Affinity Studio

[Ian Watson]

Today is a good day for fans of the Affinity suite of programs. They have been brought together in one program and updated nicely. Moreover, this new program is available free of charge! The only cost will be if you wish to access various AI features.

Here is the introductory video by Ash Hewson, CEO of Serif, the company which created the Affinity suite and was bought by Canva.

https://youtu.be/UP_TBaKODlw?si=oXQpo_Jw0N990eYD

[Akira]

Thank you for sharing.  Currently I'm on Adobe CC photographer subscription and have really no complaint.  But I won't hesitate to switch to Affinity if Adobe would take any greedier way.  I'm keen on that!

Here are articles on the new free Affinity posted by PetaPixel:

https://petapixel.com/2025/10/30/affinity-going-the-davinci-resolve-route-is-brilliant-and-a-proven-success/

https://petapixel.com/2025/10/30/all-new-all-in-one-affinity-app-for-creative-pros-is-available-now-for-free/

My only concern is Affinity's support for RAW formats and lens profiles as well as its highlight recovering capablility.

The lens profiles can be added manually:

https://www.affinity.studio/help/raw-raw-lenscorrection/

[Ian Watson]

I have been using Affinity Photo 2 exclusively since April, aided and abetted by DxO PureRAW. It was not the price that made me leave Adobe, but that is perhaps for another topic.

Affinity offers a choice of using Apple's demosaic or Serif's own. I have only used the latter and it is very good, superior to Adobe's standard version.(Their Enhanced Details one matches it.) They obtain profiles from the LibRaw database. Lens profiles come from the LensFun database. I have not been paying attention to how up-to-date they are because everything I use is covered.

DxO PureRAW provides that company's excellent raw conversion, lens profiles, deconvolution sharpening and noise reduction. A bonus is that their noise reduction is much, much faster than Adobe's and provides a nice, big preview.

Affinity is not as good as Adobe at recovering highlights when converting the raw files, but it is only noticeable when trying to rescue, for example, an overexposed sky. Pay attention to your exposure, protect important highlights and you will be fine.

There are a couple of other differences that spring immediately to mind. ACR makes it easy to copy adjustments from one raw file to others. Not so in Affinity. It can be done but it is cumbersome. Affinity is very much designed for concentrating on one file at a time. It also has nothing like the various "camera matching" profiles that you will find in ACR. The raw converter gives you a nice, neutral image for further processing in the main part of the program. I find that +10 Contrast (either in the raw conversion or as an adjustment layer) gives me something close to Nikon's Standard profile. Oh, and there is no sharpening by default. That too is left to you.

[Airy]

I recently downloaded the Affinity software suite for another reason - the publishing part, an interesting alternative to InDesign or Scribus. Now you made me curious of the photo capabilities.

[Birna Rørslett]

Apparently Affinity is directed towards getting the utmost out of a few frames instead of focusing on volume processing. This behaviour cuts boths ways depending on the end user's needs. The software handled my Z5/6 NEFs pretty well and managed to do a passable "white" balannce for UV images. Not as good as the long-term champion Photo Ninja, but far better than Nikon's software. The latest incarnations of NX Studio, however, can also manage a similar achievement.

Thus, we are now getting  a comprehensive suite of raw file converting programs at our disposal. Several for free, as well. That cannot be bad. Affinity defintively needs a big monitor due to the complex UI and lots of tool windows.

[Les Olson]

One aspect of Affinity that affects workflow is that it is a one-way street: it does not create side-car files that store your edits, so you cannot save a NEF with the edits. You can't half process an image and come back later to finish it, or look at what you did yesterday and modify it - you have to start from scratch.

[Akira]

I have been using Affinity Photo 2 exclusively since April, aided and abetted by DxO PureRAW. It was not the price that made me leave Adobe, but that is perhaps for another topic.

Affinity offers a choice of using Apple's demosaic or Serif's own. I have only used the latter and it is very good, superior to Adobe's standard version.(Their Enhanced Details one matches it.) They obtain profiles from the LibRaw database. Lens profiles come from the LensFun database. I have not been paying attention to how up-to-date they are because everything I use is covered.

DxO PureRAW provides that company's excellent raw conversion, lens profiles, deconvolution sharpening and noise reduction. A bonus is that their noise reduction is much, much faster than Adobe's and provides a nice, big preview.

Affinity is not as good as Adobe at recovering highlights when converting the raw files, but it is only noticeable when trying to rescue, for example, an overexposed sky. Pay attention to your exposure, protect important highlights and you will be fine.

There are a couple of other differences that spring immediately to mind. ACR makes it easy to copy adjustments from one raw file to others. Not so in Affinity. It can be done but it is cumbersome. Affinity is very much designed for concentrating on one file at a time. It also has nothing like the various "camera matching" profiles that you will find in ACR. The raw converter gives you a nice, neutral image for further processing in the main part of the program. I find that +10 Contrast (either in the raw conversion or as an adjustment layer) gives me something close to Nikon's Standard profile. Oh, and there is no sharpening by default. That too is left to you.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with Affinity.  I used DXO in the past but found its processing a bit too pushy.  Now that I have to renew my annual subscription of Adobe CC at the begining of December, I would consider Affinity.  One concern is that the lens profiles provided by LensFun database are not very comprehensive, although my current combo (Sigma fp and 45mm/f2.8 ) is fully supported.

[Ian Watson]

One aspect of Affinity that affects workflow is that it is a one-way street: it does not create side-car files that store your edits, so you cannot save a NEF with the edits. You can't half process an image and come back later to finish it, or look at what you did yesterday and modify it - you have to start from scratch.

It saves a file (.af) that you can certainly return to later. Just like Photoshop's .psd files.

An additional option when developing the raw file is to link to the NEF rather than embedding it in an image layer. This makes the .af file much smaller.

Finally, whether you embed the NEF or link to it, you can always return to the raw development section and adjust things.