Affinity Photo vs Photoshop, which one is better? Which one should you use for editing your photo? To answer the question, today we will present you a head to head comparison.

1. Affinity Photo Software
2. Is Affinity Photo Worth It
3. Cost Of Affinity Photos
4. Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer helps professional designers create vector graphics, illustrations, and projects with accuracy. It offers them the ability to zoom over 1,000,000%. This is very useful especially when they work on artboards that have a lot of detail.

Though both are professional photo editing software, there are pros and cons to them. Before going to the discussion, let’s know some history about Photo editing.

Before the invention of technologies, photo editing was the work of hands. People edited photos by cutting photos and adding inks. Abraham Lincoln’s photo was the first hand edited photo in 1860.

1. Affinity Designer pricing starts at $24.21 per feature, as a one-time payment. They do not have a free version. Affinity Designer does not offer a free trial. See additional pricing details below.
2. Affinity Photo is available in Mac App Store, Microsoft Store as well as on the official Affinity website. One-time Affinity price is $49.99. There is also a simplified version for iPad for $19.99.

After the great invention of computer technology, photo editing became more easy. Since 1980, the software Adobe Photoshop has been leading the photo editing world. But with the advancement of technology, there are more new software coming. And Affinity Photo is the most similar software nowadays. But in the race of photo editing, how much ability it gains compare to Photoshop? We will see that in the head to head comparison.

Affinity Photo Software

There are also other alternatives for photo editing software. We sorted out 15 best free drawing software here for you. You can check one of them and use to create your amazing arts.

What is Affinity Photo?

Affinity Photo is a raster-based photo editor. It is qualitative image editor software and deserves the designer’s attention. To create a professional graphics tool, Serif designed this great software. With the Affinity Photo, they have entered in the photo editing industry. Affinity Photo also offers a publication tool.

The modular interface of Affinity Photo consists of five sections. To access basic image editing tools, it has the Photo Persona section. You can apply wrap effects with the Liquify Persona to correct distorted photos. And the rest is Tone Mapping Persona, Develop Persona, and Export Persona. You can export images in Raw, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, etc. formats with the Export persona.

What is Photoshop?

Photoshop is a popular and leading photo editing software. It is for both beginners and professionals. Photoshop has a complex interface but a huge number of tools for advanced image editing. Adobe system first launched Photoshop in 1980 at the beginning of technological advancement.

With lots of upgrades, Photoshop reached to a great position. Now we all think photo editing means Photoshop. It offers many handy plugins, textures, fonts, brushes, etc.

Professionals can take the benefits of custom layers and masks in Photoshop. It is the giant place for image editing. There is no limitation when you edit in Photoshop. The only limitation may be your imagination.

Download Adobe Photoshop CC from here and start designing.

The Key Differences Between Affinity Photo vs Photoshop

Affinity Photo and Photoshop are both for professional graphic design. But which one is the most powerful software? We will decide after comparing their features and other affordability. So, we will see some major differences in this Affinity Photo vs Photoshop comparison.

Affinity Photo vs Photoshop: Features

Let’s compare all the important features of Affinity Photo and Photoshop to see who wins.

Affinity Photo Features

• Affinity Photo offers an attractively designed user-interface, which is easier than Photoshop.

• It has no subscription charge and provides a free trial version. But you have to buy the original software with an expensive and single payment.

• The toolset in Affinity Photo is more fast and efficient. But not for all the advance editing.

• It also offers powerful live tools and real-time editing.

• It has a full set of 16-bit filters and can undo or redo 8000 history steps while editing.

• You will have access to advance layer control and it has limitless layers.

Photoshop Features

• Photoshop has a limitless ability for photo editing. You can extend its functionality with add-on programs or plugins.

• The pen tool in Photoshop provides precise paths for selecting objects.

• You can fix any defects and curves with the Photoshop stamp tool. It also allows you to duplicate or remove objects from the photo.

• The cropping and slicing tools are more advance in Photoshop.

• With five different spot healing brush tool, you can fix any spot from the photo.

• There are also enough selection tools in Photoshop. Marquee tool, lasso tool, magnetic lasso tool, etc. are the most effective for selection.

• Other great features of Photoshop are that you can edit video with it. Though Adobe has a more advanced video editing tool, you can edit a video with Photoshop.

• You can design 3D illustrations and paintings in Photoshop.

• Photoshop also provides 360 panorama workflow and Adobe Camera Raw enhancements.

In this Affinity Photo vs Photoshop head to head comparison, Photoshop is the best.

Affinity Photo vs Photoshop: Platform

Affinity Photo works on Windows, macOS, and IOS platforms. But Photoshop works only Windows and macOS.

Affinity Photo vs Photoshop: User Community

Beginners, business, professionals, and freelancers all can perform their work with both software. But in Photoshop, designers have more editing access than Affinity Photo. In Photoshop, you can design anything you imagine. There are no limits to editing in Photoshop.

But, Affinity Photo has various limitations while editing. But it is more user-friendly than Photoshop.

Affinity Photo vs Photoshop: Cost

Photoshop Cost

Adobe Photoshop has three different pricing plans. You can choose one from them. Photoshop offers a monthly plan at $31.49, an annual plan but monthly paid at $20.99, and an annual prepaid plan at $239.88. So, Photoshop requires subscription monthly or yearly.

But Photoshop also includes some extra advantages to these plans. Each one of them offers you access to the latest features and updates. It will also provide 100GB of cloud storage and other features. So now it’s up to you which plan would be the best fit for you.

Affinity Photo Cost

Affinity photo offers only one-time payment for windows and Mac at $49.99. But it will cost you only $19.99 IPad version. You can also use a free trial version for Windows and Mac before purchasing.

Affinity Photo vs Photoshop: The Winner

Now the question which one is the winner in this Affinity Photo vs Photoshop head to head battle? It became difficult to select the ultimate winner. But we should see the top winner is Photoshop.

Affinity Photo also is a close competitor to Photoshop. But Photoshop wins with its unlimited features and editing capabilities. But remember, everything depends on your needs.

Conclusion

In Affinity Photo vs Photoshop, both are professional tool. They perform well. It is good for us that we have such two precious photo editing tools in the digital era. If they compete with each other, we can have a better user experience soon. The future comparison may change if Affinity upgrades its feature. But in terms of price, Affinity already one step ahead in this Affinity Photo vs Photoshop.

Is Affinity Photo Worth It

A raster-based graphics software is a computer program that allows us to make and edit photos. It also allows us to save them in many raster graphics file formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF.

The graphic design software that is open source and free to the users is the free drawing software. The best free drawing software is Krita, My paint, Gimp, etc.

Adobe Camera Raw lets you import and enhance raw images. Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, After Effects, and Bridge supports Adobe Camera Raw.

What you can read next

Affinity Photo is a competitive photo editing app that raises questions whether it can challenge Photoshop’s dominance. How does Affinity Photo work? Continue reading to find out.

Editor’s Note

Affinity Photo is one of the aspiring photo editing apps, offering plenty of features to accommodate both entry level and professional users. The program is smooth, yet it costs less than Adobe’s photo editing program. With users presented with an opportunity to tune their images using simplified processes to accomplish tasks that require advanced editing technique like HDR, the software surely deserves your time with its free trial.

Affinity Photo ranks high among the small brands that put a strong game to give the giant Adobe Photoshop a run for its money. The software has the potential of giving Adobe sleepless nights, thanks to its latest update Affinity Photo 1.8.

Pro Tip: Scan your PC for performance issues, junk files, harmful apps, and security threats
that can cause system issues or slow performance.

Special offer. About Outbyte, uninstall instructions, EULA, Privacy Policy.

There is no doubt that Affinity Photo ranks high in our books. The app is unique in appearance and allows the processing of raw image files before editing, merging, as well as manipulating them to your liking. What makes the program more intriguing is the list of features planted in it. The functions attached to the program are essential and sufficient for professional-level editing tasks. Moreover, the software is packed with amazing features such as Live Filters that let the user utilize filters non-destructively.

One thing you will notice that distinguishes the program from its dominating competitor Photoshop, is its low, fixed price for a perpetual license. Affinity Photo requires users to make a one-off payment and enjoy the software for many years without incurring more costs. This approach is more than welcome, especially to professional photographers who are not fond of Adobe’s subscription model. The app is compatible with the Windows platform, Mac, and iPad. For Android device users, check out these best photo editing apps.

Affinity Photo Essential Features

With Affinity Photo only half a decade old, its updates bring a fresh breath to the forever improving platform, speeding up processes, as well as providing new functionality accompanied by fixes. Ever since its launch, the software has gone on to become a house brand delivering enhanced tools and features to make life easier for professional photographers. The platform also plays well with other foreign kids by managing to integrate smoothly with third-party file types, as well as plug-ins.

As a photographer who values time, you will be pleased to learn about the easy layout of tools that promote productivity. In addition, it has excellent features, such as end-to-end Metal compute, that allow users to get the most out of their Mac’s discreet GPU. This feature promotes accelerated processes, and Windows platform fanatics should expect this upgrade in the near future. The latest update of the software is more concerned with the compatibility, as well as enhanced functionality. Thus, users that have been with this software can attest on how fluent and flexible the platform has become. The major upgrade that enabled the program to support HDR / EDR monitor worked as a game-changer.

Key Features

• Digital lens corrections
• A cost-effective perpetual license
• Edit Smart Objects
• Enhanced manual control
• Compatibility with many file types

Affinity Photo is a software that continues to address what professionals require. With its latest update, users can now manually apply lens corrections; a move implemented by the brand to enhance quality results. The metadata section also offers a much-improved interface with all thanks pointed towards Affinity Photo’s latest update. This improvement allows users to add copyright data, tags, as well as descriptions. The program also supports the latest Canon CR3 raw files which displace CR2 raw file formats.

Affinity Photo also supports editing of PSDs containing Smart Objects Layers, which comes as a great feature to those willing to import various file types. The program does not support the use of Smart Objects, but that’s due to its capability of lossless Layer resizing. However, an introduction of Smart Objects will be a welcome move, especially to those working parallel with Photoshop.

The new document dialogue, which breathes out a fresh look packed with a great number of pre-sets, is also amazing. The dialogue is complemented by thumbnail previews, as well as the ability to make your own. However, the major issue in this area is that the dialogue fails to offer a clipboard document option to drop into when the user makes a screen grab.

Affinity Photo Handling and Interface

Affinity Photo interface is unique and provides various features that have proven useful. The interface is split into Personas; work spaces created to enable the user to execute certain tasks. These work spaces are self-explanatory, featuring titles such as Photo Persona, Liquify Persona, Develop Persona, Tone Mapping Persona, as well as the Export Persona. Personas are automatically selected in most cases, based on the type of file you opened.

The interface is excellently set up with all necessary tools placed where you expect them to be. If you’re an experienced photo editor, then it will take you less than 10 minutes to get fully acquainted with the layout. The Develop Persona works as a default workspace, featuring all editing tools to process a raw image. Multiple raw files are launched in various tabs, making it easy to switch between files.

How is the Quality of Results?

Photos that are processed raw tend to have milder results, making it necessary to sharpen utilizing the Unsharp Mask. While other programs such as ACR and Lightroom automatically apply the sharpening, Affinity Photo offers this process manually. This is ideal to photo editors who prefer putting their imagination to practice.

With everything put into consideration, the image quality that can be achieved using Affinity Photo is impressive. You can achieve even high-quality results by applying either basic or advanced editing skills.

Pros and Cons of Affinity Photo

Pros

• Cost-effective pricing format
• Less-intrusive Live Filters
• Feature-rich software similar to Photoshop

Cons

• Quirks when saving or exporting files
• Image catalogue is not available

Cost Of Affinity Photos

Affinity Photo Review

Affinity Photo software is a strong competitor to Adobe’s Photoshop despite lagging behind in terms of clientele base size. Even though Photoshop takes the cake in providing better overall performance, Affinity Photo’s low-cost price provides great value for money. Most of the features presented in this platform are quite similar to Photoshop, making it a better alternative instead of Adobe’s dominating software.

Affinity Designer