Serif Updates Affinity Apps for 'Superfast Performance' With M1 Chip

[MacRumors]

Following Apple's unveiling this week of Macs with the M1 chip, Serif has released new versions of its Affinity apps for Mac that include support for macOS Big Sur and compatibility with Apple Silicon machines.

This means that Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher can be installed and run on Apple's latest 13-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini without using Apple's Rosetta 2 translation layer.

Serif says that its suite of apps are now actively optimized for the M1 chip, "making Affinity apps the first professional creative applications to offer native M1 support."

This is great news for our users because the architecture of the M1, particularly having such a high-performance GPU with unified memory with the CPU, is perfect for professional creative applications. The advantages are particularly noticeable when working on documents with thousands of pixel layers, vector objects and text. Edits to pixel layers are best handled on the GPU, while vector and text on the CPU, so when you have unified memory, it allows much faster handling of these complex documents.

With the new M1 MacBook Air, Serif reports a three-times speed increase when using its software. Mac customers with the M1 can apparently expect a smoother, more responsive user experience when painting, pixel editing, using filter effects, document rendering, and more.

M1 also allows many more elements such as adjustment layers and live filters to be maintained before performance is constrained, allowing for a more non-destructive workflow, even in complex documents.

The 1.8.6 update for Affinity apps on macOS is now available.

Article Link: Serif Updates Affinity Apps for 'Superfast Performance' With M1 Chip

 

[deputy_doofy]

Nice to hear from developers who can confirm just how good the M1 is (or can be)!

 

[mymacrumorsname]

Wow, that was fast. Bravo!

 

[citysnaps]

Sweet! Hope Adobe and MathWorks quickly follow.

 

[xxray]

Affinity has always been innovative and quick to be innovative. Their philosophy since day 1 of really optimizing performance for Apple devices, along with no subscriptions, really is so commendable. I can’t wait for the day that I get to try using their products on Apple Silicon Macs.

 

[RFolk]

Awesome Affinity. Probably one of the best alternative to Adobe at the moment . (with an affordable price)

 

[James_C]

Affinity Photo is a great App, used that to replace Photoshop three years ago. I have not looked back.

 

[Jupeman]

All Hail Affinity. I am happy they exist as an alternate. I'm a happy user!

 

[citysnaps]

Sadly, Affinity still does not have an Adobe Lightroom equivalent. Still hoping for the future.

 

[Areyouwinningson?]

Going forward, will all Intel based mac only run new programs in Rosessta II ??, or will it run natively?.

 

[ruka.snow]

Sadly, Affinity still does not have an Adobe Lightroom equivalent. Still hoping for the future.

Capture One is my tool of choice there, and it works well with Affinity Photo. Capture One has one of the best RAW processors and just feels modern. You can do a lot with it that felt like pulling hens teeth on Lightroom.

 

[UnbreakableAlex]

I recommend Affinity very much. you can do really professional work with it for just a fracture of price. It’s photoshop reinvented.
The community is growing everyday and there are a ,lt of tutorials available.

 

[citysnaps]

Capture One is my tool of choice there, and it works well with Affinity Photo. Capture One has one of the best RAW processors and just feels modern. You can do a lot with it that felt like pulling hens teeth on Lightroom.

Until Capture One can automatically translate all of the non-destructive edits I've made over the years since LR came out, on 100,000+ images, it's sadly a non-starter for me. I'm fine with LR RAW processing, and because I've edited so many photos with LR, it's pretty much muscle memory getting to where I want to go.

 

[b656]

Optimized for M1 or not, I have to say Affinity apps are absolutely fantastic. I love them so much that I feel guilty I got them during a sale.

 

[2013.1]

Sadly, Affinity still does not have an Adobe Lightroom equivalent. Still hoping for the future.

They are working on some DAM-Software that allegedly can replace Lightroom.

 

[2013.1]

Sadly, Affinity still does not have an Adobe Lightroom equivalent. Still hoping for the future.

I hope for a replacement for Adobe Acrobat Pro.

 

[citysnaps]

They are working on some DAM-Software that allegedly can replace Lightroom.

That's good news. Still, for it to be interesting to me it would need to automatically and accurately translate all of the non-destructive edits I've made in LR for each of the photos in my large photo library.

 

[ruka.snow]

Until Capture One can automatically translate all of the non-destructive edits I've made over the years since LR came out, on 100,000+ images, it's sadly a non-starter for me. I'm fine with LR RAW processing, and because I've edited so many photos with LR, it's pretty much muscle memory getting to where I want to go.

I don't think any app could possibly do that and it doesn't fit the workflow that photographers seem to follow. I do keep a lot of my RAW's, but I have delivered JPG's and they no longer live in Lightroom or Capture One. I certainly didn't want to transition my previous edits over. If you are dropping Lightroom for anything, you'll have to bite the bullet or keep on moving forward. I've done this from Aperture to Lightroom, then from Lightroom to Capture One. Each time over about 6 weeks so it was a smooth transition with plenty of overlap so not to be caught with my pants down.

 

[EdT]

Wow, that was fast. Bravo!

I was wondering if they would have an AS version. I guess so. I use this app quite a bit, although I wouldn’t call myself an expert. I spend too much time re-learning things because I’m away from it for a few months.

 

[Nozuka]

Would have been interesting to hear, how fast it ran before the optimization

But 3x faster is crazy. Might be the biggest performance jump on Macbooks ever. And the price didn't change at all.

 

[guzhogi]

Kind of curious to see what Pixelmator will do. According to their website, PixelMator Pro 2.0 is "coming soon"

 

[Freeangel1]

how do they know it runs 3 times faster on new hardware?

The new M1 Macs just got released to the public yesterday for pre order.

Did they get their hands on a new M1 Mac before any of us?

Something fishy here. I want to see the lab test results bashing Intel and AMD chips.

 

[deckard666]

how do they know it runs 3 times faster on new hardware?

The new M1 Macs just got released to the public yesterday for pre order.

Did they get their hands on a new M1 Mac before any of us?

Something fishy here. I want to see the lab test results bashing Intel and AMD chips.

ummm..yeah I would imagine so as half the Youtube creators did.....

 

[incoherent_1]

They are a shining example of what third party developers can be. Killer products at fair prices with no bs. Wish them only the best success.

 

[leman]

Did they get their hands on a new M1 Mac before any of us?

Most likely they did. Like a bunch of other people like Panic or Larian.