I wish you had said something more meaningful about each tool instead of repeating how it may or may not be a deal breaker. For example, the gradient tool is very different: in Photoshop it’s destructive whereas Affinity allows you to switch up the colours and type of gradient any time without having to delete the layer and creating a new one. Things like this are very important informations that can actually make a difference in a person choosing one over the other.
@@bendesignsmedia It could have been shorter and more informative. People can also look up on google images the interface and compare where the tools show up in the tool bar... if you pointed out more practical stuff about tools it would be more helpful.
I felt the same, would be nice to see an exemple of both tools even if the video be longer I usually watch videos like this to see the difference without having to go and create accounts and download both, I think it’s better this way because I can hear from someone who has experience talking about the differences than myself trying to figure out Anyway thanks for the information
Yoo Ben! I found you from Matti Haapoja's Channel. I've never actually stepped foot into Affinity Photo. What made you go with them instead of Photoshop in general? I really like this comparison video idea. See how one works right next to the other is a good idea. Keep creating my friend. Videos like this are useful for creatives in general! 📸 As for me (My name’s Ryan!) I started creating content on TH-cam to help people live more meaningful lives. It really makes me sad to see people reflect on life and realize they could’ve done much more with the time they were blessed with! Watching others is one way we learn, so my goal is to be an example for others who need guidance on travel, self-development, and love in action! ❤️ Much love! 🤓 Keep chasing your dream and bringing value to your audience! 🙌🏼
Hi Ryan, Affinity Photo has most of the features of photoshop that most people us, but it is a single purchase instead of a subscription (and it 50% off right now!). It has the added advantage of running much faster than Photoshop because it doesn't have 30 years of code baggage dragging it down. Those are the main advantages. Beyond that it integrates seamlessly with the other Affinity programs (Designer and Publisher) which makes the whole design workflow much easer than on the Adobe side.
Thanks Fran, I think this got added in 1.9, but maybe it was there before that and I just couldn't get it to work. Now my canvas rotates if I hold command and scroll (I'm using a magic mouse, not a track pad, so that could be the difference)
Thanks for the elaborate roundtrip! Just to clarify some "misunderstandings"... You should have checked the *context toolbar* in Photo more closely, that's why you missed some features that you claimed do not exist :-) #05:05 Column/Row marquee tools are useful for low-res pixel art (games, icons, sprites). Certainly archaic from back in the days when even 800x600 px was considered a high resolution file/screen ... #08:26 "Perspective Crop Tool" is available as part of the "Mesh Warp Tool": select a Pixel layer, pick Perspective Tool, in the popup dialog choose *Mode "Source"*, adjust the corners, hit apply. It's unintuitive and the default mode 'Destination' does a different thing. #09:16 IMHO "Frame Tool" is essentially Photo's "File > Place". You can change and reposition the placed file/document after the fact within the created "image" layer boundaries using the *context toolbar*, mask it, etc. It becomes Affinity's version of a Smart Object. #10:20 "Ruler Tool" functionality is in the Crop Tools's context toolbar as "Straighten". IIRC "Count Tool" was added in CS4 as part of their "Image Forensics" features: it just puts markers on the image and counts them. That and 3D picker is not available in Photo. #15.48 Photo's gradients are a bit more flexible. You can place colour stops "in place" on the gradient line when you create one, rotate it, flip it, and change type before you commit the edit. Gradients are also available as a *Shape Fill Type* and become non destructive when used that way. #19:08 Photo's "Text Frame" is for rich text blocks where you can use character and paragraph stylesheets. It's also what you get when you "File > Place" a plaintext document into Photo. If you modify its size and boundaries It won't scale the fontsize or distort the characters automatically. There's a dedicated handle to do that and it'll then act more like Photoshop (imho) or the "Artistic Text". That one however is better suited to quickly drag out large headings as the character size and shape adhere to the frame area. Vertical text flow requires some manual labour in Photo and esp. Affinity Publisher (their InDesign) suffers from this lack of multilingual support. Now that all browsers can handle this, it's time for publishing tools to keep up. There's also no support for variable TrueType/OpenType fonts in Affinity programs :-( We can only hope for 2.x to fix that. #23:19 While there is no explicit "Rotate Tool", you can rotate the canvas in 15° steps via the (right click) context or View menus. Also holding Alt + Mouse Wheels, add Shift and Ctrl to modify speed or rotation origin. If one uses a pen tablet that cannot "emulate" a wheel roation is off limits. #24:07 to get the foreground/background colour pickers underneath the tools you need to switch Photo's toolbar into 2-column mode (View > Customise Tools). They'll then show up automatically.
I am thinking of buying affinity suite even though I get adobe CC through work amd have been using Adobe since the stone age. So, this sort of detail puts a smile on my face. My homeboy at work loves Illustrator but it makes my skin crawl... I wish it didn't, but it does. And photoshop is awful with vector exporting and manipulation. If only Adobe could revamp the whole mess and not worry about legacy users. :( Anyway, thanks for the detailed info!
I think the main reason to stick with Photoshop for me is the interactions between Bridge, Lightroom and Photoshop. I can see all my images in each of them whereas the .aphoto images aren't visible in Adobe software and there is no way to import them without exporting files as jpg, png or tif or whatever is recognised. But that means using more space for each image if you don't want to lose the affinity edit info.
Great review but both have too many unnecessary features for now I made the switch to pixelmator pro and am very happy with its interface and high performance
Thanks Reggie, it depends on what you are doing I guess. I use pixelmator photo for a lot of my iPad photo editing, but I haven't tried out Pro before.
Wow man, I feel lucky I saw your comment. I have been looking for such a tool for a long time. I particularly love the automatic bg removal, it's perfect. Thanks :)
"Why haven't artists moved to Procreate? I'm not exactly sure" Don't know, honestly. Maybe the 1000$ pricetag that comes with buying an ipad + The program costs? Pretty difficult to say...
Umm... you can buy an iPad for $300 that can run Procreate no problem, it doesn't have to be a brand new iPad Pro. It only costs $10 to buy Procreate. Buying creative cloud costs over $600 a year, and you need a beefy computer to actually run CC programs.
Surprised at some of your assumptions that contradict my experience. And I have to add that the hand, used for dodging in the darkroom, seems more apropos than the icon used in Affinity. Other than that, thanks for an interesting and informative video.
Hi Ray, thanks for watching. I think very few people editing digital photos have any experience in a real darkroom, I guess it is kind of like the floppy disk icon which we just keep around because it used the be the way we saved :)
@@bendesignsmedia -FYI - I now also teach photography. Believe it or not, 25% of my students have gone back or still use film cameras (why - I don't know, they say its like using hand tools when building a boat, the charm of it, etc). I no longer have a darkroom as I'm all digital, but some "Visual Communication Courses" (no longer called photography courses) still teach Darkroom techniques at the College/University levels. And students have to use film cameras during certain phases of their course. That way they can not delete and re-shoot, which would be cheating (under the slow-photography knowledge - plan BEFORE you shoot rather than take a million pictures and delete the bad ones)
@@bendesignsmedia - My "Film" students state that the price of my new D850 and battery pack grip will buy them film, paper and processing chemicals well beyond the point when I have to replace my Nikons once again with the newer technology. They have a point, I guess.... Take care and stay safe.
The brush tool is the most essential tool in photoshop and affinity and it is almost never used for painting. For example it is used for every form of masking. If you really ask yourself why people aren't using procreate instead of the brush tool, you might also ask yourself if you should tackle a topic as complex as this.
You do realize that tons of people use Photoshop for painting right? And that there are forms of masking that don't use the brush tool? For example masking from a selection or creating a clipping mask. Your statements are a tad hyperbolic, but I appreciate you commenting.
@@bendesignsmedia Edit. no need for beef in the comment section. There are tons of reasons for the brush that no procreate can solve. In my testing the way the brush tool handles in Affinity, especially in low flow and low hardness setting feels very raw and not at all as smooth as in PS. This is one of the reasons I will not be able to move to affinity short term. Maybe one can get used to this and maybe it is even better in Affinity but my muscle memory is not able to adjust years of usage. I was hoping this video was "checking every tool" for things like these. But I guess my hopes were to high... Now I know the icons are coloured and some are missing :) . Anyway, thank you for your video because at least you made one and I am just sitting here complaining ;)
By doing a video like this and saying you want to keep it short you are kind of doing a disservice as a lot of tools you say as missing in Affinity are actually there as settings within a common tool, eg. the pen tool has all the functions of Photoshop's pen tools but are set up as settings within Affinity's pen tool within the dialog bar above. There are a lot of examples like this.This can in effect steer someone away with a false impression.
@@gregs4163 the point of this video is to check as what tools are present in each program, which is exactly what it does. I mention in the video that Affinity has built many features into the pen tool directly in to the pen tool that they think are needed. But, if you would like to make a video going over all the pen tool features, I will be happy to link to that in a card on this video. Just send me the link.
@@bendesignsmedia I guess you're not understanding my point, you should then rename this video "Comparing tools that are visible by default" because that is what your video shows, you are not "checking every tool".
@@gregs4163 Wow, you must keep very busy checking all the clickbait titles on youtube and suggesting new titles for them! Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to watch my video with a slightly inaccurate title!
Sorry I'm not sure what you are referring to, are you saying you don't like any of the icons in Affinity, or are you saying you don't like the icon that hides and shows the interface? I would say that on the whole Affinity has much better icons than Adobe does.
I wish you had said something more meaningful about each tool instead of repeating how it may or may not be a deal breaker. For example, the gradient tool is very different: in Photoshop it’s destructive whereas Affinity allows you to switch up the colours and type of gradient any time without having to delete the layer and creating a new one. Things like this are very important informations that can actually make a difference in a person choosing one over the other.
How long did you want this video to be? 😂 I figured people could download the trial to test out the specifics themselves.
@@bendesignsmedia It could have been shorter and more informative. People can also look up on google images the interface and compare where the tools show up in the tool bar... if you pointed out more practical stuff about tools it would be more helpful.
I felt the same, would be nice to see an exemple of both tools even if the video be longer
I usually watch videos like this to see the difference without having to go and create accounts and download both, I think it’s better this way because I can hear from someone who has experience talking about the differences than myself trying to figure out
Anyway thanks for the information
@@bendesignsmedia So, this video is for people who are not able to find the corresponding tools but should use the trial to compare them themselves.
I just found this video. Fantastic comparison. Quick, and full of information. Thank you, Ben.
Glad it was helpful!
Yoo Ben! I found you from Matti Haapoja's Channel.
I've never actually stepped foot into Affinity Photo. What made you go with them instead of Photoshop in general? I really like this comparison video idea. See how one works right next to the other is a good idea. Keep creating my friend. Videos like this are useful for creatives in general! 📸
As for me (My name’s Ryan!) I started creating content on TH-cam to help people live more meaningful lives. It really makes me sad to see people reflect on life and realize they could’ve done much more with the time they were blessed with! Watching others is one way we learn, so my goal is to be an example for others who need guidance on travel, self-development, and love in action! ❤️
Much love! 🤓 Keep chasing your dream and bringing value to your audience! 🙌🏼
Hi Ryan, Affinity Photo has most of the features of photoshop that most people us, but it is a single purchase instead of a subscription (and it 50% off right now!). It has the added advantage of running much faster than Photoshop because it doesn't have 30 years of code baggage dragging it down. Those are the main advantages. Beyond that it integrates seamlessly with the other Affinity programs (Designer and Publisher) which makes the whole design workflow much easer than on the Adobe side.
You can rotate in affinity: CMD+Two finger move
Thanks Fran, I think this got added in 1.9, but maybe it was there before that and I just couldn't get it to work. Now my canvas rotates if I hold command and scroll (I'm using a magic mouse, not a track pad, so that could be the difference)
Rotate View tool in Affinity, is a dropdown menu from View. So it's there, but not part of the LH tools Icon set.
thanks!
You can also use Alt + zoom to rotate in Affinity
Thanks for the elaborate roundtrip! Just to clarify some "misunderstandings"...
You should have checked the *context toolbar* in Photo more closely, that's why you missed some features that you claimed do not exist :-)
#05:05 Column/Row marquee tools are useful for low-res pixel art (games, icons, sprites).
Certainly archaic from back in the days when even 800x600 px was considered a high resolution file/screen ...
#08:26 "Perspective Crop Tool" is available as part of the "Mesh Warp Tool": select a Pixel layer, pick Perspective Tool, in the popup dialog choose *Mode "Source"*, adjust the corners, hit apply. It's unintuitive and the default mode 'Destination' does a different thing.
#09:16 IMHO "Frame Tool" is essentially Photo's "File > Place". You can change and reposition the placed file/document after the fact within the created "image" layer boundaries using the *context toolbar*, mask it, etc. It becomes Affinity's version of a Smart Object.
#10:20 "Ruler Tool" functionality is in the Crop Tools's context toolbar as "Straighten".
IIRC "Count Tool" was added in CS4 as part of their "Image Forensics" features: it just puts markers on the image and counts them. That and 3D picker is not available in Photo.
#15.48 Photo's gradients are a bit more flexible. You can place colour stops "in place" on the gradient line when you create one, rotate it, flip it, and change type before you commit the edit. Gradients are also available as a *Shape Fill Type* and become non destructive when used that way.
#19:08 Photo's "Text Frame" is for rich text blocks where you can use character and paragraph stylesheets. It's also what you get when you "File > Place" a plaintext document into Photo.
If you modify its size and boundaries It won't scale the fontsize or distort the characters automatically. There's a dedicated handle to do that and it'll then act more like Photoshop (imho) or the "Artistic Text". That one however is better suited to quickly drag out large headings as the character size and shape adhere to the frame area.
Vertical text flow requires some manual labour in Photo and esp. Affinity Publisher (their InDesign) suffers from this lack of multilingual support. Now that all browsers can handle this, it's time for publishing tools to keep up. There's also no support for variable TrueType/OpenType fonts in Affinity programs :-( We can only hope for 2.x to fix that.
#23:19 While there is no explicit "Rotate Tool", you can rotate the canvas in 15° steps via the (right click) context or View menus. Also holding Alt + Mouse Wheels, add Shift and Ctrl to modify speed or rotation origin.
If one uses a pen tablet that cannot "emulate" a wheel roation is off limits.
#24:07 to get the foreground/background colour pickers underneath the tools you need to switch Photo's toolbar into 2-column mode (View > Customise Tools). They'll then show up automatically.
Thanks for putting that all together!
I am thinking of buying affinity suite even though I get adobe CC through work amd have been using Adobe since the stone age. So, this sort of detail puts a smile on my face.
My homeboy at work loves Illustrator but it makes my skin crawl... I wish it didn't, but it does. And photoshop is awful with vector exporting and manipulation. If only Adobe could revamp the whole mess and not worry about legacy users. :(
Anyway, thanks for the detailed info!
@@Galactu5 You are welcome! Thanks for watching
Affinity Photo 2.0 is going to be amazing. Mark my words.
Consider them marked :)
and you were right.
I have both and I may do the same designs in each !
There you go! Thanks for watching!
16:05 Affinity photo doesn't have noise gradient, which was a gradient type I used very much in Photoshop
can you create a similar effect using a noise filter and a gradient mask?
@@bendesignsmedia sadly no, it's far from the flexibility of noise gradient.
Is there something similar to "Select and Mask" in Affinity Photo? I kind of rely on that thing every time I make a selection.
Hi Mascha, you can refine a selection before making it into a mask, but it requires more manual work than Select and Mask in photoshop does.
@@bendesignsmedia thanks for the answer! Sounds interesting, I think I'll just check out the trial version for that. :)
@@maschabehr8027 Yep always try the trial first to check your workflow. And with 90 day trial right now you have plenty of time. Thanks for watching
I use the single pixel row selection tool to correct lines of corrupted pixels in jpgs
Interesting, I haven't thought of that before
Rotate is in the beta for the next update in Affinity not as a tool but keyboard short cut.
Thanks Paul, that is good to know, that makes more sense than a separate tool.
It has always been there but just recently was assigned a shortcut in the Beta. I have been using it all the time with a Surface dial.
@@gregs4163 not on windows
@@paulwalden-mills5633 Yes on Windows!
Can you rotate with gestures in windows?
in affinity 23:26 you can rotate with holding ALT
Yes this was added after I filmed this video. I actually hate this feature on desktop though because I am always doing it by accident!
Awesome video
Thanks!
After Effects is the only thing keeping me with Adobe
Lot's people seem to have that issue. AfterEffects get's it hooks deep in the workflow I guess.
@@bendesignsmedia Jump into Fusion! far better
@@Mutedimagery oh yeah, I use Fusion everyday, all my editing is in DaVinci, but the AfterEffects guys hate it when I say that
you mean free davinci video tool.
@@kinkychad69 I’m referring to the fusion, which you can use with either version on resolve or the stand alone version of fusion.
I think the main reason to stick with Photoshop for me is the interactions between Bridge, Lightroom and Photoshop. I can see all my images in each of them whereas the .aphoto images aren't visible in Adobe software and there is no way to import them without exporting files as jpg, png or tif or whatever is recognised. But that means using more space for each image if you don't want to lose the affinity edit info.
Ecosystem lock in is real for sure.
Great review but both have too many unnecessary features for now I made the switch to pixelmator pro and am very happy with its interface and high performance
Thanks Reggie, it depends on what you are doing I guess. I use pixelmator photo for a lot of my iPad photo editing, but I haven't tried out Pro before.
Wow man, I feel lucky I saw your comment. I have been looking for such a tool for a long time. I particularly love the automatic bg removal, it's perfect. Thanks :)
"Why haven't artists moved to Procreate? I'm not exactly sure"
Don't know, honestly. Maybe the 1000$ pricetag that comes with buying an ipad + The program costs? Pretty difficult to say...
Umm... you can buy an iPad for $300 that can run Procreate no problem, it doesn't have to be a brand new iPad Pro. It only costs $10 to buy Procreate. Buying creative cloud costs over $600 a year, and you need a beefy computer to actually run CC programs.
I’ve used SketchClub as a drawing tool on the iPad for about 9 years (and Autodesk’s Sketch) I have Procreate, but for some reason don’t like. .
To Rotate the canvas in Affinity photo, Hold down ALT and rotate Mouse Wheel.
Yes, that was added after this video was made. Unfortunately it is super annoying because now I always do it by accident!
i only wish affinity software included a windows key when buying it on mac and vice versa.
That would be nice, but it's so cheap it makes sense that they don't.
@@bendesignsmedia yeah, a couple of years ago i saw it go down to 20 bucks and still didnt buy it, i missed that deal
@@g43s Yeah, normally it doesn't go down that far, but they normally do go on sale around black friday time each year
Surprised at some of your assumptions that contradict my experience. And I have to add that the hand, used for dodging in the darkroom, seems more apropos than the icon used in Affinity. Other than that, thanks for an interesting and informative video.
Hi Ray, thanks for watching. I think very few people editing digital photos have any experience in a real darkroom, I guess it is kind of like the floppy disk icon which we just keep around because it used the be the way we saved :)
@@bendesignsmedia -FYI - I now also teach photography. Believe it or not, 25% of my students have gone back or still use film cameras (why - I don't know, they say its like using hand tools when building a boat, the charm of it, etc). I no longer have a darkroom as I'm all digital, but some "Visual Communication Courses" (no longer called photography courses) still teach Darkroom techniques at the College/University levels. And students have to use film cameras during certain phases of their course. That way they can not delete and re-shoot, which would be cheating (under the slow-photography knowledge - plan BEFORE you shoot rather than take a million pictures and delete the bad ones)
@@LanielPhoto Yeah film photography is definitely having a moment, I actually really like the look but it's too expensive for me to get in to.
@@bendesignsmedia - My "Film" students state that the price of my new D850 and battery pack grip will buy them film, paper and processing chemicals well beyond the point when I have to replace my Nikons once again with the newer technology. They have a point, I guess.... Take care and stay safe.
What about a comparison since affinity 2.0 is out now 🤔
Yeah, that is something I should do sometime... just way behind on videos right now so its not a priority yet.
The brush tool is the most essential tool in photoshop and affinity and it is almost never used for painting. For example it is used for every form of masking.
If you really ask yourself why people aren't using procreate instead of the brush tool, you might also ask yourself if you should tackle a topic as complex as this.
You do realize that tons of people use Photoshop for painting right? And that there are forms of masking that don't use the brush tool? For example masking from a selection or creating a clipping mask. Your statements are a tad hyperbolic, but I appreciate you commenting.
@@bendesignsmedia Edit. no need for beef in the comment section. There are tons of reasons for the brush that no procreate can solve.
In my testing the way the brush tool handles in Affinity, especially in low flow and low hardness setting feels very raw and not at all as smooth as in PS. This is one of the reasons I will not be able to move to affinity short term. Maybe one can get used to this and maybe it is even better in Affinity but my muscle memory is not able to adjust years of usage.
I was hoping this video was "checking every tool" for things like these. But I guess my hopes were to high... Now I know the icons are coloured and some are missing :) .
Anyway, thank you for your video because at least you made one and I am just sitting here complaining ;)
After working in Affinity Photo for over a year, my god is Photoshop so depressing to look at with all the grey icons. So sterile.
People are divided on how they feel, but I personally like the way Affinity looks better too.
Ok now Compare the price
Oh I've got lots of videos about that, this video is just about tools
By doing a video like this and saying you want to keep it short you are kind of doing a disservice as a lot of tools you say as missing in Affinity are actually there as settings within a common tool, eg. the pen tool has all the functions of Photoshop's pen tools but are set up as settings within Affinity's pen tool within the dialog bar above. There are a lot of examples like this.This can in effect steer someone away with a false impression.
How long of a video would you like to watch?
@@bendesignsmedia My point is you are saying that some tools do not exist when in fact they do!
@@gregs4163 the point of this video is to check as what tools are present in each program, which is exactly what it does. I mention in the video that Affinity has built many features into the pen tool directly in to the pen tool that they think are needed. But, if you would like to make a video going over all the pen tool features, I will be happy to link to that in a card on this video. Just send me the link.
@@bendesignsmedia I guess you're not understanding my point, you should then rename this video "Comparing tools that are visible by default" because that is what your video shows, you are not "checking every tool".
@@gregs4163 Wow, you must keep very busy checking all the clickbait titles on youtube and suggesting new titles for them! Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to watch my video with a slightly inaccurate title!
the ui icon in affinity photo is so ugly.
Sorry I'm not sure what you are referring to, are you saying you don't like any of the icons in Affinity, or are you saying you don't like the icon that hides and shows the interface? I would say that on the whole Affinity has much better icons than Adobe does.