I Tried Affinity Photo for 30 Days...

I’ve been using Photoshop for over 30 years. I’ve now been using Affinity Photo for a mere 30 days. But even in that short amount of time, I’ve developed several insights into why this software exists, and who it’s for. That who might be you.

[CHAPTERS]
00:18 Nondestructive Transformations All the Time
01:53 Applying a Filter to a Downsampled Image
02:39 Using the Develop Persona (a.k.a. Camera Raw)
05:14 Painting and Refining Masks
06:40 Saving to the Native .afphoto Format
07:05 Sliding Backward and Forward through History
07:40 Applying Liquify as an Editable Live Filter
10:37 Working with Clipped Masks and Effects
11:31 Patch and the Other Healing Functions
12:10 Meet the Powerful Blend Options
14:06 Will I Trade in Photoshop for Affinity Photo?

[pixpusher]

After about 30 years, I switched to Affinity and it was an easy move. I love how fast it is. I don't miss Photoshop at all.

[sanadakhumanthem]

He taught me Photoshop 15 years ago, now Affinity Photo😊

[bobstokes]

I began my Photoshop journey with you many years ago. Your training has taken me from newbie to advanced user over the years through many of your your One on One training courses. I have thoroughly appreciated your approach and enthusiasm for teaching so much so many times I have recommended your training to many of my friends. So needless to say, this video grabbed my attention because of who you are. I was thoroughly blown away by your enthusiasm for Affinity and made me seriously consider Affinity as an alternative to Photoshop.

[grunt]

What I like about Affinity is that the gap is closing all the time. For example the RAW space used to be a destructive edit for RAW but now you can traverse back and forth. Won't be long before the tools for the space will be available for all formats. I'm loving it!

[GiTr]

Thanks for this video! Please make more tutorials comparing Affinity Photo with Photoshop. There are many Affinity Photo tutorials on Youtube, but none of them are target for Photoshop users. This kind of information is very useful. Affinity has just opened the trail time duration for 6 months.

[gagajoyscooking]

We need more of these affinity tutorials Deke. I learned photoshop from you about 17 yrs ago and used photoshop, Once adobe abused their privileges and forced unfair and downright criminal agreements upon me I left for affinity and its the best move I ever made, and that's a shame I loved and used photoshop for many years!

[ndc-]

Wow, Deke you were my man back in 2000´s when I started to learn Illustrator and Photoshop, you still get the touch. I´m so glad to find you teaching Affinity, I´m a user of it and I would love to hear what you have to say about.

[lorensims]

Deke does Affinity!!
No, the single best advantage Affinity Photo has over Photoshop is the pricing!
Pay for it once, it's yours. No subscription needed! The way Photoshop USED to do it, but at a much lower price than Photoshop EVER was.
No, it's not quite the same as Photoshop, but it's certainly close enough.
When Photoshop told me the newest update wouldn't support the integrated graphics on my Ivy Bridge MacBook I canceled my Adobe subscription and went all Affinity and never looked back.
Glad to welcome you over to our side, Deke! We have cookies!

[KAGosage]

Love the tutorials you do for Adobe, glad to see you are moving to Affinity as well (I know you aren't abandoning Adobe completely) but also helping with Affinity tutorials.

[JohnDoe-ntsn]

Holy cow ! Deke was my favorite Photoshop instructor : I have been following his courses for more than 20 years... and now he has found Adobe's absolute challenger...Times are a-changing Man !

[alexandrugrecov]

I started learning Photoshop and Illustrator from you 15 years ago, everything that comes from you is to be considered.

[thewebstylist]

Thanks for this video, answers a ton of questions as a 20 + yr Photoshop user who just signed up for the free 6 month affinity trial

[brandondelgado]

Truly appreciate this. Been a PS user since 2002 and now switching to AP as adobe left me less than pleased. Just going with the 6 month free trial and this type of content is so helpful.

[JR]

i just tried affinity both the designer and photo.. as a professional graphic artist all i can say is WOW! how did i not know about affinity before this is beyond me. rest assured im so confident that moving from photoshop/illustrator to affinity is not even an issue! its just so good and so easy to use yet as powerful as adobe.

[pauldigitaal]

Hi Deke, thank you very much for this video. You were my first and still favorite Photoshop teacher. Without even knowing it. More than 20 years ago your book (Photoshop Bible?) and videos are the foundation of my start, knowledge and enthusiasm for Photoshop and everything related to working digital. A year ago I started using Affinity Photo and Designer but am so used working with Photoshop that I haven’t completely switched.

[MarkBowenPiano]

I've been using Affinity Photo since it first came out 7-8 years ago and have never looked back. It's got everything you need if you want to create graphics and the only things it doesn't have are some of the more esoteric features such as 3D and the new AI generative fill features, none of which a real artist would ever need.
Affinity Photo is way faster and more stable than Photoshop has ever been so it's a no brainer.
Price is spot on too. Will never go back to using Photoshop again.

[DanielXGonzález]

Not having a few features (that will probably be added in the future) is absolutely not a problem if we consider not being tied anymore to Adobe's extremely predatory, trashy practices.

Not like it's an issue for me, I just visit the high seas. But the more market share they lose, the better for the industry.

[ConceptualVision]

Deke! Damn, I learned from you back in cs3 or something when you did those huge courses on Lynda. Damn nice to see you, even if it's on youtube.

[TomQsTechTips]

DEKE! I had your Photoshop 5 VHS Video Series somewhere around the turn of the century. I had just been offered a teaching job for 36-hour Photoshop class at the local community college (after their 'real' instructor quit right before it started) and it paid what your Photoshop Series cost, so I took the job, bought your series, watched it a couple of times, and then took a day off from work before each class going through the Adobe Classroom in a Book. One of the best tech decisions I ever made. 

Stayed with Photoshop / InDesign until forced subscriptions, and switched to Affinity Photo / Publisher. 

Great to see you again.

[tenacioustan]

I'm a pixel enthusiast here. and before i was addicted/familiar with personal computers and digital art, i drew on paper with pens or pencils. So yea, when i heard about photoshop, given that info about me, i went for very different and specific tools it has that are different than what a professional or even enthusiast photographer might go for. So yea, as a drawing/art guy, photoshop may be overkill for me, and krita should really suffice for lil ol me if i a can undertand its jargon and ui and such.
30 years of photoshop experience? my god. plenty of time to really master, or atleast have a rock solid understanding of such a complex and powerful tool like photoshop. so yea, as a pixel enthusiast, and a begrudging user of photoshop, your insights are very valuable and amazing for me. so im glad this video exists and im able to find it too.
As an artist, and a "poor" SAAS just makes my blood boil like almost nothing else can on this planet. passion is a helluva drug. right? so yea, after adobe went subscription i nearly completely went out of my way to completely purge everything adobe from my mind AND my pc. it was a bit easier for me than others considering im a jobless bum, so i wasnt locked in financially to keep being chained to adobe to keep the lights on. but yea, i ditched almost it all. but being fond of pixels and arranging and authoring them as i am. i couldnt exactly go completely cold turkey from adobe. in spite of my disdain, disgust confusion and contempt. i still hold a candle for photoshop. purely cuz, im an art guy, and photoshop unfortunately as 1 piece of kit right now is just ultimate perfection for that purpose.
I may not be a photographer by profession or hobby. i do have a "decent" digital camera, but it almost never leaves my house, and i really only take very specific pics with it, and dont even share em. but still i have some "master" jpgs on my pc, so i do dabble with those, and sometimes i do like mash 2 or more images together to remix stuff, it is fun, for me. so yea, i didnt just try to learn things like gimp/photoshop/affinity purely for "art" sake.
Very fascinating that you actually point out that its not all sunshine and rainbows for photoshop being king of the hill for now and forever. i get it, people love the program if they do anything related to image manipulation on a pc and arent running linux exclusively. i get it. when something works you grow attached. im guilty of this too. im not gonna point fingers and say people hyping up photoshop are bad or anything. but without the context of well its not the full picture, and what i actually have issue with is when "outsiders" to digital image management. be they children, or first time digital artists or photographers that arent minors but photoshop/compositing is still new to them at that time, when people with fresh eyes have no idea how out of hand the praise is, it can be really potentially damaging to everyone's mental health that may have interest in photoshop for basically anything it can do. I only recently realized how absurd it is to claim "i know ALL about photoshop" it can do so much. i dont know the specifics of every tool, every thing hidden in menus, or context menus or wherever else photoshop can be changed/configured. but after i have a decent understanding of basics like layers, filters, blending modes, masking and such. then i could just load any pic i want. cue up a filter, not sweat numbers for settings i have for the filter, and just play with the controls to see visually what it does to my image. and just be blown away at how much precision i really have. not the immediate idea of fun for most people, but me as pixel guy? it was fun and i was really amazed at the sorcery happening before my very eyes on my own screen.

Tl;dr: that was long, and no, im not addressing anyone other than the creator here. and it may be long, but its passion, not "venom" photoshop is wild, and ur insights are really awesome. thank you for making stuff like this available for people like me, and others that may have interest in photoshop for any number of a surprisingly vast number of reasons.

TY you bamf, and have a nice day. as a pixel nerd, i found this video wonderful, and neat af.