It’s called Affinity Photo and its beta version has just been released (and you can test it for free, if you own a MAC!). The Promo Video at Vimeo looks definitely promising. Is this the real alternative to the Adobe’s Creative Cloud?
For now, the X-series RAF’s supported are (according to the Affinity Forum): Fuji X-Pro1, Fuji X-S1, Fuji X100, Fuji X100S, Fuji X10, Fuji X20, Fuji X-E1 and Fuji XF1
The question for Fuji X-shooters is: how does it handle the X-Trans files? So, if you own a Mac, just download it for free and let us know what you think about.
POSTED EARLIER TODAY: New Fuji roadmap, First image of the XF 35mmF2 WR lens, XF16mmF1.4 + 90mmF2 WR lens will be weather sealed too.
via petapixel via creativebloq.
33 Responses
Downloaded yesterday and played a bit. It works with every jpeg image, so also with the X-T1 files (this is what I tested). I’ve to say that at first sight is way faster and smoother then photoshop/element. I’d like to see how it manages raw files, but the X-T1 is not yet supported….
Of course it handles jpgs….its RAW that people want to know about.
Odd that they support X-Trans but not X-Trans II. Seems the difference would be negligible.
they support the X100S… so also X-Trans II. This makes me confident that it’s just a matter of time for the X-E2, X100T and X-T1 to be supported too
Especially since X-Trans support is there from this early phase in development!
Thanks for the info, am trying the beta now.
I’ll be delighted if it breaks the Adobe stranglehold… Adobe CC ransom payments no more!
“Affinity Photo” developed by the company named Serif? Seriously? I think they have a job opportunity in SEO department.
Google has no trouble differentiating this company (serif) from the font, just add “photo” to your search term. There is no SEO, it’s all bullshit. Google will find your content.
Sapienti sat, but you’re forgetting about idiots. Most people use search engines, let me put it to you this way, unwisely.
Will this be Mac only?
it support i.E. X-Pro1, X-E1, X100/100s, X10/20, but not E2 or T1 now -> https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/4630-supported-develop-raw-cameras/
The beta is pretty good. If the quirks from this testing is fixed then I won’t be renewing my CC subscription. This software has actually very good. Doesn’t support X-T1 RAW files, but have X-Trans sensor support. So that IS VERY good. You should try the lightning filter on a cityscape, actually made my photo feel as it was taken in 3D. Some interesting algorithm there.
Downloaded beta, tested on some quirky X100s files (ISO 3200, lots of dynamic range and weird color casts; there’s no point in testing at ISO 200)…
Thanks but no. Even Adobe’s first generation of X-Trans rendering did a better job.
Dude, it’s a beta! What do you expect?
Smells like alpha actually. But hey, the more the merrier 🙂
It’s an actual public beta, and one for a version 1 product. What we are used to from Adobe aren’t really betas, they are essentially release candidate builds with a few features disabled (technically, a beta is supposed to be feature complete). I forgot where I saw it, but one of the Affinity developers commented somewhere that during the beta phase they are aiming to release a new build every week, so it’s probably going to get better very quickly.
Some things are already better than in Photoshop (three-click frequency separation, proper bicubic warp tool with arbitrary divisions, new stops in the gradient map adjustment editor actually inherit the color at that point, and in my first tests their healing brush gives me a lot less of the dreaded bleeding compared to Adobe’s). It already is a very nice piece of software, and if their Designer app is an indication, the release version will be pretty robust and stable.
And let’s consider for a second that these guys are essentially catching up on Adobe’s 25 year development headstart, not to mention the resources Adobe have at their disposal. I’d say what they have done is pretty impressive. For a pre-version 1, it is an incredibly fully featured image editor. There hasn’t been anything this close to a real Photoshop competitor since Macromedia xRes.
That being said, their raw converter definitely still needs a LOT of work to be useful in practice. In the current state, even ACR/Lightroom gives better results, and that’s definitely not a compliment. There is a warning message though that the raw conversion module is experimental, so I assume they are going to do some more work on that.
Of course most people will use Capture One or Lightroom for raw conversion anyway and just send TIFs to Affinity, just like they do with Photoshop most of the time. We’ll see.
I can only wish ’em best of luck.
Oh, and one more thing… Keyboard shortcuts. They should clone them as much as possible from Adobe, especially when it comes to the tool selection. At least if they really want us to switch.
And we need a Windows / Linux version.
nope
I’ve just briefly tried it on a Bayer A7r file and found the speed to be a tremendous boon to a simple workflow. A few tools were impressive. Mostly, the quick erase and stamp tools were very good. But mostly, speed is improved many times over Adobe CS6.
This seems to be a pretty exciting app but I will take your word for it re: X-Trans files.
Very impressive. Looks like a fine Photoshop alternative (potentially, a great one! Congrats!), but I didn’t see any cataloging function like Lightroom or our dear, departed Aperture. It’s great if it handles Fuji RAW files well (better than Irrident?), but I need an LR/Aperture alternative. I want the RAW file converter built into that part of the workflow… Running everything through Photoshop or an alternative would be a step backward.
looks cool in the video… cost is going to be a thing.
Tried it, and deleted it about an hour later. Frequency Separation is cool, the clarity slider is very Lightroom, but after a short while it just started to max out the cpu. I killed it and started it again and after 20 mins more again it would get into a loop doing something in one of its threads. It’s hardly a photoshop though, it’s hardly Elements. I think it’s an insane idea to try and copy one of the most solid and successful software products of all time. We already have photoshop and don’t need a clone. We have Gimp for those that can’t afford $10/month. Affinity Photo used to be something else I tried, PhotoX I think it was called.
The only software I use besides Photoshop is Snapseed. Nik had some original ideas and the simple UI is very powerful for straightforward things. You can’t do anything remotely complicated but I am no fan of overly processed images anyway. In general, most people do far too much photoshop, and are no where nearly as good at it as they think. OOC Raw, converted with some basic WB, contrast curve adjustments, lens profile corrections and that’s it. The occasional boost to local area contrast can help some images, but a good camera, great lenses and trade craft contribute much more usefully to photography than spending hours in front of Photoshop.
The biggest thing I saw in Affinity was the frequency separation feature, which while not new and totally something you can do in ps will the right skills, is much easier to do in Affinity.
I think they should stop trying to be like Photoshop and focus instead on a core set of great features done really well with simple intuitive ui. Their content heal is pretty good, the denoise needs work – it’s need to be able to analyze the image, but noise isn’t really much of a probably anymore anyway. I don’t see noise in shadows often much on the current crop of amazing cameras. Affinity lacks currently the lens profile correction feature.
But will manufacturers write plugins for this, I doubt it, If you use Exposure, Nik etc then those are lock-ins to ps.
Gimp doesn’t even have adjustment layers or CMYK, and you make back the cost of a Photoshop subscription by a multiple compared to using GIMP just through the time you save by being more efficient in the software. Something like PhotoLine or PaintShop Pro would be a much more realistic budget alternative.
Affinity Photo already seems to support Photoshop plugins, they have a compatibility list in their forum. I don’t use any in Photoshop, so I haven’t tried it yet. But it’s hardly a unique feature, even GIMP has rudimentary support for Photoshop plugins as far as I know,
No Mac, no Windows, but Linux, so sticking with Aftershot Pro 😉
Same boat here, have a look at Darktable, Rawtherapee or LightZone if you have not already ….
It seems they plan to bring out the complete suite for Mac this year first (Designer/Photo/Publisher) and then they have versions for iPad and for Windows in the pipeline.
Tried it last night for a bit, and so far so good. I’m a graphic designer and Photoshop is hard wired in my brain, as well as Illustrator and In Design. If they release a full suite for around 150$ I’m likely to jump the gun for my freelance work. 75$ a month for CC is a steep price for contracts on the side. I’ll keep using the beta and see just how far it can go, I didn’t encounter any issues as of yet, and the learning curve is not too bad.
You could always try Photo Mechanic. A lot of people use that as their cataloger/DAM and use the editor of their choice.
I certainly have tried and liked Photo Mechanic, but, no thanks, did that workflow for a decade (w/Bridge). I want cataloging and the highest-quality RAW conversion/development in the same package. I’m not putting this product down for not being that. I think it’s fantastic that someone has made another product with CMYK and 16bit editing for folks in the professional media world.
For those offended by what cameras it supports, I’m suspecting it’s using OSX’s built in raw demosaicing, and thus supports the cameras that OSX supports.
So far so good! I’ve tried it with a couple of the Topaz plug-ins and it works fine. The content aware stuff seems to work well as does the “magic” selection brush. The Adjustment layers are very Lightroomy and the masks work differently than Photoshop. But overall I like this better than Pixelmator.
I just downloaded the mac editor, its really amazing, i never seen such a closed feature rich editor tool as compared to photoshop, Photoshop have long history of 25 year, but still affinity is giving tought, Don’t know what will happned to photoshop, Because i never seen any competitor to them and this month only they got 2 competitor one for browser based Photoshop Online Free editor known as toolpic and now mac editor known as affinity .