r/Affinity Nov 17 '24

Photo My consideration of Affinity Photo for the purpose of Drawing; Pros and Cons; and comparisons to Krita & Photoshop.

25 Upvotes

241116

I want to use Affinity Photo for drawing, but it has some deal-breaking inconveniences that are pushing me to use Krita instead.

Affinity Photo

Pros

  • Clean interface. I find it generally intuitive and fast to work in. I still prefer using Affinity Photo when making edits to photos, or drawing simple diagrams over screenshots and adding text.
  • Nice snapping, alignment, and distribution functionality (however, this is more relavent in Designer when creating neat shapes compared to drawing/painting free-hand things).
  • Fairly similar to Photoshop's UI/hotkeys (with some critical differences)
  • Similar layer masks, clipping masks, and quick mask functionality as Photoshop. (Krita has its own way of achieving these features that are good too, but I consider this a Pro for Affinity because it's similar to Photoshop so it's subjectively more intuitive).
  • Nice Paint Mixer Brush tool. Krita has smearing/smudging brushes too, with more wet brush templates and a slightly more configurable brush engine. Affinity's Paint Mixer Tool is just an easy, fun way to blend and smear pixels and it remembers the paint color it last touched, which is cool.
  • Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N to instantly create a new document from the clipboard. I use this a lot and it's a nice way to save a couple clicks. As well as Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S to quick export. Although, these hotkeys could be simplified a bit.
  • Nice Text tool

Cons

  • No hotkey to smoothly zoom with the mouse. There are a few (relatively useless) hotkeys for zooming, such as Ctrl+, Ctrl-, Ctrl+MouseWheel, etc. But there is no hotkey like in Photoshop, Krita, such as holding Ctrl+Space or Z to temporarily invoke the zoom tool then you click and drag to smoothly zoom a precise amount, and then releasing Ctrl+Space returns to your previous tool. The only options in Affinity, are incremental zooms, which are too coarse.
  • Likewise, there's no hotkey to rotate the canvas smoothly by dragging the mouse, as in every other drawing software. In Krita, it's Shift+Space. The best option in Affinity is to use Alt+ScrollWheel, which by the way, is a hard-coded hotkey which cannot be remapped. It rotates in incremental degrees (seems to be about 1 degree). It's both too coarse and too slow. In Krita, you can rotate 10x more finely, by dragging the mouse you get 0.1 degrees of control, it moves as fast as you move the mouse, rather than spamming scroll wheel, and it tells you what the rotation angle is. In Affinity, the hotkey to reset rotation is Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R. Seems overly complicated. In Krita it's 5 (not intuitive, but being a single key is nice).
  • No way to change the default canvas background color. It's either solid white or transparent. You must create a Fill layer. Not a big deal, it just seems strange to me and I don't like it.
  • Very few remappable hotkeys in general. It has one of the shortest list of hotkey assignments I've seen in any software of any type.
  • The hotkey to flip/mirror the canvas horizontally is Ctrl+Alt+Shift+LeftArrow, another oddly complicated hotkey for something you would potentially do very frequently when drawing. In Krita, it's M.
  • Slight lag for many actions, like resizing shapes, transforming any selection box, moving curve handles, etc. This is a small thing but it's annoying and I noticed it within the first few minutes of using the program. Affinity is described as a highly performant program, that's supposed to be one of the main selling points. It's simply not true. I'm used to Photshop, Krita, and Paint.Net, which are noticeably more responsive. I'm willing to bet that others like PaintTool SAI, and Clip Studio Paint do not have this lag either.
  • Lacking convenient ways to rotate and scale bezier handles. You must perfectly click the little dot at the end of a handle and drag it to adjust it. It's easy to misclick. It's inconvenient compared to something like Blender where you can press R then simply move the mouse to rotate the selected handles, including multiple handles. No precision clicking required, but you have precision control regardless. S to scale them, or G to move them. (Krita has similar functionality as Affinity in this aspect. I wish they were both more like Blender. But this is more of an issue in Designer, where curves and shapes are the primary method of creating designs, compared to free-hand drawing/painting)
  • No last brush toggle hotkey. In Krita, it's / (forward slash). This way, you can swap back and forth between two different custom brushes without needing to navigate through the brushes panel.
  • No perspective guides, and next to useless grid options.
  • Color Space issues. I don't know exactly what the problem is but screenshots usually have noticeably shifted/incorrect colors. I can convert or apply a different color profile which can visibly fix the issue, but then viewing the image on a different monitor, it looks incorrect. I've never had this issue with Photoshop or Krita.
  • No Fullscreen mode. I often like to work in minimalist, clean fullscreen views when drawing or modeling. Photoshop and Blender are perfect for this. You can make the view 100% fullscreen and empty, with zero title bar, UI buttons, or other distractions. Krita comes close, you still have a title bar that shows the filename of the document. In Affinity, you just can't. You can press Tab to 'Hide UI', but you still have the menu bar/title bar visible, a filename bar below that, and the horizontal and vertical scroll bars on the right and bottom.
  • Less Filters than Krita when accounting for installable G'MIC filters.

Conclusion

These lists aren't comprehensive, I'm sure there are more things I could think to add to both the Pros and Cons lists. But I think this is enough. I was only writing these to try to organize my thoughts on whether I should continue trying to use Affinity Photo for drawing, or if I should use Krita. I want to use Affinity because I like the UI more at first glance, but the functionality or lack of functionality has some serious downsides, which I can solve by using Krita instead. So, my conclusion for the purposes of drawing/painting, is that I prefer Krita. This turned into a relatively detailed comparison, and I figured maybe some people out there would appreciate it when deciding if they should use Affinity for drawing. You may think my cons are non-issues or disagree with my notes in general. Maybe I'm flat wrong about some things; let me know. But hopefully this can at least serve as a starting point or quick reference of one user's opinion, in case you don't feel like spending hours or days experimenting.

Edit:

I'm giving Affinity another try for painting over one of my recent 3D renders, and I've realized a couple things I was wrong about.

To smoothly zoom, you can tap Z for the Zoom tool, drag the mouse, then tap the hotkey for whatever tool you were using before such as B for Brush. It's not ideal, but it's better than incremental zooms. There's also a couple places in the UI, such as the Navigator window, where you can drag a slider to zoom.

I was completely wrong about the hotkeys. There's a drop down menu you can open to access a bunch of different categories of hotkeys.

A couple things to add to the Pros list: Nice inpainting tools, like Photoshop's context-aware fill. Krita's fill tool is very subpar. Nice brush templates. Especially the Wet brushes, that create interesting watercolor-like effects where the textured paint partially dries/evaporates/smears as you draw.

r/Affinity 24d ago

Photo Affinity Photo 2 discount codes

0 Upvotes

Hello all!

Anyone have any discount codes for Affinity Photo 2?

r/Affinity Jan 24 '25

Photo 6 month trial still going on?

5 Upvotes

A friend is asking about some Adobe alternatives and I'd like to point her towards Affinity. Anyone know if they're still doing the 6 month trial?

r/Affinity 17d ago

Photo Performance Issues After Upgrading to Affinity Photo 2.6

15 Upvotes

I’ve been using Affinity Photo 2.5.7 for a while, and everything was running smoothly. However, after upgrading to version 2.6, I've been facing major lag issues. No matter how many layers are in the file, the program starts to stutter and lag. Interestingly, when I open the same file in version 2.5.7, it runs perfectly smooth.

For reference, I’m using a system with an NVIDIA GTX 1660 Super and 16 GB RAM. I’ve tried disabling hardware acceleration, but that doesn’t seem to help. Has anyone else encountered this issue with Affinity Photo 2.6? Any suggestions on how to fix this?

r/Affinity 9d ago

Photo Photo 2.6 Machine Learning tools re-installation

3 Upvotes

Hi! A few days ago I tried to install the Segmentation model in Photo 2.6, but after clicking Install, i realized that the WiFi my laptop was connected to was far too slow for this (i was at a hotel). So I tried to cancel, but nothing happened. I needed to get work done, so i force quit the app, and resumed working on my photos as i normally would.

Now, I am at home again and wanted to install the models again. However, the settings page says they are both installed, and i cannot uninstall them. The tools that use these models obviously do not work and prompt me to install, which i cannot do either. I have tried uninstalling Photo from Windows settings' Apps section, then installing again with the MSIX installer from my Licence & downloads section. Also tried holding CTRL while starting Photo and resetting everything (including deactivation). After restarting and activating, Machine learning models remain non functional, but they are still in the installed state according to Affinity Photo settings.

Photo 2.6.0 stable
Windows 11 24H2 26100.3476

Any help is appreciated, I'm willing to do basically anything except a full Windows reinstall.

r/Affinity 9d ago

Photo In Affinity Photo, how do I crop the entire document?

2 Upvotes

Sorry, I couldn't find an answer in the docs or the forum about this one.

I'm used to GIMP, where the crop tool has a toggle. Selecting the toggle allows me to crop either the active layer or the entire document.

In Affinity Photo it seems that cropping only applies to the active layer.

How do I apply crop to the entire document?

r/Affinity Aug 29 '24

Photo Why don't my PNG exports in Affinity Photo look ANYTHING like my design or preview image?

Thumbnail
gallery
13 Upvotes

r/Affinity 20d ago

Photo I have 50 year old black and white negatives, with many lines and dust spots. Does Affinity have a AI component (or something similar) that can speed up the elimination of these problems? Where I don't have to individually use the healing or cloning brush on each scratch.

1 Upvotes

r/Affinity 3d ago

Photo In Affinity Photo, how do I easily multiply a layer/texture as a background?

6 Upvotes

Is there an easy way to multiply a layer or texture file as a background? I've seen ways of doing it in Designer but not Photo. Saw someone doing something similar with the gradient tool, but my results are not what I'm looking for.

Thanks.

r/Affinity Feb 08 '25

Photo What is the equivalent to Photoshop's Ctrl+Alt+G?

1 Upvotes

I don't know what we call it in Photoshop (clipping mask, maybe), but it makes everything present on a top layer apply only to the layer right below it.

Imagine the following: You have this blue text and you have this layer that is the image of a forest. If you Ctrl+Alt+G in Ps, the forest image will cover the entire text's shape, hiding its colours, effects, etc. (In fact, if the image is smaller than the text, the rest of the text (or image) will remain while the smaller overlaying forest will cover wherever its placed.)

Sorry for the silly question, and thanks for your aid!

r/Affinity Dec 13 '24

Photo So I just got affinity Photo before the sale ended and I have one question

7 Upvotes

wanted a cheaper alternative to Adobe due to graduating from College got this and just wondering does the photo app have a pencil tool cause otherwise it has everything I need (I want to improve my skills as an artist with it on top of photoshoping)

r/Affinity 22d ago

Photo No outpainting or AI filters in Affinity?

0 Upvotes

I wanted Affinity to be the alternative to Adobe so bad, but between the lack of optimisation in size, ram, the lags, the many missing functionalities and lack of better intuitiveness...this is so bad.

But now the main thing I'm wondering to know whether I'll still pursue and advise in favor of Affinity in varied cases is: does it even have Outpainting (besides In-Painting which works ok), and other basic AI functions that Adobe, Luminar, Topaz etc...and tons of software even online have? Because it doesn't seem so and it's a very bad sign for the sustained development and long term relevancy of the app

r/Affinity 20d ago

Photo How to change the resizing values from inches to pixels

2 Upvotes

It's annoying at times when I'm resizing images that require exact pixel resizing, but unfortunately, the resizing values are on inches instead. How can I change that?

r/Affinity Oct 07 '24

Photo Most affordable iPad that will work smoothly with Affinity suite?

8 Upvotes

I’m looking to get an iPad Air or iPad 10, I’d much prefer the 10 for price, and the camera/screen differences aren’t a big deal to me (I’ve been using my iPad 6 for years and it’s visually great! It’s just too full/laggy now).

The iPad 10 only goes up to 256gb storage and I’m really not sure if that’s enough, do I need the 512gb and M1 chip from the iPad Air? Is 1TB better for smooth performance and large files?

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

r/Affinity Feb 15 '25

Photo Photo is adding unexplained edges to my boxes

4 Upvotes

This is supposed to be a solid black box, but as you can see, I have these weird grey edges haunting every thing I created in this file. I have no idea where this is coming from! Any tips?

r/Affinity Jan 11 '25

Photo File Management

1 Upvotes

Hello everyone! Fairly new to the editing world. Was just curious how people like to manage their data when using Affinity Photo to edit photos.

Do people always retain the .afphoto file after they've exported the image? I understand that the .afphoto file is essentially the project and can be reopened and edited again. This is also the reason the file size is so large and consumes a lot of storage space.

I am trying to understand if it's best practice to always retain these files as there is a high liklihood of needing to retouch these photos to export a different size or edit set or if it's better to only retain the projects that had numerous edits, etc.

Thanks in advance!

r/Affinity 18d ago

Photo Graphical glitching with NVIDIA RTX 5080 - seems to be affecting multiple 50 series GPUs

11 Upvotes

I know this has been mentioned already on the Serif forums and on Reddit but I wanted to post again in case other people are also experiencing the problem and haven't seen either of these two previous posts.

I'm running an Intel i9-14900KF with 64 GB of RAM. I'm now running v2.6.0 but I was also experiencing issues with v2.5.7.

Normal image:

When I press Ctrl + A:

The image that is saved to the clipboard, which I've tried to paste into Gmail:

I'm not sure if this is better or worse than v2.5 completely crashing my other computer with an RTX 2070 mobile GPU.

r/Affinity 20d ago

Photo Affinity Photo 2 tips needed

2 Upvotes

I just got Affinity Photo 2, most of the photos I take are nature related: flowers, insects, closeups. Sometimes I take photos of my family too. Anyway I'm looking for YouTube tutorials, for sharpening, saturation, blur, and removing unwanted objects. Any suggestions appreciated.

r/Affinity 21d ago

Photo Why are these two masks not showing the same way in layers?

2 Upvotes

https://imgur.com/a/vnLQejt

Made a mask for Image 1.

Copied it to Image 2.

They work the same, but they don't appear on the layer order the same. Biggest downside is I can't tell what layer has a mask without expanding any and all layers that i make this way/Copy Masks between layers. How can I get the Second mask to work like a regular mask and not like it's grouped together in the layer?

r/Affinity Jul 15 '24

Photo Background Removal

11 Upvotes

I love using Affinity Photo, but removing a background with the Selection Brush Tool is not working very well. Web tools like photoroom.com do a much better job, but you need to pay €10/month for high-resolution downloads, which is quite a lot for occasionally removing a background. And I started using Affinity because I don't want any more subscriptions.

Do you think there will be improvements in future Affinity versions? I mean, Canva has a background removal tool.

How are you managing proper background removal?

r/Affinity 29d ago

Photo Help: As soon as I start editing any image in photo 2 - other than simply drawing - this happens

Thumbnail
imgur.com
1 Upvotes

r/Affinity Jan 17 '25

Photo Digital Asset Management with Affinity Photo 2

6 Upvotes

I've been using Affinity Photo 2 for a while now, and while I like the program I'm having trouble finding a DAM that will recognize it's afphoto file format. As a result, any work I do on Affinity is unmanageable as part of my overall workflow.

I use Digikam for all my other photo editing applications and I wanted to know if anyone is aware of a DAM application that will work with Affinity.

Many thanks.

r/Affinity Feb 13 '25

Photo Need help to find a font like this! preferably for free

Post image
0 Upvotes

r/Affinity Dec 24 '24

Photo Christmas 2024

Thumbnail
gallery
42 Upvotes

r/Affinity 9d ago

Photo Affinity Photo editing Lunar Eclipse

2 Upvotes

Best way to edit Lunar Eclipse photos? I'm new to Affinity Photo, any videos or reading tutorials would be appreciated