Serif Affinity Photo query

[PembrokeSteve]

Hi,
Getting a bit frustrated with freeware GIMP and can't afford Adobe Photoshop.
A photo processing software called Serif Affinity Photo seems to have excellent reviews on the internet and in respected publications, like Amateur Photographer.
Does anyone use Affinity for post tweaking their Astro Images? ... and if so, would you recommend it?
It seems a good value at £38.99 (UK) at the moment.
I am looking for something that will enable me to reduce the noise in my final "Tiff" Astro Images (ie) there is plenty of free software out there that will do this for "JPEGS" (ie) Neat Image, but not for "TIFFS", unless you dig into your pocket and pay.
I always save my final image as a Tiff and a JPEG and am a bit frustrated that my final Tiff looks a little bit too noisy.
Any feedback welcome.
All the Best,
Steve

[Dr_Ju_ju]

I was in the same position, having an old version of Photoshop, which is unable to work well, and Gimp proving a pain in the butt, so switched to Affinity. 

Like anything, it takes a while to get used to, and will do most of what Photoshop does, apart from working with Fits' files, so I convert copies before processing.....

As you say, for the price its unbeatable, so I give a thumbs up 👍

 

Forgot to add that I use xnConvert (https://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/#downloads) to convert the FITs file to TIFF

Edited June 29, 2019 by Dr_Ju_ju

[PeterCPC]

I use affinity Photo and really like it - does everything I need and you get updates free.

Peter

[Alien 13]

I moved from PS CS6 to Affinity a while ago as PS could no longer open the latest Canon RAW files and have not looked back, does everything realy and it even feels like PS so no real learning curve either.

Alan

Edited June 29, 2019 by Alien 13

[Fivel]

Hi Steve.

I have been using Affinity Photo for a few years, with great results.

As for final noise reduction, I use Neat Image on my tiff images.

It has great tools also for reducing artifacts, and for sharpening. You can get a good balance between the noise reduction and sharpening.

I have been using the free Siril app for registering and stacking, I use it to save the fits files as 16 bit uncompressed tiffs.

Siril also has some excellent post processing tools, such as asinh stretching, color correction and background neutralization and extraction.

These apps, especially Affinity Photo, have been getting me great results.

Fivel

[Gasman]

I also have Affinity and find it an excellent tool for every day shots but have to say I am a bit uncertain about post processing in general. Let me explain what I mean 😋.  Give the same raw/jpeg/tiff to two different photographers and I vouch you would get two different processed images so which is the correct one? or does it indeed matter from an aesthetic point of view?. Coming from a spectro background over processing an image can actually introduce artifacts that were not there in the original image and show incorrect features. But if a pretty picture is all that's required then no probs.  Just my twopennuth 😋

Steve

[Beulah]

I've been using the Affinity package for a while (Designer for professional projects) but have found a bit of a discrepancy with the Affinity Exports to TIFF/png/jpg - they seem to be more 'blurry' at the same resolution (300dpi) than the Photoshop equivalents. Still trying to work this one out so sany suggestions would be helpful before I hop over to the Serif support forums...  :)

However, Affinity does a super job of panos...

[PembrokeSteve]

Hi,

Finally took the plunge and purchased Serif Affinity Photo, for £48 over the weekend.

I am Very pleased with it so far, it seems easy to use, and I have been putting it into practice with some of my more recent unprocessed  lunar images. The results I am getting are really good.

I will be keeping GIMP, however Affinity looks like it will become my main Astro image tweaker.

Looking forward to using Affinity on my DSO images, after coming through my Astro Pixel Processor.

Regards,

Steve

[PeterCPC]

I have Affinity Photo and love it 😀. I occasionally dip in Paintshop but rarely now.

Peter

[RugbyRene]

Does anyone know if Affinity is compatible with Carboni's action set? I've read that you can use other PS plugins but not sure if an Action set is a plugin or not.

[PeterCPC]

No it's not.

Peter

[Nova2000]

Does it have its own plug-in related to astrophotography?

[PeterCPC]

4 hours ago, Nova2000 said:

Does it have its own plug-in related to astrophotography?

No but it can accept PS plug ins or plug ins that work in PS such as AstroFlat Pro.

Peter