Following the beta last month, Serif has officially launched the finalized version of Affinity Photo for Windows. The new application follows in the footsteps of Affinity Photo for Mac and aims to offer photo editing capabilities similar to that of Photoshop, only at a lower $39.99 cost. In addition to the new Windows version, the Mac edition of Affinity Photo has received a substantial update to version 1.5. I've been using Affinity for nearly 2 months now. For £29.99 it was a no brainer. I'm working my way through the excellent official tutorial videos on Vimeo and will probably leave Adobe behind completely before long.

I cancelled my monthly Adobe subscription back in November when I saw the beta, but bought a few older (cheap as chips) versions of PS & LR as a backup. They're too old to see the RAW files from my OMD EM5 ii, but useful if I'm in too much of a rush to learn in Affinity or I'm batching files with LR Timelapse.

Affinity is the software bargain of the century so far. Congratulations to Serif for developing an affordable alternative to Adobe. I can see this seriously eating into their market in the next few years. My advice to anyone that's starting out - get Affinity! To anyone like me who's been using Adobe for a while - get Affinity and start learning it - you'll save a fortune.

So far i'm quite impressed with it especially for £29.99 and yes there are a few laggy moments but to be honest i have also experienced issues with photoshop. There are several things i like such as de-hazing and how you can jump back and forwards from the photo persona i.e the photoshop part and the raw developing part so easily. It also allows plugins though not sure how many of them are compatible Googles Nik collection seems to be so far. Over all not a bad fully featured raw processor and editing software for the price.

DeathArrow: I've been using Affinity (pre-1.5) for a couple of weeks now on my Mac - beta MacOS - and it's worked great. As Glen said, stacking and pano works very well, and HDR/raw processing is great as well. The only 'broken' thing I've experienced in all that time is when I moved to the official 1.5, where some combination of actions - I haven't figured out what, and I'm on the next MacOS beta so that might be part of the problem - can cause it to believe it can't write the file out. I have to say this is a severe problem when it occurs, but your one-sentence 'It's broken' is really unconvincing. Any details on what you find broken? I played with it and now it will be idle for a while until it is usable.

There is no doubt that it has some good potential, but it is not there yet. I need a program to help me to do something, not to struggle with it.

There are far too many small but very annoying things which need to be eliminated in future version. Well, try to find how to enable clipping warning for example (that was the last drop which overflowed my tolerance cup). There is also a stability issue on Win platform. So I will wait for few upgrades and then, I believe, I will enjoy. I am back to PS so far. = curio77 Well, there is something wrong in your proposal. I paid money for the program, I spent my time struggling with it, and now I should spend some more time sending them a report about bugs in their program.

So that they could correct their own mistakes and then they could get more money from me next time with a new release? Something is really wrong in this logic.:-) In fact I can't care less about Affinity Photo and its functionality. The price was small enough not to bother with a refund.

I might buy a new release if is good or I would forget about AP forever. Sorry you're having problems Alex. Rest assured that if you post in our forums describing an issue with the current version of the app, our developers will endeavour to put it right immediately - not to sell back to you in a future version (we're just not that cynical).

Unless you're aware of an amazing software somewhere that never has any bugs or glitches, it's always the case that users will discover things that developers haven't, even in an extensive public beta as there was with Affinity Photo. Of course the only way to guarantee a particular problem never gets solved, though, is if no-one tells us about it. =razadaz I agree with you. Bugs are there whatever efforts were done. I just don't want to pay for product and then to take a burden for debugging it. A principle 'you help us and you get new release free' might probably work, but 'you pay, you help, you pay again' - definitely not.

That is why I don't want to be involved in resolving AP's problems. As for the ver.1 release - I agree with you again. AP is a surprisingly mature software for a first release and developers team deserves a lot of respect. It is just a little bit not up to my personal demands yet.

I am sure, though, it WILL BE quite soon (if not sold to Adobe for huge lot of money). @Marcin 3M - As I recall, the last time I used Photoline, it was basically a photo editor with basic vector graphics and some simple page layout tools. Maybe a bit more complex than PaintShopPro, but not by THAT much. More than adequate for many people, but it was not the equivalent of CorelDraw Graphics Suite or the Serif Suite (identified by the PhotoPlus, PagePlus, DrawPlus, WebPlus, even Panorama Plus).

Perhaps it has changed. It looks as if Serif intends to gradually retire the already rich and complex 'Plus' suite with equivalent Affinity titles as they come on line, which have the advantage of being developed with presumably easier to maintain modern code, and added Mac compatibility. I'm not saying there is no place for Photoline in this world, but I AM saying to the best of my knowledge Photoline and the entire Affinity/Plus graphics tools are serving different segments of the market.

It's inevitable that some people will be critical. People slam cameras all the time after reading just three lines of a product announcement.

While it will have its issues, it's not intended as a product for everyone. For those who use its many features, I think the product is great and has a bright future. It has so many similarities to Photoshop (and strong compatibility with Adobe file formats) that most people should be pleasantly surprised at how smooth a transition can be. However, I've seen people criticise it because it does more than they need it to do.

The same people would criticise Formula 1 cars for being too fast. Gimp is 'both better and free'? I agree with the last statement, but better? I hadn't used Gimp in quite a while, so I just downloaded the latest version. It definitely has progressed/matured, but I certainly wouldn't rate it higher than AP.

It depends on what you use it for I suppose, but upon some quick experimenting I found out that Gimp still doesn't support adjustment layers (as far as I can see), no concept of text styles/effects, no quick selection tool, no refine edge tools (I know there are different ways of accomplishing it, but to me it feels more complicated).For some folks this may be fine, but for me it is too much of a hassle. Not saying it's not a good program (b/c it is), but for.my purposes. AP is a much better fit (and I prefer the GUI).

I know several people who are now using Affinity and feel that, for them, it's better than Photoshop. For the projects on which I have used it, I would have to agree. Most people don't use anything close to the full feature set of Photoshop.

And they won't use Affinity to its full potential either. What I see in Affinity is, not only a comparable set of features, but also a leaning towards smarter ways of doing things.

It must be difficult for Adobe to keep pressing on with updates for products that they are getting paid for through subscription, regardless of what they add to them. They have some good products, but over the past few years, most of the 'innovation' is about technologies to tie the customer into the Adobe ecosystem. When Adobe trumpets an update that makes it easier to use their 'cloud' based licensing, i see a win for Adobe, not me. Gimp isn't an experience I want to try again;-) I don't care if it's free. Wasted time costs me money. @razadaz, I can understand that a transition from any application that has been part of your workflow for a long time can be difficult.

I thought a lot of the tools and shortcuts from Photoshop are carried over well by Affinity. The things that differ are generally things that I have come to like better in Affinity. There are a couple of areas of Affinity Photo that I haven't quite warmed to.

The Tone Mapping persona is one that I personally haven't been able to get good results from. But, I do dislike the ubiquitous photo HDR/Tone Map effect with a passion:D So, I'll leave that for others to enjoy. I have had to adapt to a variety of applications due to not knowing exactly which system I will be working on in a given environment. Change and adapting to new software is something to learn and become comfortable with in itself. You develop a method to get up to speed with the new tools quickly. I have still been using CS6 and to avoid the regressive subscription based CC. Was eagerly waiting for a worthy alternative to the monopolistic giant we have now in the 2D graphics field.

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Perhaps this is it. Hope they bring similar alternative to Indesign and Lightroom and there are many more companies like Serif the create a healthy and competitive ecosystem.

Just hope Adobe don't buy them off and destroy it (like they did to Macromedia 2005) and live up to their name (Adobe ranked no. 5 on a list of Internet’s 9 Most Hated Companies). If you try Affinity it and don't like it as it's not exactly same as Adobe - try to remember how much time you needed to spend to get used to with Adobe - that will help you to give it a fair chance. There's lots of non-Adobe RAW editors. I've exhaustively tested many over the years and much preferred Capture One over Lightroom (or Photoshop ACR).

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From what I can see, the guys at Serif/Affinity seem to be very open to suggestions through their forum. If you don't like something, or want something added, there is a good chance that it will be added if it makes sense to a lot of users. They do tend to add tons of new features with each release. Try that with Adobe. I was getting a corporate 'solution' customised by Adobe earlier in the year and they wouldn't consider the most basic features. They would fly people in to sell it to me, but not get a developer to spend an hour to make a change.

It was a take it or leave it 'customised' choice. Affinity has lots and lots of tutorials on Vimeo. Affinity is NOT PShop and many of the controls and how you work with them is VERY different.

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They also use non-Abobe naming conventions. When going from Adobe products to Affinity software, there is a learning curve.

View the tutorials (aka RTFM), they are a BIG help. BTW they are also NOT Pixelmator either, so one more way of doing things to unlearn/learn. I have down-loaded both Fuji X-T2 and Apple iPhone 7+ raw-files, but have not had time to work with them. Maybe this weekend. @YA9Productions, Over the years I have tested virtually all of the major RAW processing applications out there. I found the best results came from Capture One Pro and Capture NX.

While Capture NX understandably produced excellent results, given Nikon's development involvement, the differences between it and Capture One were negligible. But, Capture NX was a horrible piece of software, while Capture One was excellent (in my opinion). So, the choice was easy in the end. I wasn't a fan of what Lightroom (ACR) did to Nikon RAW files. I will test Affinity Photo 1.5 on some Nikon NEF's too out of curiosity. I'd say the it's as much a competitor for Photoshop as Lightroom.

Affinity Photo also does more general photo editing, compositing, etc. I haven't noticed it being slow at all (on a Mac).

Lightroom was intended as a more accessible way for photographers to do things that they did in Photoshop using layers and effects. It was also promoted as a RAW development environment. These days, we are spoiled for choice. Affinity Photo seems, from my own testing, to be a highly capable application.

It appears to be designed to keep the things that work with current popular apps while being innovative elsewhere. Adobe is certainly not the only show in town for photographers. I'd recommend Capture One for RAW processing to other photographers over Lightroom, based on my experience. I never use Bridge these days. Affinity Photo is more than capable of replacing Photoshop on projects I have worked on recently. Affinity's videos are a great start in finding out about Photo and Designer.

Frank, one of the first pieces of information on their site says 'Comprehensive RAW editing. Develop camera RAW files in a dedicated built-in workspace with all the processing adjustments and corrections you need.' When you scroll down a little, there is an entire panel devoted to RAW. It has a heading that says 'Dedicated RAW editing workspace. Compatible with all major camera file formats, the Develop persona offers a dedicated processing workspace offering incredibly accurate editing in an unbounded linear color space.' In the 'What's New' section, it says 'Overhauled RAW engine for improved results out the box, along with over 70 new RAW camera formats supported.'

So, my guess is that it does work with RAW. And I read all this without hearing a single note of music.;-).

Frank, if you're not prepared to put any effort into researching software before you potentially buy it then I don't know what to say. If I'm interested in software the first thing I do is open up a blank tab and google for it - most software, and Affinity is no exception, will provide you with an abridged marketing versions of its key features, and then a more comprehensive rundown on a separate page should you wish to read more. Now, there is already a full feature list linked to in an above post, plus here is a link to (currently) 165 video tutorials that demonstrate what the software can do: - they don't have music, so you hopefully won't be too offended by them. This article, and Affinity's press release, has had to balance two things: the launch on Windows, and the huge new list of features in 1.5.

I hope you're able to at least look at a features page to see if the software interests you or not. Thanks, James.

The product developers don't post the information on this site. So, if it is short on details, don't blame them. Same with cameras and other gear. Anyway, one of the first rules of the internet is to NEVER install software when you don't know and trust the source. DPR are obviously not the product source, so you need to check these products out on the developer's site. Ask a child or grandchild to type Google into your browser. Don't worry, they'll know what to do from there and have you on the developer's site in 3 seconds flat.

You're welcome;-). I have experience in dealing with software companies and can tell you that, in some cases, over 90% of the time and cost of support can be taken up by fewer than 10% of the customers. So, odd as it seems, you can definitely have too many of certain types of customer. If it was possible to issue a full refund to those who cost so much to support - just to get rid of them - then they would be saving/making more money. Few companies would want to set that precedent though.

Companies try different ways of dealing with that. Some put a premium cost on support.

Online forums that allow users to help other users is also a step in solving that. But, let's face it. No company selling to a mass market cares too much for the individual outliers. They just don't need your approval. The only time when your opinion matters is when you're handing over a LOT of money for something, in which case they will roll out the red carpet (that you have paid for). Be aware if you shoot in MFT (m4/3 lenses) that Affinity does not recognize the embedded distortion correction data included with the RAW files. I don't know what this would entail for them to implement but they don't seem to realize how important it is to m4/3 users judging by their forum responses.

Even windows explorer and the default Photos software correct on the fly but not Affinity. Really glad I became aware of it before purchasing even though it's still a great price. On the other hand if you've ever wondered what your m4/3 RAW files look like before being auto-magically corrected go check it out. Surprised me when I first noticed it. Olympus lenses. Yes windows the final beta.

I noticed the photo I opened in it had more view-able area than the same file loaded in Lightroom. I assumed this is because Lightroom recognizes the correction profile include with the RAW data (correction and the edge cropping applied automagically).

I then went to their forums, assuming I just wasn't aware of a setting or something, but the response I saw to others with the same issue lead me to believe they didn't really understand and never followed up on the questions besides saying no we don't support that. Plus the fact that I can see more of my image because it's not corrected and cropped is kind of obvious. I'll try it with more images, maybe it's a just a fluke. Besides that I really like it, especially the price but of course haven't bought it considering my issue at hand. I actually really really hope I'm wrong because I keep trying to jump ship from Adobe but always come crawling back. Download new version for mac.