Serif's Image Editing App 'Affinity Photo' Launches for Mac

[Mainyehc]

Sadly not anymore. Since then it has gradually gotten worse and worse with each release. […] It's the same situation with PS. Personally I found that most things worked great in 5.5/6/previous and then CC comes along and the developers seem to meddle with the workings of certain areas and break them so they do not work as well as they did. […] Then when you actually tell Adobe what the problem is, it's as if they just don't care. They completely ignore you and you just have to put up with the new bugs... Not good enough imo. […]
Well, without turning this topic into "the middle aged grumpy graphic artists moan about Adobe topic" I really do wish serif all the best in their venture. It's a breath of fresh air to see a company trying it's best to communicate with the customer and WANT to help. It's something that I appreciate and therefore will support even if for the near future I am not specifically using your software. I'll be buying it though and as soon as it can handle my specific requirements I will ditch Adobe and it's BS.

Wow. Is it getting THAT bad, THAT fast? I figured that a constant stream of revenue should induce a certain complacency but, from your description, it sounds like they are really letting themselves go (I wouldn't know any better, as I decided to stay away from CC so I wouldn't even be tempted by or become dependent on any new features, but I guess I wasn't missing out on much after all ). I mean, I'm very sorry for the community in general, as it's probably facing enormous retraining costs and a parting of ways, but… good riddance to them! I am not spending a penny on their products ever again until they get their act together, if ever (and I am kind of waiting they don't, so I never have to face that dilemma).

As for Affinity, I second your point. My transition will be a long one, with the odd work on Photo and Designer before I can move to them full time, which will probably happen only after Publisher is stable (that meaning: out of beta) and at least 90% of the tools I use in CS are available and polished enough (I can probably live without the perspective tool and Live Trace or Live Paint for a while, and fire up Illustrator whenever I need them… Having to “fire up” InDesign, or dealing with potential inconsistencies or plain inflexibility when linking files exported from Photo or Designer – instead of using .af* formats only as Serif suggests – isn't much of an advantage, IMHO; having a full suite is a huge parte of the value proposition of both Adobe and Serif)… I did do some cool stuff with gradients in Designer and the perspective tool in Photo, so I can proudly say that I have, in fact, started it already.

 

[Lone Deranger]

Hello guys,

I'm Andy Somerfield - Affinity Photo project lead.

Thought I'd say hello and offer to answer any questions you guys have:

- Yes - we can import .abr brushes
- Yes - we let you pan the document nearly-totally-out-of-view
- Yes - we do all the pressure stuff including barrel rotation and Wacom hotkeys

Hope this helps - anything else you need answered, fire away..

Andy.

Hi Andy,

AP is looking fantastic (as is Designer). Congratulations on launching these two great apps.
I was hoping you guys could shed some light on wether or not full 32-bit float & OpenEXR support is planned for a future release. Artists in the Visual Effects Industry tend to use these files with this colour depth for things like High Dynamic Range Images, and as 3D render output. (particularly things like colour render passes and z-depth buffers) It would be terrific to be able to work with such files directly within AP.

Photoshop's EXR support is embarrassing. Please tell me you'll show them how it's done.

Cheers!

 

[maccompaq]

Hello guys,

I'm Andy Somerfield - Affinity Photo project lead.

Thought I'd say hello and offer to answer any questions you guys have:

- Yes - we can import .abr brushes
- Yes - we let you pan the document nearly-totally-out-of-view
- Yes - we do all the pressure stuff including barrel rotation and Wacom hotkeys

Hope this helps - anything else you need answered, fire away..

Andy.

I have a MacBook Pro and a desktop. Can I use both computers with one download? If I buy a new computer, what is the process to use Affinity Photo on it? It sounds like a great product!

 

[david91]

Interesting app! I like it! I wonder if it works with my vpn though.

 

[mxmgodin]

I have a MacBook Pro and a desktop. Can I use both computers with one download? If I buy a new computer, what is the process to use Affinity Photo on it? It sounds like a great product!

It's sold on the Mac App Store, so you should be able to download and use it on all computers logged in under the same Apple ID.

 

[msandersen]

Fascinating. Someone mentioned it was developed for iOS first, which brings a whole new perspective on the rumoured iPad Pro. As a Procreate user, I already see huge potential in such a device, a large tablet with pressure sensitivity, but that alone wouldn't be enough to justify a large "pro" tablet for an ecosystem dominated by media consumption and games. I always thought the use case for larger tablets would be for creatives, and thought a tablet-optimised Aperture would be a natural and would have been in the works. But alas.
Now these Affinity apps if they run on iOS and is anywhere near as powerful on an iPad Pro, that is groundbreaking and could shake up the market. Along with Metal, it shows where Apple was going with the massive power and 64-bit architecture that took so many by surprise, because, well, why do you need that in a consumption device? I can see now both Savage Interactive and Serif demonstrators on stage for the iPad Pro reveal to demonstrate what it can do for artists. Potential game changer, with no other tablet running a pure mobile operating system being able to do for designers, illustrators, artists and photographers etc what an iPad Pro potentially can do as an actual mobile productivity device you can go anywhere with. Being a relatively new platform, that gives Serif and Savage Interactive and other smaller developers with their from the ground up mobile-first apps an advantage over the entrenched big boys like Adobe.

 

[flat235]

Lone Deranger,

Our engine already supports unbounded compositing in full float So yes - we could enable EXR support some day.

It very nearly got on the "roadmap" post in our forum - but stuff which goes on there is guaranteed to be implemented in the next 2 years - and while I certainly expect us to do floating point stuff before then, I wasn't quite brave enough to put in on the list..

Hope this helps,

Andy.

 

[LV426]

Andy, do you have any plans to integrate with OS X Photos? e.g. from within Photos have the ability to use Affinity filters or its editor?

 

[flat235]

Hi,

The keynote mentioned "Edit Extensions" for the Apple Photos app - if those turn out to be what we think they are then yes, we expect to implement them

Andy.

 

[rhett7660]

While I doubt big houses will be dumping the Adobe products, this group seems to be bringing a lot to the table. They have two of the three big things needed for publishing houses, and with a rumored InDesign like product! Heck if they add a Web Design product into their library, we just might see some real competition for Adobe!

 

[furi0usbee]

Was this article on the home page? How did I miss it? Maybe Pixelmator paid MR *not* to post it on the home page? Just kidding... maybe?

 

[Jim Campbell]

While I doubt big houses will be dumping the Adobe products, this group seems to be bringing a lot to the table. They have two of the three big things needed for publishing houses, and with a rumored InDesign like product! Heck if they add a Web Design product into their library, we just might see some real competition for Adobe!

Not rumoured. Affinity Publisher is definitely on the development roadmap, it just doesn't have a firm launch date yet.

 

[rhett7660]

Not rumoured. Affinity Publisher is definitely on the development roadmap, it just doesn't have a firm launch date yet.

Oh! Gotcha..... very nice! There products look nice and are getting some pretty good reviews. Who knows, Adobe just might have the first real competition for desktop publishing and photo editing suites!

Lets hope they don't buy them like they did with Macromedia!

 

[AdeFowler]

Not rumoured. Affinity Publisher is definitely on the development roadmap, it just doesn't have a firm launch date yet.

I just hope they don't call it Publisher. It makes it sound like er, Publisher! How about Affinity Layout?

 

[Jim Campbell]

I just hope they don't call it Publisher. It makes it sound like er, Publisher! How about Affinity Layout?

"Layout" doesn't sound like a tool for producing finished product to me…

 

[Jim Campbell]

Just a general follow-up on APhoto: my Photoshop use is so ingrained that, even though my primary workhorse is Illustrator, I barely even think about how many times a day I use it. Stupid things: adding text to photos to post to Twitter. Little things: resizing images before emailing; tweaking the contrast and cropping photos for Facebook. Minor colour corrections to comic artwork for work.

This week, I've been making a conscious effort to do all that in APhoto instead, and I've barely noticed the difference. I've started trying to use it for more complex stuff over the last day or so. Obviously, there's a learning curve and a certain amount of resistance as you have to work out how to do stuff you didn't even need to think about before, but it's more than capable as a PS replacement so far.

 

[Leslie D]

If I was an Adobe employee reading this thread, I would be starting to get very worried indeed. So many disgruntled customers wanting to ditch their
Adobe's products given the first opportunity.