The quest for a better Photoshop alternative for disaffected Adobe users is getting more and more options. Affinity Photo has been around for some time now, but with its latest release, version 1.5, the Photoshop alternative has introduced a plethora of new features and functionality including the long-awaited full release of their full Windows compatible version, as well as a ton of new features for the MacOS version.
A big feature, one underestimated by users of one ecosystem over another, in Affinity 1.5 is that both the MacOS and Windows versions share the same core code. This means that rather than having to develop the same features twice, the core development team at Affinity can do things once. This means no more need for updating separate versions of the software for a Mac or a PC, now a single update (for the most part) can keep both ecosystems updated and this is great news.
In addition to the back ends items like Affinity being cross-platform, Affinity has added the following features:
- Full HDR Merge Support
- 360-degree Image Editing
- Recordable Macros
- Batch Processing
- Focus Merging (or as you may know it in PS, Focus Stacking)
- Tone Mapping Interface
- Improvements to both PDF and PSD Reads/Writes
- and more, find the full list of updates/new features here.
In other related news to the update, Affinity has dropped the pricing on the software from the original price of $49.99 down to $39.99. That is a one time payment, no subscription required. This is just another reason for those who are not fond of the Photoshop experience and Creative Cloud ecosystem to give Affinity Photo a try.
Interested? You can buy the software for yourself over on the Affinity Photo website, here.