Affinity Photo

[Deflaminis]

I keep reading about it in various posts in the forums here. What is it about it that you like? (Besides the amazingly awesome price.) What makes it great for 3D stuff? Just curious. Thank you for the info!

Best,
AJ

[NicoC]

Full 32 bpc support maybe ? I haven't tried with multi-layered EXRs yet though (we use PSDManager anyway).

[Vizioen]

Why wouldn't you use Affinity if you use PSD manager? And indeed 32bit support is way better. You can just keep working in 32bit, no need to go to 16 bit or lower, even for saving a jpg.

[NicoC]

Yes, we seriously think about throwing Adobe CC in 2017, to get Affinity Photo and Designer instead. However, we'd need a replacement for AfterEffects - we use it from time to time. I'd rather use Natron or Fusion, but I guess it's not really suitable for our needs. There are a few things to test, we need a few plugins - not sure Affinity Photo is compatible with them. We'll see ...

[theedge]

I've tested Affinity Photo for a while and bought it recently (along with designer, just to support those guys) but I still haven't used it for a job. I tried it on a current project, but found that I had much better results with Photoshop Camera Raw to recover highlights. The Develop Persona controls, although they mimic all ACR functions don't always react similarily.

[Vizioen]

That would be weird because Camera Raw doesn't work in 32bit?

[theedge]

That would be weird because Camera Raw doesn't work in 32bit?

That was a question, right ?

[Vizioen]

That was a question, right ?

Sort of , does it? Because I've never seen anyone succesfully use it in 32bit actually.

[Deflaminis]

Thanks all for the insights. I have seen how passes come in in Affinity and maybe that's one of the draws as well. Being able to expose and tone map them without going to 16 bit seems powerful. I've managed to save out .EXR's as 32-bit TIF's and use lightroom to color correct them, but the output is 16 bit which is not ideal.

If you want to tone map in 32 bit in photoshop and keep it 32-bit, the only plugin I've found that works is called 32Float. Going to try Affinity soon for a project, thanks all!

AJ

[theedge]

Yes, 32Float is nice but cannot be applied as a smart filter so not ideal for non-desructive workflow. I asked the editor about this feature a while back but never got an answer.

As for camera raw, yes : although it works in 32 bit internally, the generated output is 16 bit, which, frankly for archviz work is more than enough in 99.9% of situations. But then if I were to work full float I'd use Fusion anyway.

[Deflaminis]

Yeah the lack of smart filtering was a downer. I really need to learn fusion at some point. I used Nuke a few times and I love it but I can't justify the price unless I win the lottery or find a pot of gold under a rainbow.

[Alex_M]

Can anyone comment on the stability of Affinity Photo for Windows? I'm tempted to buy a copy for Windows but I'm seeing some people complaining about frequent crashes. That would be a showstopper. The versions for Windows has been release for some time now and I was hoping to try a demo/trial but their website says that trial is not yet available for whatever reason. Maybe they are not comfortable releasing it cause people will find that it crashes a lot and won't buy it? Not that it's expensive at $50 but still.

[Deflaminis]

I bit the bullet and bought it and I haven't had any crashes with it. I don't know what I'm doing in there so possibly I'm not using the right features to make it happen though...

[Vizioen]

I used it about 3-4 times and of those it crashed once. Didn't buy it though. Still have my complete creative cloud license so no need yet. But maybe one day.

[Alex_M]

For those interested, Affinity Photo Trial has now been released: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/ (scroll down to the very bottom). I'm downloading it now. I'm a bit uncomfortable with only 10 days trial (why so short!?) but in case I didn't get familiar with it in those 10 days I will install it again on another PC for a new test run. Note to developers: Please make your trials 30 days for best user satisfaction!