Affinity Photo Review for Cameracraft Magazine

This is an extended version of my review of Affinity Photo digital editing software, as was published in Cameracraft Magazine, September / October 2019.  

The text is identical to the originally published review but may have been edited for word count in the magazine. This version contains additional screen shots and video clips of specific aspects of the software.Click each image to view full screen. Videos will play as thumbnails unless you click the [ ] symbol at the bottom the video windows, which opens it in full screen.



OVERVIEW

Affinity Photo is single-purchase photo editing software, originally developed for the Apple Mac and now available for Windows 10 on desktop and there is IOS version for iPads. It is published by Serif, a UK-based software company that has been around since 1987, originally making their name in the desktop publishing arena.

Along with Designer and Publisher, Photo completes Serif’s suite of three Affinity programs. It will appeal to anyone intent on becoming serious about their photo-editing on a budget, or those more experienced photographers concerned about being locked-in to Adobe’s subscription-based pricing model, at a time when rumours about price rises abound.  

Affinity Photo Splash Screen

In June 2019, Affinity Photo received its biggest update so far, which included end-to-end Metal compute acceleration for Apple computers, to take full advantage of the Mac’s discrete GPU, making all raster layer and brush operations up to 10 times faster than ever before. Additionally, the app now supports multiple GPUs—whether internal or with external units connected—multiplying the performance gains further.

Serif is also working on hardware acceleration for its Windows version, to be delivered in a future update. However, the recent update does introduce a rewritten memory management system, which results in 3x or 4x speed improvements across many tasks on Windows machines. In addition, dial and pen support for Microsoft Surface devices has also been significantly upgraded, giving users new ways to interact with the apps, say Serif.

Affinity Photo supports RAW, JPG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, PSD and PDF files and a number of other, less commonly used file types.

USER INTERFACE

At first sight, the Affinity Photo UI (User Interface) will appear familiar to anyone who has used Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. There is a vertical tools panel down the left-hand side, which hosts all the tools relevant to the currently active persona (more on this below) and this panel will update when the persona is switched. There is a horizontal toolbar below the main menu, which can be used to switch between personas and access commonly used controls and options.
To the right of the persona buttons, there is a Context toolbar, which provides information and allows adjustment to the selected tool or object. This will update dynamically, when the tool is changed, so that only the relevant tool options are presented.

The default UI background is a darker grey than the default option in Photoshop, but this can be changed via the Edit > Preferences menu, where there is an option to switch between a dark or light UI style, both of which can then be further adjusted with sliders. It has to be said that I did find some of the brightly coloured button and icons, somewhat distracting and these could not be adjusted.

Default Dark Grey UI © Stephen Power

EDIT PREFERENCES

I would recommend that the new Affinity Photo user make a visit to the Edit > Preferences menu a priority before using the software for serious editing. A wide range of settings can be applied to fine-tune the software to your specific requirements. There are eight sub-settings for tweaks and adjustments in the Preferences window; General, Colour, Performance, User Interface, Tools, Keyboard Shortcuts, Photoshop Plugins and Miscellaneous.

 PERSONAS

Personas are the beating heart of Affinity Photo and it is the name Serif give to the various workspaces – sometimes referred to as modes or modules in other editing software - used to work with images. When a persona is selected from the horizontal toolbar, the UI changes to provide the appropriate toolset and studio panels (more on these below) with which to accomplish the task for which the persona was intended.

The five main personas are Photo – for general image editing, Develop – for editing Raw image, it is akin to Adobe Camera Raw or the Develop Module in Lightroom; Liquefy – for adding distortion and warp style effects to images; Tone Mapping – for use with HDR images and also to tone-map non-HDR images; Export – for outputting the finished image, layer, or slice to a range of image formats. Panorama, the sixth persona, provides a dedicated environment for fine tuning stitched images to create panoramic compositions. However, it's only visible when stitching multiple images into a panorama. You can switch between Personas with a single click, with the workspace tools and panels changing to that Persona's way of working.

Unedited Raw files will open in the Develop persona, and JPG or previously edited Raw files, saved as tiff, JPG or PSD will open in the Photo Persona. 

Export Persona with drop-down menu © Stephen Power

  

  Video: Develop and Photo Personas

 STUDIO PANELS

There are a set of stacked, tabbed panels on the right-hand side of the UI, which change when working in the various personas. These are known as Studio Panels, which provide a range of options and functions. For example, the Photo Persona includes Studio Panels for image adjustment such as Exposure, White Balance, Vibrance and Curves which may be familiar to Adobe users, plus some others specific to Affinity Photo, such as Posterise, Invert, Soft Proof and Recolour. 

Develop Persona with Basic Editing Studio panel open © Stephen Power

ADVANCED FEATURES

There are plenty of advanced features in this software; enough to satisfy the most experienced digital manipulator and many more than might be expected in a budget-range application.

Affinity Photo works with layers, particularly in the Photo Persona. Layers adopt a hierarchical stack structure in that layers at the top of the stack affect those below. Serif point out that adjustment layers can affect one another and recommend that users experiment with the order in which they are placed for best effect on the image. There is also the capacity to isolate layers to improve your workflow, especially with compositing.

 

Layers being used for complex image work - © Serif

Merging of image files to create a 32 bit High Dynamic Range (HDR) document is possible for a set of images. Once the files are merged, Affinity Photo has a tool that will eliminate ghosting in the resulting HDR image. It is also possible to achieve a tone-mapped HDR effect using one image in the software, via the Tone Mapping and Photo personas. 

Other features include a range of selection tools and automatic lens distortion correction, including the facility to install a lens profile manually, if such a profile for a new lens is not included in the current software update. 

Among other state-of-the art features, there is the capacity to live edit 360 degree images; the ability to convert to LAB colour format; the potential to use the OpencolorIO adjustment layer to bake colour space transforms into your final image when exporting to non-linear image formats; image stacking, including the potential to use it for object removal and macro functionality, allowing various operations as steps which can be played back, allowing complex editing processes to be automated, saving time for the user.

Focus Stacking Screen Shot © Serif

WORKBOOK and SUPPORT

The Affinity Photo Workbook is a 488- page, lavishly printed full colour hardback book created by the Affinity team and world-renowned artists and photographers. It teaches the core skills needed to get started, and then how to control advanced tools and techniques, through a series of step-by-step projects. I was impressed by this book and feel that, although it is an additional expense, the investment in money and time spent working through the exercises could be well rewarded.

At the time of writing, there is no phone support available for Affinity Photo, although there is email support, a lively forum and a range of online tutorials including an excellent video library.

Affinity Photo Workbook © Serif

VERDICT

I struggled to find my way around Affinity Photo, initially, and although it looks a bit like Photoshop, it is certainly not its clone. I found myself at odds with the concept of Personas, as I have always thought of this term in relation to human beings, and I am more used to moving through modules and modes, in other software.

I also could not understand why my attempts to move out of the Develop persona were being thwarted by an annoyingly regular error message, telling me to please select an RGB Pixel Layer Before Entering Develop. It took me some time to discover the layers tab, and that a pixel layer (usually the background layer) had to be selected.

Tools that I am very familiar with in Photoshop are still to be found in Affinity Photo although not always where you might expect them. I wasted a lot of time looking for panels such as History, Swatches and Layers, which I expected to find in the Windows menu. They were hidden under View, in the Studio sub-menu. It was here that I also found most of the other standard Photoshop panels, along with the option to reset and hide all of the Studio panels, buried right at the bottom of this sub-menu. It struck me as a long way to go for a function that I would use on a regular basis. I would recommend having this option made much more accessible, perhaps at the top of the UI.

Old habits die hard, and it is entirely possible that my teething troubles were a result of having spent decades working with and teaching Adobe products. The new user may not have the same problems adapting, as they will not be restricted by my muscle memory handicap.

I did find, happily, that there are a number of similarities between Affinity Photo and Photoshop, which helped to smooth the transition. Some keyboard shortcuts worked in exactly the same way and some tools, such as levels and the healing brushes, were as effective and as easy to use.
Affinity Photo is not the complete workflow solution that Lightroom has become for many, including myself. There is no image organization persona, and no way to create web galleries or print directly from the software.

However, I can certainly see a place for it as a replacement Photoshop application, or a first choice for those starting from scratch, or needing to move up from some of the more limited applications available for free. More experienced Photoshop users, perhaps those using it for occasional or light work, might also see it as a potential replacement, should the Adobe subscription become prohibitive.