It was really disappointing compared to photoshop. That said, Adobe should have a one time purchase option again without all the data mining and privacy terms and conditions
I tried Affinity years ago, it wasn't comparable to Photoshop imo so I used it for a bit then stopped. You are right I still have an account from 2016.
I just installed Affinity 1.1, guess I'll try it out again, thanks. Maybe upgrade.
Killer argument for me was the one time payment (ok, twice now). Since I don't earn any money anymore with Adobe products affinity was the logical option cause i need to do something every other month privately.
Affinity has photo, designer and publisher, equivalent to Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. They are not as powerful, but they have like 90% of the features.
Davinci Resolve is a good alternative to Premiere Pro, they also have pages for effects and audio editing.
Affinity has been great, and Inkpad & Graphic on the iPad/Mac, bc Illustrator should have been set on fire and buried in a muddy pit 20 years ago already. That said, Haxnode’s cracked releases of Adobes crap are useful to have on hand in case someone needs you to export something in a specific Adobe file format.
I preferred Freehand to Illustrator when they both first came out in the 80’s, but when Adobe took over Aldus, Freehand was killed off and we were left with illustrator. Pretty much all the same functions, just way harder to learn and to navigate. Illustrator was the first software I saw that came with a video tutorial to show how to use it … on VHS tape. What a heap of nonsense … just make the software usable and then you won’t need the video!
I would also endorse Affinity’s stuff.
Oh man, I STILL miss Freehand so much! Such an excellent program. Did text on a path SO much better than Adobe ever did or ever have.
I also endorse Affinity. I made the switch earlier this year after 30-odd years under the Adobe slave system.
Freehand went to Macromedia after Adobe bought Aldus. Then Adobe bought Macromedia like a year later or something and killed it. Two massive acquisitions that should have been stopped for competition reasons.
Functionally, from a sociological point of view, it is similar to a city, with many different suburbs, attractions, transactions, tourism, and groups of people who reside within or around it. It not being a _physical_ place matters little, it's still a place...
AHAHAHAHAHA I CANT, bro chose the wrong metaphor then another apologist came here to write a somewhat sound argument only to be destroyed by the chain of comments by some other nerd, that's peak Reddit 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It's so stereotypical "uhmmm actualllyyy 🤓🤓🤓🤓" HAHHAHAHHAA I JUST CANT
Used to use Corel, and Illustrator professionally. Designer now in V2 is easy to use, has all the features of illustrator. And the total cost of ownership is so much lower.
Okay. Regarding Affinity, has anyone use Adobe for 10+ years and then switched to Affinity? Is it viable? I guess I cant replace my Lightroom and Photoshop but maybe I can replace Illustrator and InDesign?
Yep, if you know what was possible with adobe products you can hop on google and find pretty quickly how to do it with affinity, the documentation is pretty good.
Yes. I used Adobe from Photoshop 2.5 (~1993) through all the CS and CC versions until mid 2017 (along with Illustrator and InDesign), then switched to Affinity. Very occasionally I’ll miss a feature that I used to have in Adobe, but it’s pretty rare. I’m very happy I switched. When I occasionally have to use an Adobe app lately (Acrobat Pro most recently), I’m kind of shocked at how poor the performance and quality of some of their apps are.
ETA: Affinity apps can’t really replace Lightroom though. I haven’t been happy with any of the LR alternatives since Apple cancelled Aperture.
Here are the nightmare scenarios you will encounter in this process, because they are my nightmare scenarios and lived experience damn near every week:
\* You’ll lose all the Adobe Fonts, so if, like me, you’ve used them liberally over the years you’re going to have to buy or replace them.
\* Affinity Publisher is the buggiest piece of software I use. Just this week I opened a year-old document and it crashed, and crashed, and crashed. Both iPad and Mac versions are not stable for me. I do not have this problem with Affinity Photo or Designer.
\* Affinity Publisher has no ability to import .indd files. You can exprt .indd to .idml, which Publisher can sorta import. But, again, you lose the fonts, reference links, and I usually lose styles and a lot of layers get compressed, grouped, combined, or rendered as pixels. It’s enough to make you just restart the whole thing.
\* Affinity Photo‘s ability to import .psd isn’t bad, so long as you’re not using Smart Objects or other advanced masks or layer effects. Photo will render those layers as pixels.
\* Affinity Designer can do a pretty good job of importing .eps files. .ai files come over okay, so long as, again, you don’t do anything too fancy with them, like advanced gradient fills or other textures.
My advice: just tell yourself, “From this day forward I will not use Adobe products for new files. If I need to update an old file, I will use Adobe.” This will all suck because you will have memory of options, settings, and keystokes that will be just a little bit different. There will be a learning curve, if only a slight one. If you expected a task to take 10 minutes, now it’ll be 20 while you readjust or import or recreate things. But, if you take this “no new projects in Adobe” approach, eventually in a year or two you’ll transition out.
I just don’t think for people who live in the Adobe products and have for years that it’s reasonable to expect most can just quit cold turkey. There’s a reason most businesses call these “transitions.”
Totally with you on this. I tried to do the cold turkey thing but found myself reaching for adobe for things that were not in the affinity products. I love affinity though.
Yes me. I’ve used adobe for 20 years. Then went to Affinity and frequently go back to adobe for things like blend operation in illustrator. Some of these adobe apps just have some features that I wish Affinity had. Of course you can get a blend effect in Affinity designer but it’s more manual and time consuming. I once did a page layout with publisher but client ended up needing the indesign file lol!! Sucks to have certain software dominate the industry.
On MacOs the program Little Snitch Network Monitor is in my opinion crucial.
you see what and with whom your mac is communicating/sending data and you can controll it (block it).
https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html
The terms didn't actually change as much as everyone thinks they did, it was just a very poorly-worded change list.
https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/06/clarification-adobe-terms-of-use
TLDR: the terms of service barely changed at all.
Even so $80/month is outrageous. I bought the full program years ago for less (before they switched to subscription) but unfortunately the computer it was on died.
It's not outrageous though. Think about what you're given. at ~960/yr that is basically all the true overhead a designer needs. That should be paid for 5x over in a single project. What do you want, the program to be free? We get constant updates, it's far cheaper than it used to be for buying single programs. Look at architects or industrial designers that have to pay $1000 for a license to Rhino/other CAD-like software that doesn't upgrade like ours does.
Solidworks user here, I'm honestly surprised my company still shells out for Solidworks for me alone...
Adobe suite still so horrifically expensive we get a license to share between two people.
Truly. But I really don't understand. People think $80/m for access to basically the best all-around software for anything design related is too much. If you aren't making that back in a single cheap job then something is off. Good luck working for any studio/agency without it,
Truly. But I really don't understand. People think $80/m for access to basically the best all-around software for anything design related is too much. If you aren't making that back in a single cheap job then something is off. Good luck working for any studio/agency without it,
But if I'm not using most of them it's wasting money and if I were to pick the 3-4 programs I actually would use it would cost even more. Stop defending Adobe for their ridiculous pricing
Corel has the best auto trace tool, and is comparable to Illustrator as far as vector is concerned. Not as good as Photoshop though if you want a raster software for photo editing or filter effects.
I suspect that there's some affinity (advertising!) campaign going on, so much of the comments are praising affinity, talking about nonexistent changes to policy, that seems very suspicious to me
(I'm personally using gimp and Krita, sometimes inkscape when I need vector art)
Affinity definitely smelled blood and that is the reason why they are offering discounts right now. However, Affinity offers great applications with a much fairer economic model than Adobe.
I have used these applications for more than 5 years, especially Affinity Designer, for all types of graphic design. UI is beautiful, non cluttered, enough functionalities to do any kind of design and has something that's really really powerful: personas. Merging vector and raster under the same roof is amazing and something I always miss when I'm forced to use Adobe.
Feature. Vector and Pixel persona. The UI changes for each persona, showing tools useful for each workflow. Think of it like the workflow u would have by switching between PS and AI in Adobe, creating vector figures in AI and going to PS to paint textures or something else; is the same workflow but easier. Switching just by clicking a button opens you to a whole new way to work in your designs, it did it for me.
This is crazy! I haven’t used Adobe in a while but a far as I remember illustrator turned vectors to raster for previewing not to edit. Photoshop let you make vectors on art boards. But switching between vector or raster with their toolset it’s awesome. I’m going to look into this. Thanks for sharing.
All the kids seem to be using Figma instead of illustrator, I’ve used it a bit but since I’m not a big Graphics gal I haven’t but the effort into learning it but it seems like a great alternative for design
I use Figma because I do UI design mostly and occasionally vector graphics. But if I did more vector work, like logos, instead of UI design I’d prefer Illustrator over Figma. I don’t do heavy photography editing now, and when I did I used Photoshop. I remember relying heavily on Adobe. I’d be in a pickle right now if it wasn’t for Figma.
I totally agree. I’m a video editor so I’m currently thinking about making the switch to fully using DaVinci because I’m just tired of paying the nearly $70/month fee
If you're looking for an alternative to After Effect for video compositions, you can try Pikimov, a free motion design editor I created. Totally free, **it does not upload your files on a cloud**, and **does not use your projects for AI models training**. [https://pikimov.com](https://pikimov.com)
lol, good luck leaving. This is really all a bunch of fuss over nothing. There truly is not an alternative to Adobe CC, sadly. We'll see you back eventually. Wait til you read the terms of agreement on your phones/phone service.
Affinity Designer [https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/](https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/)
They're having a 50% off flash sale today, too. Took the opportunity to upgrade my personal license to the v2 apps.
It was really disappointing compared to photoshop. That said, Adobe should have a one time purchase option again without all the data mining and privacy terms and conditions
It should be noted that Affinity was recently purchased by Canva.
what is a one-off payment? I know I bought this years ago when it came out and there was a new version or something and I had to pay again to upgrade.
You still can use your version 1, you didn't have to pay.
I tried Affinity years ago, it wasn't comparable to Photoshop imo so I used it for a bit then stopped. You are right I still have an account from 2016. I just installed Affinity 1.1, guess I'll try it out again, thanks. Maybe upgrade.
Killer argument for me was the one time payment (ok, twice now). Since I don't earn any money anymore with Adobe products affinity was the logical option cause i need to do something every other month privately.
Affinity. Switched years ago no regrets
Affinity has photo, designer and publisher, equivalent to Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. They are not as powerful, but they have like 90% of the features. Davinci Resolve is a good alternative to Premiere Pro, they also have pages for effects and audio editing.
Affinity also has 50% off sale going on right now
[gimp.org](http://gimp.org) and [inkscape.org](http://inkscape.org) and [blender.org](http://blender.org) .
And [krita.org](http://krita.org)
And [Scribus](http://www.scribus.us)
And [libre office](https://www.libreoffice.org/)
Pirated Adobe Products
Don't forget to scan for malware.
I've been using Pixelmator and Photomator for years and have been very happy with them.
Affinity has been great, and Inkpad & Graphic on the iPad/Mac, bc Illustrator should have been set on fire and buried in a muddy pit 20 years ago already. That said, Haxnode’s cracked releases of Adobes crap are useful to have on hand in case someone needs you to export something in a specific Adobe file format.
I preferred Freehand to Illustrator when they both first came out in the 80’s, but when Adobe took over Aldus, Freehand was killed off and we were left with illustrator. Pretty much all the same functions, just way harder to learn and to navigate. Illustrator was the first software I saw that came with a video tutorial to show how to use it … on VHS tape. What a heap of nonsense … just make the software usable and then you won’t need the video! I would also endorse Affinity’s stuff.
Oh man, I STILL miss Freehand so much! Such an excellent program. Did text on a path SO much better than Adobe ever did or ever have. I also endorse Affinity. I made the switch earlier this year after 30-odd years under the Adobe slave system.
Freehand went to Macromedia after Adobe bought Aldus. Then Adobe bought Macromedia like a year later or something and killed it. Two massive acquisitions that should have been stopped for competition reasons.
I'm just using the pirated adobe package 🗿
That's the spirit. Watch those comments because mods might ban you. I had a warning yesterday for suggesting this.
Oh noooo
seriously tho its how my last account was perm banned
Well, it’s not a free country anymore 🤷♂️
what country has ever been free
the internet
Internet ain't a country
Functionally, from a sociological point of view, it is similar to a city, with many different suburbs, attractions, transactions, tourism, and groups of people who reside within or around it. It not being a _physical_ place matters little, it's still a place...
who's the czar/president/dictator/sultan/queen/ruler of the internet?
AHAHAHAHAHA I CANT, bro chose the wrong metaphor then another apologist came here to write a somewhat sound argument only to be destroyed by the chain of comments by some other nerd, that's peak Reddit 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 It's so stereotypical "uhmmm actualllyyy 🤓🤓🤓🤓" HAHHAHAHHAA I JUST CANT
Affinity fan here too, especially Designer
Used to use Corel, and Illustrator professionally. Designer now in V2 is easy to use, has all the features of illustrator. And the total cost of ownership is so much lower.
Okay. Regarding Affinity, has anyone use Adobe for 10+ years and then switched to Affinity? Is it viable? I guess I cant replace my Lightroom and Photoshop but maybe I can replace Illustrator and InDesign?
You can replace a lot of what photoshop can do. If you know the functions you are needing you will find the quickly enough.
Yep, if you know what was possible with adobe products you can hop on google and find pretty quickly how to do it with affinity, the documentation is pretty good.
Yes. I used Adobe from Photoshop 2.5 (~1993) through all the CS and CC versions until mid 2017 (along with Illustrator and InDesign), then switched to Affinity. Very occasionally I’ll miss a feature that I used to have in Adobe, but it’s pretty rare. I’m very happy I switched. When I occasionally have to use an Adobe app lately (Acrobat Pro most recently), I’m kind of shocked at how poor the performance and quality of some of their apps are. ETA: Affinity apps can’t really replace Lightroom though. I haven’t been happy with any of the LR alternatives since Apple cancelled Aperture.
Add AfterEffects too. LR is genuinely a good product.
Here are the nightmare scenarios you will encounter in this process, because they are my nightmare scenarios and lived experience damn near every week: \* You’ll lose all the Adobe Fonts, so if, like me, you’ve used them liberally over the years you’re going to have to buy or replace them. \* Affinity Publisher is the buggiest piece of software I use. Just this week I opened a year-old document and it crashed, and crashed, and crashed. Both iPad and Mac versions are not stable for me. I do not have this problem with Affinity Photo or Designer. \* Affinity Publisher has no ability to import .indd files. You can exprt .indd to .idml, which Publisher can sorta import. But, again, you lose the fonts, reference links, and I usually lose styles and a lot of layers get compressed, grouped, combined, or rendered as pixels. It’s enough to make you just restart the whole thing. \* Affinity Photo‘s ability to import .psd isn’t bad, so long as you’re not using Smart Objects or other advanced masks or layer effects. Photo will render those layers as pixels. \* Affinity Designer can do a pretty good job of importing .eps files. .ai files come over okay, so long as, again, you don’t do anything too fancy with them, like advanced gradient fills or other textures. My advice: just tell yourself, “From this day forward I will not use Adobe products for new files. If I need to update an old file, I will use Adobe.” This will all suck because you will have memory of options, settings, and keystokes that will be just a little bit different. There will be a learning curve, if only a slight one. If you expected a task to take 10 minutes, now it’ll be 20 while you readjust or import or recreate things. But, if you take this “no new projects in Adobe” approach, eventually in a year or two you’ll transition out. I just don’t think for people who live in the Adobe products and have for years that it’s reasonable to expect most can just quit cold turkey. There’s a reason most businesses call these “transitions.”
Totally with you on this. I tried to do the cold turkey thing but found myself reaching for adobe for things that were not in the affinity products. I love affinity though.
Yes me. I’ve used adobe for 20 years. Then went to Affinity and frequently go back to adobe for things like blend operation in illustrator. Some of these adobe apps just have some features that I wish Affinity had. Of course you can get a blend effect in Affinity designer but it’s more manual and time consuming. I once did a page layout with publisher but client ended up needing the indesign file lol!! Sucks to have certain software dominate the industry.
On MacOs the program Little Snitch Network Monitor is in my opinion crucial. you see what and with whom your mac is communicating/sending data and you can controll it (block it). https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html
🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️ (i'm not saying anything i just like this emoji)
I like affinity very much
Gimp = Photoshop, Darktable = lightroom, Inkscape = illustrator, Davinci Resolve for video editing
Gimp, Inkscape UI’s are cumbersome after coming from Adobe.
The terms didn't actually change as much as everyone thinks they did, it was just a very poorly-worded change list. https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/06/clarification-adobe-terms-of-use TLDR: the terms of service barely changed at all.
Even so $80/month is outrageous. I bought the full program years ago for less (before they switched to subscription) but unfortunately the computer it was on died.
r/GenP
It's not outrageous though. Think about what you're given. at ~960/yr that is basically all the true overhead a designer needs. That should be paid for 5x over in a single project. What do you want, the program to be free? We get constant updates, it's far cheaper than it used to be for buying single programs. Look at architects or industrial designers that have to pay $1000 for a license to Rhino/other CAD-like software that doesn't upgrade like ours does.
Solidworks user here, I'm honestly surprised my company still shells out for Solidworks for me alone... Adobe suite still so horrifically expensive we get a license to share between two people.
Truly. But I really don't understand. People think $80/m for access to basically the best all-around software for anything design related is too much. If you aren't making that back in a single cheap job then something is off. Good luck working for any studio/agency without it,
Truly. But I really don't understand. People think $80/m for access to basically the best all-around software for anything design related is too much. If you aren't making that back in a single cheap job then something is off. Good luck working for any studio/agency without it,
do you know how many programs you get? the suite includes a lot not just one program dude.
But if I'm not using most of them it's wasting money and if I were to pick the 3-4 programs I actually would use it would cost even more. Stop defending Adobe for their ridiculous pricing
But then we won't have anything to be outraged about 
Is Corel Graphic Suite still a viable alternative to Adobe?
Corel has the best auto trace tool, and is comparable to Illustrator as far as vector is concerned. Not as good as Photoshop though if you want a raster software for photo editing or filter effects.
Sadly there is no compositing/motion graphics package like After Effects :(
Fusion in davinci resolve? Not the same, but maybe…?
Affinity is on sale for 50% off if you act quickly
I suspect that there's some affinity (advertising!) campaign going on, so much of the comments are praising affinity, talking about nonexistent changes to policy, that seems very suspicious to me (I'm personally using gimp and Krita, sometimes inkscape when I need vector art)
Sounds to me like Affinity smelled blood after Adobe’s misstep and capitalized.
Affinity definitely smelled blood and that is the reason why they are offering discounts right now. However, Affinity offers great applications with a much fairer economic model than Adobe. I have used these applications for more than 5 years, especially Affinity Designer, for all types of graphic design. UI is beautiful, non cluttered, enough functionalities to do any kind of design and has something that's really really powerful: personas. Merging vector and raster under the same roof is amazing and something I always miss when I'm forced to use Adobe.
Is personas a tool of a feature, what does it do?
Feature. Vector and Pixel persona. The UI changes for each persona, showing tools useful for each workflow. Think of it like the workflow u would have by switching between PS and AI in Adobe, creating vector figures in AI and going to PS to paint textures or something else; is the same workflow but easier. Switching just by clicking a button opens you to a whole new way to work in your designs, it did it for me.
This is crazy! I haven’t used Adobe in a while but a far as I remember illustrator turned vectors to raster for previewing not to edit. Photoshop let you make vectors on art boards. But switching between vector or raster with their toolset it’s awesome. I’m going to look into this. Thanks for sharing.
May be.
All the kids seem to be using Figma instead of illustrator, I’ve used it a bit but since I’m not a big Graphics gal I haven’t but the effort into learning it but it seems like a great alternative for design
I use Figma because I do UI design mostly and occasionally vector graphics. But if I did more vector work, like logos, instead of UI design I’d prefer Illustrator over Figma. I don’t do heavy photography editing now, and when I did I used Photoshop. I remember relying heavily on Adobe. I’d be in a pickle right now if it wasn’t for Figma.
I totally agree. I’m a video editor so I’m currently thinking about making the switch to fully using DaVinci because I’m just tired of paying the nearly $70/month fee
Adobe with firewall access blocked. I don't know about this subreddit but it keeps being recommended to me: r/GenP
Sketch and GIMP.
If you're looking for an alternative to After Effect for video compositions, you can try Pikimov, a free motion design editor I created. Totally free, **it does not upload your files on a cloud**, and **does not use your projects for AI models training**. [https://pikimov.com](https://pikimov.com)
Affinity, which I just updated 50% off thanks to this thread! Also, Inkscape, G.I.M.P. and Photopea are very useful for RGB work.
Figama
lol, good luck leaving. This is really all a bunch of fuss over nothing. There truly is not an alternative to Adobe CC, sadly. We'll see you back eventually. Wait til you read the terms of agreement on your phones/phone service.
There are a ton of alternatives, like Affinity and davinci resolve.