Back in February, we talked about the Affinity Photo Beta in this post. Well, now the final version has just been released (for MAC only – subscription free). It supports all Fujfilm Cameras, but not yet the X-T10. The Full list of supported cameras can be checked out here. The Full list of features can be seen here.
For the launch, they decided to offer a 2-week promo, bringing the price down to US$39.99 / €39.99 / £29.99 (usual price US$49.99 / €49.99 / £39.99). You can download it at the Mac App Store.
Is this the subscription free alternative to Photoshop? And how good is the X-Trans conversion?
Let us know in the comments
9 Responses
No windows version…no sale.
Apparently they are planning on finishing their layout software first with a release planned early next year and then they are going to work on versions for iOS/iPad (with all the features of the desktop version!) and Windows. There have also been hints at a possible Android version.
In their forums they also said they are seriously looking into building a media management software similar to Lightroom or Aperture in the future.
I have been using beta now for many months. One thing I appreciate is how fast basic erase brushes are. I have no idea how it processes X-Trans, but I’ve been fancying purchasing it when it came to market officially.
This may be it.
If it stays on the App Store unlike Lightroom and can either be upgraded, or perpetual, I’m down.
They are really doing it Apps Store-style so far, i.e. buy once and get free updates. Affinity Designer, their Illustrator competitor, already got new features twice or so since its introduction.
From what I read between the lines in their forum replies, they have no interest in selling it outside the official stores of the respective platforms, i.e. the Windows version will probably also be sold through Microsoft’s App Store thing, whatever it is called.
Which would kind of suck since it would mean we’d be where we used to be with Adobe where you could only use the software on a single platform and had to buy it twice if you wanted to use both Mac and Windows.
It hope it isn’t hearsay but I _heard_, too, that they are working on a DAM project. I’ve been a faithful LR user since V3, buying loads of plugins and everything. But it’s too problematic using LR today and keeping my credit records with Adobe…
Not that I should trust Apple App Store, but it does make it easier to track down inconsistencies in my banking statements.
Here’s what Affinity says in the email for the Photo release: “As you may know, we don’t do subscriptions—once you buy Affinity Photo it’s yours forever. PLUS we will continue working round the clock to bring you improvements and new features FOR FREE for at least the next couple of years.”
As to the DAM project, I haven’t heard of such a thing. You can check their blog post here, the next app will probably be Publisher, an alternative for Indesign:
https://affinity.serif.com/blog/welcome-to-affinity/
I wouldn’t hold my breath for a DAM for the time being, but there are plenty available nowadays.
Buy a Mac.
Gonna give this a try, if it handles X-Trans as well as Iridient and does everything else well, I’m sold. Adobe CC LR/PS is expensive, and very unstable (my LR crashes constantly now, whereas on 5.7 it was stable). That and their disregard for X-Trans users has given me a sense of humour failure. IMO they don’t deserve premium prices any more, as they are no longer producing the cutting edge product.
Just bought it today. The only complain I have is the lack of HDR/panorama stitching. On their website it seems there’s a few ‘feature request’ posts asking for this feature but it seems like th developers are not putting it on their top priority due to other more urging functions in development. Is there any HDR/panorama alternatives I can use for free? Despite the looooong processing time on Lightroom they seem to do an alright job when I was using their free trial on my MacBook Air (2012)