Affinity Photo vs Photoshop 2020
After using a Serif’s program for a month, I decided that this program was good enough to write Affinity Photo vs Photoshop comparison. At first, it seemed impossible to create the software that may compete with the famous Photoshop. Especially when it comes to professional purposes.
However, the British company Serif decided to enter the market of graphic editors for Mac and compete with Ps 2020.
Several years ago they presented Affinity Photo. Over the years of updating, it was called a “Photoshop killer”. Without doubts, it won’t remove Ps from the market but Affinity has already attracted a certain niche of users.
What Is Affinity Photo?
Serif is not a beginner in the software industry offering many decent applications such as Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Affinity Photo is a qualitative desktop image editor that definitely deserves users’ attention. Serif aimed to create a line of professional graphics editing tools and Affinity Photo is their first step to the goal.Affinity Photo is a RAW editing platform featuring many useful options. The program itself includes 5 “personas” that will help you improve various parameters of your images:
- Photo Persona ‒ offers image editing changes similar to those Photoshop has
- Liquify Persona – you may distort the pics applying warping effects
- Tone Mapping Persona ‒ manipulations with the tone and color
- Export Persona ‒ the dedication mode that allows exporting your pictures in various formats
- Develop ‒ used for image exporting
Speaking about the Affinity Photo functionality, users get enough professional tools for image retouching and artistic photo correction, graphics design and drawing.
- Read my Complete Affinity Photo Review.
The most popular tools are also available: the Healing Brush, Layer Mix, Filter Library, Dynamic Lighting Effects, and more. In general, when it comes to Affinity Photo vs Photoshop competition, it is quite difficult to name the absolute leader.
Affinity Photo: Strengths and Weaknesses
Adjustable workspace. If you are not satisfied with the standard theme and feel like changing it, you may easily customize the interface according to your taste. Users can also adjust the toolbars. Moreover, Affinity Photo offers quite a lot of shortcuts. Go to the View > Customize Tools to create your own toolbar. You may even choose the number of columns and copy the Photoshop Tool in Affinity Photo. If you got used to Ps workspace, you may create an almost identical one in Affinity Photo.
PSD support. You may also import or edit Photoshop files and export anything you need. All the effects, layers, and adjustments are thoroughly controlled so you shouldn’t worry about the integrity of the image.
The design and edits are not disrupted if the picture is opened in various applications. It simplifies the work with files and eliminates many problems with platforms and versions. Moreover, all files will successfully work no matter what device or OS you use.
One-time payment. You pay once and forget about monthly fees like with Adobe programs. The price is also attractive being equal to 5 months of the cheapest Ps subscription.
Decent speed with JPG and PNG files. Here, we can speak about one of the most important advantages that adds points to Affinity. In fact, the program works faster and if this benefit wasn’t so obvious in early beta-versions, the final one differs impressively.
Local adjustment tool is more user-friendly. The overlays tab is very similar to the local adjustment tool in Adobe software. However, if you want to adjust some areas in the image, you don’t paint this particular part ‒ you create a new layer and apply adjustments.
In such a way, you get more freedom and flexibility. Affinity Photo offers a brush overlay and a gradient overlay. So, you may change the basic settings, brush or drag a gradient over the editing area after you have created a new overlay layer.
Easy switch from Desktop to iPad. This feature will be particularly interesting for those, who work on several devices. If you prefer using Affinity Photo on iPad, you may work with native formats.
In case you switch from iPad to Desktop regularly, this feature will please you a lot. If we compare Affinity vs Photoshop, we clearly see that a mobile Photoshop version is weaker in functionality than an Affinity one.
No file management system. Although Affinity Photo offers faster performance when it comes to a large number of images, it doesn’t have a convenient image cataloging like the one Photoshop offers. The whole system of image editing is copied from Ps and it isn’t perfect there.
- Read my comparison between Affinity Photo vs Lightroom.
Poor speed when working with RAW files. Affinity Photo vs Photoshop leaves much to be desired in terms of responsiveness. When editing RAW files, Photoshop was faster. For example, in Affinity, it took longer to apply an effect.
Besides, export speed wasn’t the best one. Frankly speaking, it drove me crazy. Perhaps, I did something wrong or there were too many programs working simultaneously ‒ I don’t know what the reason was. You may still visit Affinity forums and see whether it is a common problem.
What Is Photoshop?
It seems to me that everyone engaged in image editing have heard of Photoshop. It is an image editing program offering different options for raster and vector content processing. Initially, it was created for Windows and macOS users.However, since then, Adobe developers have been constantly extending the program with different features. It is a popular photo editing software for beginners and professional photographers, designers, graphic artists, creative specialists, developers, etc.
To simplify the process of image editing, Photoshop 2020 provides different actions that facilitate the workflow. Moreover, if you work on various computers, you can take advantage of Photoshop CC, also known as Creative Cloud.
Photoshop is often referred to as a pioneer in the image editing industry. Today, the name of the program is often used as a verb. If you are engaged in picture editing sphere, you may often hear that the image was “photoshopped”, “shopped”, or something like that. Moreover, in this context “shopped” means that the image was edited no matter what program was used.
It is generally believed that everything is possible with Ps and in 90% of cases, it is really so ‒ you may find tools for various tasks in the software. Starting from cropping and basic color correction and ending with complicated artistic changes and full restoration of images.
Over the years of improvement, Adobe, indeed, has the right to name Photoshop the best photo editing software for PC of all time.
Photoshop: Strengths and Weaknesses
Lots of useful tools. Photoshop offers tools that are suitable for mobile and web design. You shouldn’t look for special software for design since you may do it in Ps. You will get decent results thanks to all the features and instruments available.
Perfect for photo correction and image manipulation. If you have some problems with exposure or want to overlay one image on top of another, of course, you may do it with Photoshop and there are no limits to your imagination.
You may even remove some colors and create original visual effects in several mouse clicks if you have such creative thoughts.
Layers. Images are created and changed with multiple overlays that support a layer-based editing system. You can also treat layers as masks or filters to tweak underlying colors. It is possible to add shadow and other effects to the layers.
The integrated stock library. Forget about long hours trying to find some free stock images! Photoshop provides a fully integrated Adobe stock library that will come in handy while creating images or videos.
Moreover, the libraries are synchronized through Photoshop so you can instantly switch from task to task without wasting your working time. This is surely a serious point in favor of Adobe product in Photoshop vs Affinity battle.
A great number of tutorials and plug-ins. Over 30 years of Photoshop existence, the program has millions of fans sharing their knowledge and experience. They created a great amount of training content. Now, you may find a tutorial on anything you like to do in Photoshop.
Video editing features. If you use Ps, you may edit not only photos but videos as well. It is often called a content-aware program allowing you to move and patch very fast.
Confusing interface. Due to constant updates and introduction of Creative Cloud, even experienced Ps users sometimes face difficulties mastering new features. So, if you are serious about using Photoshop and ready to make some efforts to hone your skills and experiment with new effects, you will achieve fantastic results with this software.
Released updates require a bit of improvement. Adobe developers don’t release a new Photoshop version every year but constantly introduce new updates. That is why unexpected bugs and lags may spoil the photo editing process sometimes.
Although they are not crucial ones and Adobe Support Team easily solves any problems, you may get into trouble if you are currently trying to meet the strict deadline.
Expensive. Although the price is not the highest one, but when you realize that you have to pay a monthly fee till the end of your life, you just can’t buy start calculating how much you will have to pay.
Affinity Photo vs Photoshop Price
Affinity Photo is an absolute favorite in terms of the price. As a rule, Adobe Photography plan costs approximately $10 a month. You are bound to pay the sum for a year, while the cancellation is possible on early termination of the plan.
- Photography Plan (20GB Cloud Storage + Photoshop on iPad + Lightroom CC) - $9.99/month
- Photoshop CC Plan (Photoshop on iPad, 100GB Cloud Storage, Adobe Fresco and etc.) - $20.99/month
- Affinity Photo - $49.99/month
Affinity Photo requires a singular payment ‒ $49.99. So, don’t worry about regular fees, hidden costs and yearly subscriptions.
If we compare Photoshop vs Affinity, we can see that a five-month fee for Photoshop is equal to a lifetime cost of Affinity.
Affinity Photo vs Photoshop – Who Wins?
So, is Affinity Photo better than Photoshop? Actually, everything depends on your needs and requirements.
Speaking about Photoshop, the price corresponds to the quality. But mind that if you want to use its potential to the fullest extent possible, you should improve your design and image editing skills. If you don’t plan to get engaged in professional photo processing, this tool is not for you.
If you are interested in fancy editing features and mobility, Affinity Photo is your variant. In general, I believe that Affinity Photo is great software and may be easily called the best Photoshop alternative.
Bonus Freebies
For today, Affinity Photo has alternatives to ready-made actions ‒ macros, but users don’t feel like sharing them while free ones are not available at all. At this time, Photoshop action base is updated every minute by amateurs and professionals. Our editing specialists have gathered several actions that you may download for free.
Fashion Touch
Every shooter wants his/her pics to look like those we see on magazine covers. Apply this Ps action and your picture will be improved in several seconds.
Pure Color Workflow
Every photographer wants to have a button called “Make Beautiful” which you can click instead of correcting colors in your shots for hours. Having installed this action, you will get something similar to this button. It perfectly works with photos taken in soft natural light.
Bright Colors
Would you like to add soft pastel tones to your image without creating a matte effect? This action will add light pink shades to your pics, correct white balance and saturate colors.
Ann Young
Hi there, I'm Ann Young - a professional blogger, read more
