still worries me.
umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
For a software that has a perpetual license, I’m not too worried.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Yeah, uh, Adobe products had that too - emphasis on the “had”. Lots of complaints from customers that their licenses are just randomly getting deactivated, that they need to buy a new version, that they were supportive piracy…
I own Affinity Photo 1+2 but I will hop ship to yarr town the second they pull bullshit like this. Trust no one, you just get burned.
M500@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
Back before software subscriptions were a thing, I had a few different licenses which I would have assumed were perpetual.
In a way they were, but then my version stopped receiving updates and version 2 came out and they wanted me to buy version 2.
So perpetual licenses don’t mean anything if the company wants to be a jerk about it.
otter@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Yep, I’m still suspicious we’re in the good phase before things get anti-consumer
philpo@feddit.de 4 months ago
Absolutely - me,too.
But, to play the optimist for once - Canva could bring some good to Affinity/Serif. Canva is available as a native linux app and Serif in the past has stated multiple times it’s mainly the lack of Linux resources and experience that stops them from providing Linux support. So maybe that could be a good influence.
Canva also has a workflow that is based on a webapp that is more “beginner friendly” than Affinity and a good integration between these services could be a good thing as it may remove barriers.
And Canva for a long time had a desire to provide a full production workflow, so maybe affinity gets the long missing library features.
BUT: Now enough with that optimism, sadly I am rather sure enshitification is around the corner. Which will be a sad day for me.
Master@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Me too… but its still good till it goes to snit.
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
I would buy Affinity Photo if they had a Linux version. Sure, it could be run in Wine, but I don’t like using it for anything except games.
PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 4 months ago
It doesn’t even really run on wine from my experience
wurstgulasch3000@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I saw a lengthy guide once on how to run it but it wasn’t simple. Still better than Photoshop though
ColdWater@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
True, I rather use Photopea than trying to make it work under wine
rocci@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
Is this a good Photoshop alternative?
c0smokram3r@midwest.social 4 months ago
I’ve heard GIMP (also known as GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a legit foss alt.
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Gimp for a full image manipulation suit.
Krita for digital painting/art and a decent gui, still better for light image edits then paint.
Between those two photoshop is essentially overpriced hypeware. Its convenient to have both foss apps packed under a single well designed interface but no where worth what they demand. After adobe leaked the details from my student account back in 2013 they have continuously caused me so much damage they should be paying me.
warmaster@lemmy.world 4 months ago
It’s good if you can get pasta it’s unintuitive UI.
finley@lemm.ee 4 months ago
It’s serviceable for most tasks, but for some things Photoshop simply cannot be beat.
MMNT@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Depends on what you want to use it for, but yes it is. Especially since it’s way cheaper.
shalafi@lemmy.world 4 months ago
RoyaltyInTraining@lemmy.world 4 months ago
For Windows and Mac, yes. For Linux, fuck no. They don’t care one bit about that OS.
vodkasolution@feddit.it 4 months ago
Those who actually use it, can they write down a simple comparison?
CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
I did not use Photoshop particularly long, but I have been using the Affinity Suite both on a pc and a tablet for over a year now and can say it’s definitely quite good. Everything is where you think it should be, the workflow feels very usable with no major learning curve (looking at you, GIMP), and overall the only thing I don’t like about it is its lack of Linux support. I would assume that absolute professionals won’t be able to find everything they like/want, but if you’re reading this, chances are you’re gonna be more than satisfied, if FOSS options don’t quite work for you.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
I use the suite professionally. I come from the Corel world (which I slowly got to hate, but sunken cost, etc.) which I have gladly escaped. The suite is just a bonkers value. I live in Linux, but have a windows virtual machine just for Affinity.
Virkkunen@fedia.io 4 months ago
Check this video as well. I do share most of that experience of having to Google how to do some things because it's not immediately obvious, and some other things do take more clicks/effort than they should've compared to Photoshop. All in all, it has completely replaced Photoshop for my use case.
JustARaccoon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
It’s a very good app suite that gets the UX right esp if you use multiple of their apps but it falls short in areas that Adobe has had more r&d money thrown at, such as vector tracing, proper vector brushes, and proper psd support (you can import psd files, you cannot export fully editable psd files). I used it myself for branding and UI design for a few years and it’s definitely worth the money, but they do have some issues as I’ve said before. Their file format isn’t open source either afaik and there is no plugin support so it’s a friendlier looking and cheaper closed ecosystem.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 4 months ago
What is the open alternative?
vodkasolution@feddit.it 4 months ago
That I noticed, I can only save in their format, not that good
woelkchen@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Those who actually use it, can they write down a simple comparison?
Those AI features are completely absent from Affinity. That said, Serif was recently bought by Canva who have AI features in their web suite, so I expect those to come to Affinity at some point, possibly requiring a subscription for cloud-enabled features (regular Affinity feature set will remain pay-once and offline, according to announcements). I hope some AI-supported upscaler will come to Affinity. I currently use some free web tool for nicer upscaling.
Also, Affinity apps don’t support file format plugins at all. AVIF and HEIF aren’t supported, so you’ll need external converters to open those.
twoface@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
I have been using Affinity Photo for a couple of years now. Not in a professional way, just for some small personal things. Before buying Affinity Photo I used PS for the same purposes for a few years.
I don’t see me going back to PS, since Affinity has everything I need. Sadly, I don’t remember specifics, but a few things work a bit different in Affinity, but the workflow is quite similar.
Note that I am not using the latest version, so things might have changed.
Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
I checked it out last night. The photo editor is close enough to photoshop that I’ll be glad to buy it. From my preliminary perusing of the tools and features, the only thing I used in photoshop that isn’t in affinity photo was the ability to animate things. I’m sure there are some other more important details between the two, but as a hobbyist for graphic design it fits my needs just fine.
JohnOliver@feddit.dk 3 months ago
The issue is that they recently were sold to canva. An online, subscription service that offersjtemplate based graphics suite.
Affinity promised that they would not change their model to subscription but many users doubt their credibility after the sale to canva
Goodie@lemmy.world 4 months ago
If they had library management even close to what lightroom offers, I’d be there.
I may yet jump ship for photoshop.
umbraroze@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I think it’s only a good thing they’re not trying to shoehorn DAM features into their existing apps. If they made a DAM software it’d have to be an external app anyway.
I did perfectly fine with digiKam in the past, and nowadays I’m perfectly happy with ACDSee. ACDSee even shows thumbnails for Affinity Photo project files.
Goodie@lemmy.world 4 months ago
DAM DAM?
ACDSee even shows thumbnails for Affinity Photo project files
You’re telling me there’s an image managing program out there, that works with Affinity, and for some reason people aren’t talking about it???
BURN@lemmy.world 4 months ago
100% my Lightroom libraries are a non-starter when it comes to still needing Adobe. Literally hundreds of thousands of photos from this year alone are cataloged there, and I’m not sure any of the FOSS alternatives can manage that
EddoWagt@feddit.nl 4 months ago
That’s a completely different application. You could try darktable, its free and open source and really good imo. A bit more complicated than lightroom for editing, but also more powerful (apart from ai features, which it lacks)
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
And then what?
NateNate60@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Then you can get permanent access for 165 USD (one-off payment)
hightrix@lemmy.world 4 months ago
It goes on sale often. I think I got it for $50 a while back.
Easily worth it. Supporting a customer friendly business model is how we keep nice things.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Hmm. Think I would rather pirate Adobe.
Deceptichum@quokk.au 4 months ago
It’s currently $137.99 AUD for me.
slooopy_potatoe@lemm.ee 4 months ago
They lost all credibility when they sold out to Canva in my opinion.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I didn’t know that but yep, I feel the same way. I have absolutely nothing good to say about Canva after having to work with a bunch of people who sent me files from it.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 4 months ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Design software developer Serif has launched a new six-month free trial for its Affinity creative suite, which is well regarded as being one of the few viable alternatives to Adobe’s professional design apps.
Affinity uses a one-time purchase pricing model that has earned it a loyal fanbase among creatives who are sick of paying for recurring subscriptions.
Prices start at $69.99 for Affinity’s individual desktop apps or $164.99 for the entire suite, with a separate deal currently offering customers 50 percent off all perpetual licenses.
This discount, alongside the six-month free trial, is potentially geared at soothing concerns that Affinity would change its pricing model after being acquired by Canva earlier this year.
“We’re saying ‘try everything and pay nothing’ because we understand making a change can be a big step, particularly for busy professionals,” said Affinity CEO Ashley Hewson.
In a Decoder interview published today, Canva CEO Melanie Perkins declined to describe its offering as a full alternative to Adobe’s Creative Cloud.
The original article contains 234 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 31%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
This is not really a consolation given how Affinity/Serif sold out to Canva. We do need Adobe competitors, but this isn’t helping!
I wonder if Blackmagic will throw their hat in the ring…
Wooki@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Adobe should be forced to repay all cancellation fees they ever charged then fined the same amount again unless it’s under 25% net income in which case they are fined 25% for each year they were defrauding customers
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
love affinity but, god, i just want a procreate for my galaxy tab
TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I dumped my Adobe sub and grabbed Affinity Photo a while ago. It does 95% of the things Photoshop does (and 100% of what I need) for a one-time payment that is a fraction of the cost of an Adobe payment. It’s runs so so SO much better than PS. I very often saw Photoshop using up to 40gb of RAM and Affinity Photo uses 9gb doing the exact same work with the same files.
Removing Creative Cloud and it’s 838 different processes was amazing. Like finally washing your toilet flush after it’s been clogged.
0ops@lemm.ee 4 months ago
I’ve only used the v1 affinity suite, so I can’t speak for the latest versions of v2, but when I started the first thing I noticed was the performance. It’s much more responsive.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 4 months ago
Not using all of the available RAM is not a good thing…
AmbientChaos@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
This is only remotely true if you have a box dedicated to doing one single thing and nothing else. That is almost certainly not the case for the vast majority of Photoshop users
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
I’m going to assume sarcasm, no?
bamboo@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Not using available ram only is true when doing so could offer performance benefits. Many applications can’t be sped up by using more ram. Using more ram for no obvious reason is stupid, especially on a machine that has to do other things at the same time.
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
Adobe can’t bother to fix it, they ended up adding a “Scratch Disk” aka virtual memory instead of fixing the problem.
demonsword@lemmy.world 4 months ago
we all need a little swap here and there, right