THE WORLD OF professional image-editing applications is not a wide one. There’s Adobe Photoshop, and then there’s everything else: Maybe PaintShop Pro or PhotoPaint from Corel, or the open-source GIMP, or Paint.net if your needs aren’t very great. Then Serif, maker of the also-ran app Serif PhotoPlus, decided to play Adobe at its own game with the Affinity suite. First came Affinity Designer, then Affinity Photo, then Affinity Publisher, rivalling Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign in terms of features and usability.
Adobe’s Photoshop has reigned as the editing king thanks to its unmatched range of tools.
Serif is quick to retweet stories on social media of professionals abandoning Photoshop for Affinity Photo, often underlining the difference in payment schemes adopted by the two software developers. But just how similar are the two programs? And can someone who’s been using Photoshop for 20 years navigate a new app?