Affinity Photo vs GIMP 2.10 - any experience?

[Pat Warborg]

Hi,

I started processing my images with GIMP 2.7 (quite some time ago). For years on end, I was looking out for the 32/16 Bit version to come as a stable release. At one point I gave up. Just to realize that earlier this year, they made it! Now I tried to find some reviews and, for the first time, learned of the existence of Affinity Photo. I downloaded and installed GIMP 2.10 yesterday, but didn't had a lot of time playing with it. Also, I somehow felt that some of the processing, including loading the program and loading images, took quite some time. I wonder how much experience people have around here with the two programs. I understand that the big miss with GIMP is the lack of adjustment layers. I was used from older versions already that you had to duplicate layers a lot to be on the safe side. This apparently did not change in the new version. Other than that, what I always was missing in GIMP was the selective colors from PS (which made it quite so easy to produce those nice gold and turquois "Hubble" images. I would not mind to pay the few bugs for Affinity Photo, if it would be faster, safer and really has (as mentioned in many reviews) the same capabilities as PS.

What experience do people have here? What do you like, what do you use most and what do you miss in any of the two? Did any of you try the Hubble processing in any of the two? What about gradient removal? Producing starless layers and the like?

I'm very curious!

Thanks and cs,

Pat

[MARS1960]

43 minutes ago, Pat Warborg said:

Hi,

I started processing my images with GIMP 2.7 (quite some time ago). For years on end, I was looking out for the 32/16 Bit version to come as a stable release. At one point I gave up. Just to realize that earlier this year, they made it! Now I tried to find some reviews and, for the first time, learned of the existence of Affinity Photo. I downloaded and installed GIMP 2.10 yesterday, but didn't had a lot of time playing with it. Also, I somehow felt that some of the processing, including loading the program and loading images, took quite some time. I wonder how much experience people have around here with the two programs. I understand that the big miss with GIMP is the lack of adjustment layers. I was used from older versions already that you had to duplicate layers a lot to be on the safe side. This apparently did not change in the new version. Other than that, what I always was missing in GIMP was the selective colors from PS (which made it quite so easy to produce those nice gold and turquois "Hubble" images. I would not mind to pay the few bugs for Affinity Photo, if it would be faster, safer and really has (as mentioned in many reviews) the same capabilities as PS.

What experience do people have here? What do you like, what do you use most and what do you miss in any of the two? Did any of you try the Hubble processing in any of the two? What about gradient removal? Producing starless layers and the like?

I'm very curious!

Thanks and cs,

Pat

I dumped PS for Affinity but not for astro work ( i have PI).

Affinity is not in anyway as comprehensive as PS but it does  what it does very well and it's very intuitive.

Layers and masks are easy to understand and the tutorials are easy to follow and direct, i would have a look at a couple before you buy.

However, i don't feel that it's very good for astro stuff, there are, as yet no plugins for astro, i think there is one add on for removing stars but don't quote me on that.

If you are going to use it for normal photography with a small amount of astro then i would recommend it, but even then you would probably want at the very least star tools or similar as well.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I am rather pleased with GIMP 2.10. No speed demon, and I only use it for final tweaks as a rule, a most of the processing I do is either done in AS!3, ImPPG, and Registax for planetary, solar and lunar, or in Astro Pixel Processor in DSO work. I don't use Affinity

[dannybgoode]

I’d rather **** in my hands and clap than suffer GIMP. Don’t get me wrong - it’s an admirable piece of software and more than I could produce in a lifetime but it is so hideously cumbersome. 

I really like Affinity but have not used it for Astro work yet. It is only a smidge behind PS in terms of functionality and some PS plugins do work with it (although I’ve seen no comprehensive list of specific Astro ones which are compatible or not). 

Price is the killer for me. GIMP is free and shows it in lack of polish. Affinity is very cheap (usually a code knocking about to get it for £35 or so). 

PS is very expensive but if you need a specific feature that the others don’t gave you’ve got no choice.