Affinity’s Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months

I've only used the v1 affinity suite, so I can't speak for the latest versions of v2, but when I started the first thing I noticed was the performance. It's much more responsive.

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Important point, and they also said they didn't plan on supporting Linux.

They're changing things up after being bought up, but I'm not sure if Linux is a priority for them yet

This means it runs with WINE? Or something similar?

For a software that has a perpetual license, I'm not too worried.

Yep, I'm still suspicious we're in the good phase before things get anti-consumer

Absolutely - me,too.

But, to play the optimist for once - Canva could bring some good to Affinity/Serif. Canva is available as a native linux app and Serif in the past has stated multiple times it's mainly the lack of Linux resources and experience that stops them from providing Linux support. So maybe that could be a good influence.

Canva also has a workflow that is based on a webapp that is more "beginner friendly" than Affinity and a good integration between these services could be a good thing as it may remove barriers.

And Canva for a long time had a desire to provide a full production workflow, so maybe affinity gets the long missing library features.

BUT: Now enough with that optimism, sadly I am rather sure enshitification is around the corner. Which will be a sad day for me.

Me too... but its still good till it goes to snit.

It doesn't even really run on wine from my experience

True, I rather use Photopea than trying to make it work under wine

It’s serviceable for most tasks, but for some things Photoshop simply cannot be beat.

It’s better than gimp, which is saying a lot

edit: it's fine for 90% of what people use photoshop for. for the other 10% of edge-case PS wizardry, only PS can do that. it also performs way better than PS and has a native, fully-functional iPad version.

I’ve heard GIMP (also known as GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a legit foss alt.

Depends on what you want to use it for, but yes it is. Especially since it's way cheaper.

https://www.photopea.com/

For Windows and Mac, yes. V1 was very polished when I used it back in the day, I assume V2 is the same. For Linux, fuck no. They don't care one bit about that OS.

I did not use Photoshop particularly long, but I have been using the Affinity Suite both on a pc and a tablet for over a year now and can say it's definitely quite good. Everything is where you think it should be, the workflow feels very usable with no major learning curve (looking at you, GIMP), and overall the only thing I don't like about it is its lack of Linux support. I would assume that absolute professionals won't be able to find everything they like/want, but if you're reading this, chances are you're gonna be more than satisfied, if FOSS options don't quite work for you.

Check this video as well. I do share most of that experience of having to Google how to do some things because it's not immediately obvious, and some other things do take more clicks/effort than they should've compared to Photoshop. All in all, it has completely replaced Photoshop for my use case.

I have been using Affinity Photo for a couple of years now. Not in a professional way, just for some small personal things. Before buying Affinity Photo I used PS for the same purposes for a few years.

I don't see me going back to PS, since Affinity has everything I need. Sadly, I don't remember specifics, but a few things work a bit different in Affinity, but the workflow is quite similar.

Note that I am not using the latest version, so things might have changed.

It's a very good app suite that gets the UX right esp if you use multiple of their apps but it falls short in areas that Adobe has had more r&d money thrown at, such as vector tracing, proper vector brushes, and proper psd support (you can import psd files, you cannot export fully editable psd files). I used it myself for branding and UI design for a few years and it's definitely worth the money, but they do have some issues as I've said before. Their file format isn't open source either afaik and there is no plugin support so it's a friendlier looking and cheaper closed ecosystem.

Those who actually use it, can they write down a simple comparison?

Those AI features are completely absent from Affinity. That said, Serif was recently bought by Canva who have AI features in their web suite, so I expect those to come to Affinity at some point, possibly requiring a subscription for cloud-enabled features (regular Affinity feature set will remain pay-once and offline, according to announcements). I hope some AI-supported upscaler will come to Affinity. I currently use some free web tool for nicer upscaling.

Also, Affinity apps don't support file format plugins at all. AVIF and HEIF aren't supported, so you'll need external converters to open those.

I checked it out last night. The photo editor is close enough to photoshop that I'll be glad to buy it. From my preliminary perusing of the tools and features, the only thing I used in photoshop that isn't in affinity photo was the ability to animate things. I'm sure there are some other more important details between the two, but as a hobbyist for graphic design it fits my needs just fine.

The issue is that they recently were sold to canva. An online, subscription service that offersjtemplate based graphics suite.

Affinity promised that they would not change their model to subscription but many users doubt their credibility after the sale to canva

I think it's only a good thing they're not trying to shoehorn DAM features into their existing apps. If they made a DAM software it'd have to be an external app anyway.

I did perfectly fine with digiKam in the past, and nowadays I'm perfectly happy with ACDSee. ACDSee even shows thumbnails for Affinity Photo project files.

100% my Lightroom libraries are a non-starter when it comes to still needing Adobe. Literally hundreds of thousands of photos from this year alone are cataloged there, and I’m not sure any of the FOSS alternatives can manage that

That's a completely different application. You could try darktable, its free and open source and really good imo. A bit more complicated than lightroom for editing, but also more powerful (apart from ai features, which it lacks)

Then you can get permanent access for 165 USD (one-off payment)

I didn't know that but yep, I feel the same way. I have absolutely nothing good to say about Canva after having to work with a bunch of people who sent me files from it.