So, I've installed and tried (have zero interest in Ai cr@p though but used Designer and Publisher for years along with Photo):
Interface appeared to be more customizable but less efficient (they revamped some panels etc).
There is numerous of new features (i.e. new raster filters and so on).
Photoraphy-wise it didn't offer any significant new stuff (or I failed to find it so far - there is no complete list of V3 new features or I missed one):
RAW conversion and basically the same as Pano stitch, Stacking etc.
There is new sharpening filter called Multi-band sharpening (I suppose it's sort of frequency separation based trick) but w/o docs and tutorials hard to tell how to use it.
Aa it already was, most of the editing treated as Smart Layers (in Adobe terms) so for some extent it non-destructible.
Designer offers a cool new features like Mesh Gradient, but It already was a pretty robust Illustrator alternative.
Performance-wise it's ok, I tried to work with 6x12cm 16bit RGB 3200dpi scan, resize it to 433 megapixels and perform some editing. No memory leaks, GPU support showed some glitches with nvidia (known for some driver issue for couple of month) but worked with AMD.
I am going to (sadly) predict that as V3 evolves they will gatekeep some new features behind a subscription and leave the fundamentals in the free version so nobody can accuse them of cutting off users who don’t want to upgrade.
I found Publisher and Designer most useful when I only had the Photography Only CC plan, however since I use enough Adobe products to make the full CC make sense, I don’t use the Affinity products as much, but V2 was very robust and I loved the performance on my Mac.
I installed it on one of my Macs and didn't get very far. They removed one of my preferred UI settings (I prefer the entire UI to be white or light gray, an option I can't find in v3).
Initial configuration is onerous, as you've got to either use the defaults or go through as needed. Once the general prefs/settings are made, I'm needing to go through each persona and customize the panel, toolbar and tool configurations, as desired. As the prefs and other options are virtually identical to the 3 Affinity v2 products, it would have been really nice if they'd included a setting to import v2 (or v1) preferences, toolbar and tool configurations instead of needing to start from scratch. (Did I miss it?) Maybe I'm too simple, but I've already found that just getting to where I can use the program like I do the v2 apps is sufficiently onerous that I'm going to stick with my v2 versions.
So far, the biggest benefit I see in the new version is that it's ~5.3 GB smaller than the three v2 apps together.
Considering that they have just released the new bundle, I encourage people to be patient. It takes a while before they polish and mature the new interface. If there are missing features, they will gradually be added to the new software.
It is my understanding that Canva will remain free as long as you do not want the AI features. You will only pay the subscription if you want the AI features. I think, this is fair considering that they have to pay the software companies which supply these additional features.
For me, it still cannot replace Photoshop: its print interface is still premature. I can print from within Photoshop because it provides me with all the printing tools I need (even though that's not perfect either). With Affinity Photo and now, Canva, that's unfortunately not the case. So unless I use Canon's own software (Professional Print & Layout) for printing and give up printing from within my editing software, I have to stick to Adobe.
On another note, I do want and use AI features, so I have to pay a subscription fee either way. It remains to be seen which one offers better features and better interface and which one is less expensive relative to the offered features.
I have just learned these. There are two huge benefits to Affinity Canva over Adobe Photoshop:
i) There is no cancellation fee/ penalty. Adobe forces yearly subscriptions. That's not the case with Affinity. You can cancel your subscription at any time with no forced yearly commitment.
ii) If you cancel your subscription, you do not lose your previous work. You can continue using the free version and edit your previous work or new work. With Adobe, as soon as you cancel your subscription, all the previous PSD files created with Adobe become inaccessible (unless you find/use a software from another company that can handle these files).
EB-1 wrote:
Is anyone able to work with large files (.PSB) in the Afinity?
EBH
I just opened some PSB files in Affinity Canva and it opened them correctly. It took a few second to open them though. I applied some basic operations like turn the visibility of layers on and off. It worked. Didn't go any further.
Keep in mind, everybody can just download Affinity Canva for free and test it out your themselves.
Yes, it opened, but is not allowing me to modify and save as PSB. It wanted to downsample the image and choose another format. Then Affinity crashes every time.
EB-1 wrote:
Yes, it opened, but is not allowing me to modify and save as PSB. It wanted to downsample the image and choose another format. Then Affinity crashes every time.
EBH
Here's a quote from Google's AI Search regarding PSB files:
"AI Overview
No, Affinity Photo cannot export to the PSB (Large Document) format. While Affinity Photo can import and open PSB files, and can export to the PSD format, it lacks a native PSB export option for saving large, multi-layer documents.
Importing: Affinity Photo can open large Adobe PSB files, which are imported as if they were regular PSD files.
Exporting: You can export your Affinity Photo project to the PSD format, which is often a good workaround for compatibility with Adobe products.
Workaround for large files: To work with large files that require PSB format, some users find they have to export as a PSD and then open the PSD in Photoshop to save it as a PSB. This can be a time-consuming workaround.
That's too bad. The problem is that as I understand PSD is based on TIFF with the 30,000 pixel limit in each direction. Unfortunately those small file sizes are a relic of the 20th century technology.
EB-1 wrote:
The problem is that as I understand PSD is based on TIFF with the 30,000 pixel limit in each direction. Unfortunately those small file sizes are a relic of the 20th century technology.
No, TIFF allows 32 bits of pixel width; it does use 32 bit offsets, so is limited by a 4GB file size. It’s Adobe’s PSD format which apparently has the 30,000 pixel limit, and it’s unclear why since the very first Macs, for which Photoshop was originally written, had 24 bit addressing (that’s 16MB worth) and 32 bit registers.
You might try saving to TIFF.
(But what on earth are you doing with images 30,000 pixels across? At 300ppi, that’s 2.5m across or as big as a bedroom wall.)
I have PSB files dating as far back as 2008. They are for high resolution landscapes. Some are not 30K on a side, but larger file sizes as you mentioned. Most of the PSBs since the 2015 5DsR are well over 30K in one direction.
Lack of large file format support is not a dealbreaker for a free tool. My interest was piqued when the Affinites hijacked some image file associations, though not the PSB. I'm not sure why it wanted to open all my CR3 files. I will find some uses for the Affinity within the limitations. Once activated it does seem to be solid and not require further logging in after boot/OS partition full restores for example.
PSB and PSD is proprietary Adobe's formats.
Save native Affinity (with edits and layers) or OpenEXR
Of course you would be dependent on Canva gratitude( Not very convincing...
Well I just downloaded it onto my MacBook since it was free. Should give me something I can use while on the road to check images. It opened the dng files from my SL just fine. I was glad to see this post about all this. I was looking for a free solution as I just cannot wrap my old brain around paying to "rent" software. My CS6 on my standalone will remain my main post processing machine for now.
Well that didn't work for long. Been learning the free version of this for about two weeks now. This morning it won't open and give me an error each time I try to log in. I get this error each time I try to log back in: "The system time does not match server time. [ERLXAIVQKZQS79FDD]".
Rebooted the MacBook etc with no luck. This is not a good sign as I want this available to use when I travel and am offline. May have to look for another option as I need reliability.
I've already installed it like 5 times already. If you don't use for a while you need to log in and receive an email with a new code each time. It's definitely not what I would use on travel with limited access.
I finally broke down and bought that 1 year prescription to the LR/PS deal. After a year it expires and does not require any payment info to the Abobe.
!