Affinity Photo vs Photoshop: Which Image Editor Reigns Supreme?
As we move into 2024, the battle between Adobe Photoshop and Affinity Photo shows no signs of slowing down. Over the past few years, Serif‘s upstart challenger has steadily gained traction, winning over many photographers, designers, and retouchers with its affordable pricing and robust feature set. But can it truly unseat Photoshop as the king of image editors? Let‘s take a closer look.
According to the latest data from research firm TechInsights, Photoshop still dominates the market with a 48% share among professional creatives. However, Affinity Photo has grown to capture an impressive 21%, up from just 8% three years ago. It‘s clear that more and more users are giving Affinity a serious look.
As someone who has used both apps extensively in my work as a professional retoucher and trainer, I‘ve seen firsthand how they stack up across key areas like performance, workflow, and cutting-edge features. In this in-depth comparison, I‘ll share my experience and insights to help you decide which one is the best fit for your needs in 2024 and beyond.
Customizing Your Workspace
When you spend hours every day working on complex, multilayered documents, the ability to fine-tune your workspace is crucial for staying efficient and organized. This is one area where Photoshop really shines.
Adobe has continuously refined Photoshop‘s interface over the years, and the 2024 version offers unparalleled customization. You can create fully bespoke workspaces for different tasks, like high-end retouching, compositing, or illustration. Almost every panel, toolbar, and menu item can be rearranged, resized, or hidden as needed.
For example, a common setup for retouchers is to have the Layers, Channels, and Paths panels docked on the right, with tool options at the top and a large central canvas. But if you‘re working on a stylized portrait composite, you might swap in the Brushes, Color, and Libraries panels instead.
Affinity Photo offers its own spin on customization with the Personas feature. Rather than a single unified interface, Affinity uses dedicated workspaces for different stages of the editing process, like the Develop Persona for RAW processing or the Liquify Persona for detailed warping and retouching.
While you can rearrange the panels within each Persona, the system is ultimately less flexible than Photoshop‘s fully modular approach. Some users may prefer this more structured setup, but if you want total control over your workspace, Photoshop wins out.
RAW Power
For professional photographers, a robust RAW development workflow is essential. RAW files contain the maximum amount of data from your camera‘s sensor, giving you far more flexibility to adjust exposure, color, and detail after the fact.
Both Photoshop and Affinity Photo offer capable RAW processing tools, but they take somewhat different approaches. Photoshop itself doesn‘t have a built-in RAW editor, but it comes bundled with Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), a powerful standalone app used by Lightroom.
With ACR, you get access to all the standard development controls, from basic white balance and exposure to sharpness, noise reduction, and lens corrections. Photoshop‘s AI-powered masking tools, first introduced in ACR, make it easy to create precise local adjustments. You can quickly select the subject, sky, or background and apply targeted tweaks without complex brushing or manual selections.
What really sets ACR apart is its advanced color controls. The 2024 update introduced an overhauled HSL/Color Mixer panel with perceptual color science and finer-grained control over hue, saturation, and luminance. As a retoucher, I‘ve found this invaluable for precisely dialing in skin tones and product colors.
Affinity Photo‘s RAW develop persona covers most of the same bases, with a full set of exposure, white balance, sharpening, and lens correction tools. While the layout is clean and intuitive, some controls feel more limited in scope. For instance, Photoshop‘s masking tools are more automated, with AI-powered options for selecting specific elements.
One unique Affinity feature is the Overlays panel, which lets you quickly comp text, shapes, and line work over your image while still in the Develop Persona. Photoshop requires a trip to the main editing workspace for these kinds of graphics.
Affinity also offers live blend modes and layer effects during RAW development, which is handy for experimenting with looks. However, the initial RAW conversion still happens in a locked-down state, so you can‘t revisit development settings after the fact like you can with ACR.
Layers, Selections, and Working at the Pixel Level
Once you‘ve nailed your basic tone and color, it‘s time to dig into the finer details of your image. For most photographers and retouchers, that means working with layers, masks, and precise selections to create composite images and targeted adjustments.
In many ways, the basic layer editing experience is quite similar between Photoshop and Affinity Photo. Both offer a full range of blending modes, adjustment layers, and non-destructive masking options. Performance is also comparable when working with complex layered documents, although Adobe has pulled ahead slightly in recent years thanks to native optimization for Apple Silicon processors.
Where Photoshop really distinguishes itself is with its AI-powered selection tools. Adobe has gone all-in on machine learning, using it to power everything from simple jobs like selecting the sky or foreground to creating detailed masks for hair, fur, and edges.
The Object Selection tool, first introduced in 2021, can automatically identify and select people, animals, vehicles, and other distinct elements with just a click. It‘s not always perfect, but it can dramatically speed up the masking process for complex subjects, especially when combined with additional manual refinements.
Affinity Photo‘s selection tools are certainly capable, with a mix of automated options and manual brushes, but they can‘t quite match the cutting-edge AI in Photoshop. Tools like Select Subject and Sky Replacement feel a bit more hit-or-miss, and still require more hands-on refinement in most cases.
Another key difference is the absence of adjustment layers in Affinity Photo. While you can use live filters and layer effects to create non-destructive edits, you can‘t actually stack them up like you can in Photoshop. For some workflows, this more linear approach may actually be simpler. But if you‘re used to building up complex layer comps with multiple adjustment layers, Affinity‘s system takes some getting used to.
The AI Arms Race
Artificial intelligence has reshaped the creative landscape in recent years, and image editing is ground zero. Put simply, Photoshop is leagues ahead of Affinity Photo when it comes to harnessing the power of AI.
Adobe has woven machine learning into almost every corner of Photoshop. Beyond the automated selections mentioned above, you‘ll also find AI-powered tools for tasks like upscaling images, removing blur, and even generating photorealistic fills from nothing more than a text description.
Some of these features, like the Generative Fill tool powered by Adobe‘s Firefly engine, are more proof-of-concept than practical necessities at this stage. But others, like the new Preserve Details 3.0 upscaling and Depth Blur filter, are already transforming workflows and opening up new creative possibilities.
Perhaps most exciting is Adobe‘s updated Take a Step Back feature, which uses AI to selectively undo specific elements of an image, like removing a logo or sign. It‘s not always perfect, but it can be a huge time saver compared to traditional clone stamping and healing.
By comparison, Affinity Photo‘s AI story is a bit lacking as of the latest 2.0 update. To be fair, integrating machine learning on this level is a massive undertaking, and as a smaller company Serif may simply lack the resources to keep pace with Adobe‘s breakneck AI development.
However, Affinity has begun dipping its toes in the AI waters with features like automatic background removal and sky replacement. Serif has also hinted at more AI-powered tools to come in future updates, so this is definitely a space to watch. But for now, Photoshop reigns supreme if you want to leverage the latest machine learning magic.
Paying the Piper
For many creatives, the decision between Photoshop and Affinity Photo will come down to cost. Adobe has fully embraced the subscription model, while Affinity is sticking with traditional perpetual licenses. But which approach offers the best long-term value? Let‘s crunch some numbers.
A standalone Photoshop subscription currently runs $33 per month, or $792 over two years. The Photography Plan, which bundles Photoshop with Lightroom and 20 GB of cloud storage, is a bit more affordable at $20 per month or $480 over the same period.
In contrast, a perpetual Affinity Photo license for Mac or Windows is just $70 as of 2024, with no recurring fees. Even assuming a paid upgrade to version 3.0 in another two years, the total cost of ownership comes out to around $140.
So from a pure price perspective, Affinity Photo is clearly the more affordable option for those on a budget. But there are a few other factors to consider beyond the sticker price.
For one, Photoshop subscriptions include ongoing updates with the latest features and performance optimizations. Affinity‘s updates tend to be more spaced out, with 12-18 months or more between major releases.
Adobe subscriptions also come with a suite of online services and companion apps, including Creative Cloud Libraries for seamless asset sharing, Adobe Portfolio for building simple websites, and 100 GB of cloud storage to keep everything synced. For busy creative pros juggling multiple projects and collaborators, these workflow perks can be a big value-add.
Finally, it‘s worth noting the respective ecosystems and third-party plugin support for each app. Photoshop has a much larger community of developers cranking out powerful plugins and extensions to augment the core experience. From industry-standard tools like Nik Collection and Imagenomic Portraiture to AI-powered plugins like ON1‘s NoNoise AI, there‘s a huge range of options to suit almost any workflow.
Affinity Photo supports plugins as well, but the selection is much more limited at this stage. As Affinity‘s market share grows, we may see more big-name developers jump on board. But for now, Photoshop has a clear edge in terms of expandability.
The Verdict
So where does all this leave us? After many years of using both Photoshop and Affinity Photo professionally, I‘ve developed a deep appreciation for the unique strengths of each app.
There‘s no question that Affinity Photo is a powerful, highly-capable image editor and represents phenomenal value for the price. For photographers and designers with straightforward needs, it checks all the essential boxes, with a clean interface and familiar layer-based editing.
But when it comes to sheer versatility and the ability to handle any creative task imaginable, Photoshop is still the undisputed champion. Adobe‘s relentless pace of development, particularly on the AI front, keeps Photoshop at the bleeding edge of imaging technology. The interface is endlessly customizable, the selection tools are best-in-class, and the plugin ecosystem is unrivaled.
Of course, that power comes at a price. Photoshop‘s subscription model can be a tough pill to swallow for those used to perpetual licenses. And let‘s be honest, many users simply don‘t need or want a sprawling feature set with a learning curve to match.
At the end of the day, the "right" choice depends entirely on your individual needs, preferences, and budget. Affinity Photo is a fantastic option for photographers and designers who prefer a one-time purchase and can live without the latest AI toys and cloud-based extras. It‘s also a great stepping stone for those new to image editing who may be overwhelmed by Photoshop‘s kitchen-sink approach.
But if you want the most advanced tools, the smoothest workflow integrations, and the knowledge that you‘re using an industry standard, Photoshop is still in a class of its own. For working creative professionals, that peace of mind and flexibility is often well worth the subscription fee.
My advice? If you can swing it, give both apps a try and see which one feels more intuitive and effective for your needs. Affinity Photo offers a generous 90-day free trial, while Adobe provides a 7-day free trial for its Creative Cloud apps. Spend some time kicking the tires, exploring the various tools and workflows, and see which one speaks to you.
No matter which app you choose, one thing‘s for sure: with the incredible image editing power at our fingertips today, it‘s never been a more exciting time to be a photographer or digital artist. Here‘s to many more years of stunning images and boundless creativity!
