Each adjustment layer can have its own mask and blend mode, which is just how Photoshop works.Īffinity Photo can deliver excellent results but it does not offer quick-fix presets and looks, so you’ll need to provide your own inspiration. When you apply an adjustment, it’s added as a new adjustment layer and can be altered at any time in the future. Most adjustments in Affinity Photo are non-destructive. These panels can be dragged off and floated separately on the screen, or recombined in any arrangement of tabs and panels that suits you. The left-hand side of the screen is a vertical strip of tools, while on the right is a set of panels for layers, adjustments, filters and more. The Photo Persona is laid out in the same way as almost every regular photo editor. This is the closest thing to editing images in Photoshop. Most of the work in Affinity Photo takes place in the Photo Persona, so let’s take a look at that first. Affinity Photo saves images in its own bespoke file format, so you need these export controls to produce regular JPEG or TIFF images for sharing or publishing. The Export Persona is for choosing file formats, colour and compression settings. You’re unlikely to spend a lot of time in the Liquify Persona, unless you do some heavy retouching and like Dali-esque reality enhancements. And if you create an HDR Merge, you’ll be taken straight to the Tone Mapping Persona to make your adjustments. It’s a bit like Adobe Camera Raw, but integrated into the Affinity Photo interface. You can switch between them manually as required and in some instances they will open automatically.įor example, if you open a raw file, you will go straight into the Develop Persona where raw processing is carried out. You don’t go through them one by one in a linear order. In order of appearance on the top toolbar, these are the Photo Persona, Liquify, Develop, Tone Mapping and Export Personas. The tools are different, and are used at different stages of the workflow. These aren’t just different configurations of the same tools. Affinity PersonasĪffinity Photo offers five different workspaces for different tasks. All this is on top of non-destructive image adjustments and unique ‘live filters’ which allow non-destructive use of filter effects which are normally a one-way ‘destructive’ option in other editors. What it does offer is an extremely powerful non-destructive workflow, sophisticated layer and masking controls and the ability to carry out focus stacking (focus merge), HDR merge and tone mapping and HDR merge, and all without additional plug-ins or paid-for ‘extensions’. This is an old-school photo editor, Photoshop style, but without the cash outlay or the subscription.Īffinity does not have a cloud-based ecosystem like Adobe’s Creative Cloud, and while there is an iPad version of Affinity Photo (which is extremely good, by the way), there’s no equivalent of Adobe’s cloud based image library, as used by Lightroom. There are no cataloguing and browsing features and it doesn’t offer one-click insta-ready ‘looks’ for your social channels. Indeed, since the launch of v2, there has been a free v2.1 update.Īffinity Photo is not really designed for beginners. And Adobe refugees will be delighted to learn that not only are there no subscription plans, and that until version 2, every single update since launch had been free. The price of Affinity Photo 2 is slightly higher than the original Affinity Photo, but still low for software of this calibre – low enough to be mistaken for a budget photo editor for novices, though nothing could be further from the truth. Here, though, we look specifically is Affinity Photo 2’s potential as a photo editor – and it has plenty.Īffinity Photo supports any number of adjustment layers, image layers, Live Filter layers and masks, to allow highly sophisticated editing steps. Affinity Photo supports vector graphics for creating illustrations and type layers for adding text. In this respect it’s a lot like Photoshop while both are about the most powerful in-depth photo manipulation tools around, they can do more. Keep in mind that Affinity Photo is an all-round design tool, not just a photo editor.
![affinity photo filter plugins affinity photo filter plugins](https://i.ibb.co/W3hgZfG/Screen-Shot-2019-08-01-at-06-49-22.png)
Like Photoshop, it’s designed for sophisticated, detailed and advanced image editing, though can also be used for quick and simple image enhancements too. Affinity Photo works perfectly on its own, however, and is just about the closest direct alternative to Photoshop on the market. Powerful layers, masking and retouchingĪffinity Photo 2 is one of three professional creative applications from Affinity and works alongside Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher as part of a tightly bound creative suite.