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With the explosion of digital cameras and the ubiquitous presence of camera-equipped smartphones, the need for photo-retouching software has also increased.
Nowadays more and more people spend hours retouching their own pictures, a "privilege" once reserved only for professional photographers and the more enthusiast hobbyists.
Everyone on this planet has at least once heard about Adobe Photoshop, probably the most famous piece of software of this kind. So famous that "to photoshop" has become a very much used synonym for "to post-process pictures".
Photoshop is also expensive, and even too powerful for the average (non-professional) user, who might easily be intimidated by the quantity of tools and options this program offers. That's why there is a lot room in the market for more user-friendly alternatives, like Serif's Affinity Photo, which has now reached v1.7 and is available for Windows, Mac and iPad.
Affinity Photo aims to represent a new solution to image editing for professional photographers, photo retouchers and even conceptual artists.
Serif's goal when designing Affinity Photo was to create a powerful software that could offer speed and performance alongside an intuitive interface.
Did they succeed?
The first thing that can be noticed after launching Affinity Photo is that the interface has a familiar look. This is because the vertical left toolbar, and the right column of panels strikes more than a resemblance to Adobe Photoshop. This is not a criticism, on the contrary: a familiar workspace makes it easier to work with a new software and makes transitioning less scary and time consuming.
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| The familiar look of Affinity Photo's interface |
What's really innovative of Affinity Photo's interface is what Serif called "Personas". Basically, Personas are different tool sets that cover different design needs: they are called Photo, Liquify, Develop, HDR and Export. As you have probably already imagined by their names, every Persona has a different goal, which is made easier to achieve by Affinity Photo's behavior: when switching to a different Persona, the toolbars change and only offer the buttons, the tools and the options needed for this task.
This makes the interface much easier to navigate, and finding the right tool becomes a quick job.
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| The Personas toolbar |
Obviuosly the Photo Persona is the one you are going to spend most of your time in. It offers all the usual set of tools to let you edit your pictures the way you want. Selection tools, cropping tools, paint brushes, clone brushes, color fill tools, blurring/sharpening/smudging tools, erasers, healing brushes with different options that makes things easier. They are not (yet?) at the same level of Photoshop's content aware healing tools, but they really do a great job once you get used to them.
The Develop Persona is particularly powerful as it's intended as a special "studio" dedicated to the processing of RAW files, where parameters like Exposure, Sharpening and White Balance can be edited directly on the RAW file (which means no degradation of the picture) and different tools like Lens Corrections, Chromatic Aberrations, Noise Reduction and others can be applied to the original picture.
The effects on the pictures are applied immediately, in a non-destructive way, so that it's always possible to fine-tune all the values changed.
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| The Develop "Persona" |
The HDR Persona offers all the tools to merge different exposures into an HDR picture (even RAW files directly!), as well as the ability to extract more details from a shot by tone-mapping a single exposure. It also supplies a few presets, that can be applied as a starting point for additional editing, making the job easier and quicker.
The full end-to-end 32-bit workflow allow working on HDR images, renders, textures or exports from 3D software, which, coupled with its support for HDR/EDR monitors, makes Affinity Photo a great option for those that enjoy working on HDR files.
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| The HDR Persona with its presets on the left |
On a more technical level, Affinity Photo offers a few interesting features. For example it's optimized for Direct3D and 64-bit engines, thus taking advantage of high-end video cards. It also has the ability to create/edit gigapixel-sized documents, along with the support for tablets (offering multi-touch) and Surface Studio (Surface Pen and Surface Dial are both supported).
Most plugins for Adobe Photoshop can be used in Affinity Photo, too. We have tried a few of the most popular ones (from Google's Nik Collection to NeatImage and PerfectlyClear) and they all worked flawlessly. And the compatibility with Photoshop does not end here: Affinity Photo can handle both PSD and PSB files, as well as Photshop Brushes
Affinity Photo includes also a tool for creating panoramas by stitching multiple shots together. We have no idea why they did not dedicate a "persona" to this, but it's not important. What's important is that the final result is almost perfect: in our tries the stitching jobs have always been impeccable with moving objects/people automatically removed from the resulting panorama.
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| The tools for stitching Panoramas |
Of course it would be impossible to list and describe in detail all the features, options and tools that such a complete piece of software offers, so trust us on this one: Affinity Photo is a very well-done photo editing software, which is suitable for everyone: beginners will find a very good, easy to use and not overwhelmingly scary tool to start their adventure in image post-processing; enthusiasts will find themselves comfortable with a program that offers everything they need, with a familiar interface that allows them to find the things they need without effort; and professionals will find a feature-packed software that can definitely compete with its most acclaimed rivals.
With a HUGE difference: there are no subscription fees involved. Affinity Photo currently costs EUR 54,99/$49,99 for the Windows/Mac versions, and EUR 21.99/USD 19.99 for the iPad version, and it's yours to keep. FOREVER. In our opinion, it's a steal.
Go get your copy here (free trial versions available)
[Many thanks to Serif for providing a free license key of Affinity Photo for us to review]
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