MoBeans
Member
The software which targeted Photoshop users directly has been around for 10 years and has never had a subscription. Now it is free and does 90% of what I used Photoshop for.
www.affinity.studio/photo-editing-software
Not sure how many people here edit photos and hate subscriptions but if you do read on. I have used photoshop ever since it first came out for Windows in 1992. But eventually it became overly expensive, subscription only bloatware, it crashed my Mac numerous times which isn't easy to do. I kept using the old java driven Photoshop 6 long after they went to the subscription version.
10 years ago I found a really nice, professional grade Photoshop replacement program called Affinity Photo. It was $30 for a one time perpetual license. They were a small scrappy company with a lot of talented programmers and built a rock solid product. It had a ton of online tutorials and support. They also had an Illustrator and Publisher replacement app.
They were bought out last year by Canva which is a billion dollar company in the online graphic design business. Today Canva came out with Affinity Version 3 and it is free. There are some AI features that you need a premium account for (subscription of course) but everything that was in the previous versions that I have been using is in the free one. I have been playing with it and am surprised what a nice job they did on it. Adobe must be freaking out.
It's like Illustrator, Photoshop and Publisher all rolled into one. I will probably only use Photo feature which is called Pixel in the top bar. Illustrator is Vector. Not sure what Publisher is called. It's only been out a few hours. You will need to log on and create an account with them when you first install it.
Also while installing, look for the "Share my data" button and uncheck it. They claim they don't access any of your data, everything is done locally. Even the AI stuff. There is one free AI tool in the free version, object picker which is pretty cool, you need to install a free plugin to use it. They also say it will be free forever, we will see how long forever lasts.
www.affinity.studio/photo-editing-software
Not sure how many people here edit photos and hate subscriptions but if you do read on. I have used photoshop ever since it first came out for Windows in 1992. But eventually it became overly expensive, subscription only bloatware, it crashed my Mac numerous times which isn't easy to do. I kept using the old java driven Photoshop 6 long after they went to the subscription version.
10 years ago I found a really nice, professional grade Photoshop replacement program called Affinity Photo. It was $30 for a one time perpetual license. They were a small scrappy company with a lot of talented programmers and built a rock solid product. It had a ton of online tutorials and support. They also had an Illustrator and Publisher replacement app.
They were bought out last year by Canva which is a billion dollar company in the online graphic design business. Today Canva came out with Affinity Version 3 and it is free. There are some AI features that you need a premium account for (subscription of course) but everything that was in the previous versions that I have been using is in the free one. I have been playing with it and am surprised what a nice job they did on it. Adobe must be freaking out.
It's like Illustrator, Photoshop and Publisher all rolled into one. I will probably only use Photo feature which is called Pixel in the top bar. Illustrator is Vector. Not sure what Publisher is called. It's only been out a few hours. You will need to log on and create an account with them when you first install it.
Also while installing, look for the "Share my data" button and uncheck it. They claim they don't access any of your data, everything is done locally. Even the AI stuff. There is one free AI tool in the free version, object picker which is pretty cool, you need to install a free plugin to use it. They also say it will be free forever, we will see how long forever lasts.
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