Adobe recently raised the monthly price for its photography subscription again. For many, this raises questions about whether subscription-based software remains the smartest choice for editing photos.
Coming to you from Peter Zelinka, this straightforward video introduces Affinity Photo 2.0, a potential alternative that eliminates monthly fees. Affinity Photo is offered as a one-time purchase, costing around $70. Unlike Photoshop, it doesn't rely on ongoing subscriptions, but Zelinka notes you'll need to repurchase with major updates, such as version upgrades from 1.0 to 2.0. Zelinka explores Affinity Photo's interface, which closely mirrors Photoshop's with movable tabs for layers, adjustments, and channels. He demonstrates the convenience of quickly locating tools through the "Window" menu, emphasizing ease of transition for Photoshop users. Zelinka thoroughly tests Affinity's curves tool, adjusting brightness and shadows interactively, similar to Photoshop’s hand tool.
Moving further into specifics, Zelinka discusses selective color adjustments, highlighting their precision for targeted color tweaks. By adjusting greens and yellows separately, Affinity Photo provides excellent control for nuanced color corrections. Zelinka also dives into Affinity's unique "Develop" module, which functions similarly to Photoshop's Camera Raw filter. He explains clearly that adjustments like exposure, contrast, and color temperature must be made on new pixel layers to preserve flexibility. This ensures edits remain nondestructive and easily modifiable.
Affinity Photo’s powerful masking capabilities stand out prominently in Zelinka's evaluation. He demonstrates how luminance and color masks allow for pinpoint precision. With luminance masks, you control effects based solely on brightness, leaving untouched areas unaffected. Color masks similarly target specific hues, enabling highly localized edits. Zelinka provides practical examples of refining these masks to achieve subtle, professional results, such as selectively enhancing fog or adjusting hues in isolated image regions.
Expanding beyond standard adjustments, Zelinka explores advanced features like combined layers, which bundle multiple edits into a single layer, simplifying workflow. He emphasizes Affinity's intuitive masking tools that enable users to manually refine masks with brushes, ensuring accuracy in complex edits. Additionally, he explains techniques for softening mask edges, providing clean transitions without harsh lines. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Zelinka.
I’ve been using Affinity Photo since day one. Back in the early days, its content aware healing was light years ahead of Photoshops tools. However, while there have been many updates, it had fallen way behind Photoshop in masking functionality until the last update a few months ago. It finally has AI masking and it works pretty well.