Affinity is not a workflow solution like ACDSee, CyberLink PhotoDirector, Lightroom, or Zoner Studio. You don’t get tools for importing or organizing a collection of photos, let alone a panel that shows drive locations like in DxO PhotoLab. In other words, you can’t just load all the photos from a card after a shoot. Even Photoshop and Photoshop Elements offer complementary apps, Bridge and Organizer, to handle those organization functions.
Opening Raw Camera Files
When you open a raw camera file in Affinity, you don’t have to open a separate window, unlike in Photoshop. Instead, the software just switches you to the Develop interface. Here, you can nondestructively adjust a photo’s black point, clarity, contrast, exposure, noise, white balance, and more, but you don’t get auto settings like in Photoshop and most alternatives. That’s disappointing, since such settings can often give you an idea of how to start improving an image. The automatic tools in competing apps, such as Lightroom and Photoshop, continue to improve thanks to AI algorithms that determine optimal adjustments.
Nonetheless, we appreciate Affinity’s Develop Assistant button and panel, which gives you quick access to choices like noise reduction and sharpness. Unfortunately, you don’t get automatic, AI-powered noise reduction like in several other apps. The sliders for color noise and luminance work as expected.
Once you click the Develop button, your photo becomes a layer in an Affinity document. You can still go back to the Develop interface after this, however, since that button remains above the image when you select its layer. Once you develop the image by clicking the button, the only way to make adjustments is to add a separate adjustment layer for Levels, White Balance, and so on. Photoshop offers a Raw Camera filter for even more adjustments without the need for redeveloping.
File Support and Raw Rendering
Affinity Photo supports a fair number of raw camera file formats, though it can’t open images from some newer models, such as the Canon R6 III. The software supports the JPEG XL format, which combines ultrahigh resolutions with reduced file sizes. It naturally works with Photoshop’s PSD and Illustrator’s AI format. The DNG, EPS, GIF, PDF, SVG, TIFF, and WebP file types, along with other less common formats, round out the options.
The initial rendering of a raw image file in Affinity Photo isn’t quite as good as in Lightroom and Photoshop, which use the same raw conversion technology. The Adobe apps produce images with better detail and more lifelike colors. For this test, I use the default Adobe Color profile. Affinity uses a proprietary rendering engine that doesn’t include the profile options you get in Adobe software, such as Adobe Color, Adobe Monochrome, and even Adaptive Color (which analyzes the photo with AI to determine the best rendering).
Below you can see the rendering of a raw camera file in Affinity Photo (left) and Adobe Photoshop (right).
Left to right: Raw conversion in Affinity and Adobe Photoshop (Credit: Canva/Adobe/PCMag)
After editing or rendering, you have to export your edited image to a standard file format like JPG or PNG to use it in the real world. Photoshop’s files use the .psd extension, whereas Affinity’s use the .afphoto extension.
Lens Profile-Based Corrections
Like ACDSee, DxO PhotoLab, and PhotoDirector, Affinity Photo includes lens-profile-based corrections for chromatic aberration and geometric distortion in the Develop interface. Affinity Photo’s corrections leave you with more aberration and distortion compared with Lightroom’s. The Defringe option in Affinity improves matters, but the software doesn’t have an eyedropper to hone in on the offending shade of magenta.
Left to right: Chromatic aberration removal in Affinity and Lightroom (Credit: Canva/Adobe/PCMag)
Adobe’s lens profile correction also reduces geometric distortion. Note how the building leans more in Affinity’s result below:
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Left to right: Lens profile geometry correction in Affinity and Lightroom (Credit: Canva/Adobe/PCMag)
Basic Photo Editing: Everything You Need
The Pixel Studio looks a lot like Photoshop, with a toolbar on the left side and a stacked group of tabbed panels on the right. In the panels, you get brushes, a color picker, a histogram (with warnings for clipping), and swatches. In the middle is the Layers panel, which you can switch to Brushes, Channels, or Stock modules. The lower panel offers a photo navigator and sections called Channels, History, and Transform.
(Credit: Canva/PCMag)
The Layers panel shows you which edits apply to each layer. Buttons at the bottom of it let you add Adjustment, Effect, Filter (26 categories of these!), and Mask layers, and you can create layer containers and folders. Oddly, the basic New Layer button is on the right-hand side, next to the Delete button. The Stock tab in this panel lets you find images from Pexels, which provides a lot of free content.
We approve of the crop tool because, like Photoshop’s, it lets you either resize the crop from the image sides or draw a new rectangle inside the image. It offers presets for all the standard aspect ratios and a straighten tool (a line on the screen that you adjust to fit the horizontal axis in your image). But you don’t get an auto-leveling feature. And if you want a content-aware crop-and-fill tool like Photoshop’s, you need to pay for a Canva Pro subscription. In testing, the generative expand feature worked just as well as in similar software.
Effects: Some Fun Things to Try
Affinity Photo is primarily meant for Photoshop-style editing rather than mere photo adjustments. It has excellent layer support, with over 30 blending styles, a large selection of effect filters, and useful masking tools. You can add Pattern layers, apply layer effects (such as emboss, glow, and so on), and link layers. The latter type is helpful for reproducing a pattern across the entire image as you draw. It’s fun to use.
(Credit: Canva/PCMag)
Another layer feature lets you save visibility states so you can easily switch between views of a project with many layers. It’s just one of several dozen panels you can add.
(Credit: Canva/PCMag)
The Fill tool lets you apply bitmaps, gradients, hatch patterns, or solid colors to a layer. The gradient choice is especially flexible, with conical, elliptical, linear, and radial options. Control-wise, it’s as good as Photoshop’s Gradient, but we miss Photoshop’s extensive selection of preset color combo gradients.
(Credit: Canva/PCMag)
The Live Filter Layers menu offers a wealth of nondestructive effects, including those that add noise, blur, change lighting and colors, distort, and sharpen. Among the distortion group are Lens Distortion, Liquefy, Perspective, Pinch/Punch, and Twirl. The Liquefy choice offers a dedicated interface with control over brush size, hardness, opacity, ramp type (Gaussian, Linear, and several more), and speed.
AI Upscaling: Works Well
One of the premium AI features, called Super Resolve, did an excellent job of turning a splotchy, low-res photo into something sharper and more pleasing. You can choose up to 400% scaling. Here’s a split view showing the improvement on the left at 200% upscaling and the original on the right:
Left to right: Image with 200% AI Upscaling and the original (Credit: Canva/PCMag)
Selection Tools: Not Quite Up to the Competition
Affinity has AI-based auto-selection tools for objects and photo subjects, though the latter is available only for Canva Pro subscribers. With Object Select, you hover the mouse cursor over parts of an image to select objects. Object Select worked, as you might expect for objects, but it was less than optimal for people with fine hair detail.
(Credit: Canva/PCMag)
You can refine the selection by changing feathering, ramp, or smoothness settings and by brushing over areas that should be in the selection, but you don’t get as good a result as with Capture One’s and Photoshop’s equivalent tools. The Select Subject AI tool did a better job. It doesn’t let you add to or remove from the selection with a brush, though you can still use Refine Selection to extend or feather the edges.
Affinity’s healing tool requires you to select a source area to replace a blemish or unwanted object. It’s not as sophisticated as Photoshop’s content-aware Patch and Move tools.
Masking options include live masks based on frequency band range, hue, or luminosity. They update if you change the source image. You can also combine masks into compound masks and edit them nondestructively.
Brushes: Near-Photoshop Level
We cover vector illustration in more detail below, but Affinity Photo includes a good variety of raster brushes in the Pixel module, with charcoal, ink, shading, and watercolor options. You can use sub-brushes (combined brushes), do symmetry drawing, and even use wet-brush-edge paint accumulation. It can also import Photoshop (.abr) brush packs directly. Brush styles include Acrylic, Engraving, Gouaches, Inks, Markers, Pens, and Pencils—a full toolbox with a high degree of customization. Nevertheless, Photoshop has the edge, with more and deeper brush customization possibilities.
(Credit: Canva/PCMag)
Merging Images: Especially Good for Astrophotography
The Panorama tool had no trouble stitching three test images together in testing. You can apply noise reduction, automatically align images, perform an HDR merge, and remove ghost images in overlapping areas simultaneously. One unique tool Affinity Photo provides is astrophotography stacking. It requires special images such as calibration shots and long exposures, but it can help make night skies look clear and detailed.
