I too recently weaned myself off of Lightroom and Photoshop. Affinity Photo is a great replacement for PS. Replacing LR was more difficult. I spent a lot of time trying to get the hang of Darktable, but never really got there. I went with ACDSee Studio Ultimate 2024 as my replacement for LR. It works pretty well for developing Raw photos and even can replace PS for some functions. The biggest disappointment with ACDSee is moving a developed image to Affinity Photo. You have to export as a TIFF or PNG (or other format), then go into Affinity Photo to make further (layer based) edits. The good part is you can save the transition file (the TIFF or PNG) to the same folder as the original RAW and when it pops up in ACDSee you can open directly into Affinity Photo or even Drag & Drop it into Affinity Photo if it is already open.
I dumped Photoshop and Illustrator a couple of years back when Affinity 1 came out, I have found it meets all the needs I have now. Before I retired (early) I designed things for t-shirts for an apparel company in the UK so I was big into PS and Illustrator, but the occasional work I do, things for family and friends Affinity does the job great. I focus more on Watercolour painting these days but do love to open the software and create that way too....
We’ve been transitioning an entire agency from Adobe products to Affinty. Half the transition is done, and the other half will transition this year. We are also moving from Premier to Apple Final Cut Pro 2.
Thanks Trent, very reassuring! I will definitely link up with Affinity with Canva when I know how they will work together. This year maybe? ;-) From Andrew
I was one of the first Adobe users back in the day, but 4 years ago I dumped them as I won't use any subscription software. I do miss some elements, but I refuse to bow to the annual tax of any software company.
Darktable is great. It's a little unstable (version 5 at least), but the algorithms are much better than other programs, and it's quite fast. It doesn't support all cameras, though, or not fully. For example, it's not possible to get the same results as NX Studio (which is also free) with a mirrorless Nikon, so it's sometimes difficult to get the same colours. There's RawTherapee, too, but I don't know it much.
I'm not lying. I've used Adobe software for many years, so maybe that's why it's difficult to use it in other software. I'm trying. I'm trying to use other software too.
Me watching this even though I already know about all the alternatives but I like watching Adobe Alternative videos lol.
Thanks Trent, I got affinity designer because of you. I love it! 👍
I too recently weaned myself off of Lightroom and Photoshop. Affinity Photo is a great replacement for PS. Replacing LR was more difficult. I spent a lot of time trying to get the hang of Darktable, but never really got there. I went with ACDSee Studio Ultimate 2024 as my replacement for LR. It works pretty well for developing Raw photos and even can replace PS for some functions. The biggest disappointment with ACDSee is moving a developed image to Affinity Photo. You have to export as a TIFF or PNG (or other format), then go into Affinity Photo to make further (layer based) edits. The good part is you can save the transition file (the TIFF or PNG) to the same folder as the original RAW and when it pops up in ACDSee you can open directly into Affinity Photo or even Drag & Drop it into Affinity Photo if it is already open.
I dumped Photoshop and Illustrator a couple of years back when Affinity 1 came out, I have found it meets all the needs I have now. Before I retired (early) I designed things for t-shirts for an apparel company in the UK so I was big into PS and Illustrator, but the occasional work I do, things for family and friends Affinity does the job great. I focus more on Watercolour painting these days but do love to open the software and create that way too....
We’ve been transitioning an entire agency from Adobe products to Affinty. Half the transition is done, and the other half will transition this year. We are also moving from Premier to Apple Final Cut Pro 2.
i got the Affinity suite a while back, and I am now looking into Fusion. So, I will be looking into Blackmagic's Fusion tutorials soon.
Thanks Trent! I'm happily using DaVinci Resolve Studio and the Affinity Universal License, the perfect combination for everything I need :)
Thanks Trent, very reassuring! I will definitely link up with Affinity with Canva when I know how they will work together. This year maybe? ;-) From Andrew
I'm surprised you didn't mention Coreldraw, DxO and Capture One. They have been in business quite a long time and can help you replace Adobe.
I was one of the first Adobe users back in the day, but 4 years ago I dumped them as I won't use any subscription software.
I do miss some elements, but I refuse to bow to the annual tax of any software company.
Darktable is great. It's a little unstable (version 5 at least), but the algorithms are much better than other programs, and it's quite fast. It doesn't support all cameras, though, or not fully. For example, it's not possible to get the same results as NX Studio (which is also free) with a mirrorless Nikon, so it's sometimes difficult to get the same colours. There's RawTherapee, too, but I don't know it much.
I'm not lying. I've used Adobe software for many years, so maybe that's why it's difficult to use it in other software.
I'm trying. I'm trying to use other software too.
Me too