29 replies to this topic

[vidrazor]

For those of you who do not like the subscription model of Adobe Photoshop, but would like to have some additional process options than are available in GIMP, Serif's Affinity Photo image editor is now on sale for 50% off for only $27 US. This is a one-time fee, no subscription, and so far Serif has not charged for updates in the several years I've had my copy. This is a good deal for a capable image editor that also has built-in astrophotography tools like stacking and gradient removal, and can work directly in 32-bit, which Photoshop surprisingly can't. Although I primarily work in Photoshop because it's an app I've worked professionally with for over 30 years, this app has come in handy for me when PS drops the ball.

 

Serif has a triple suite of graphics apps akin to Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, so if you should have a (non-astro) need for such tools, they are all on sale for 50% off, and they all come with trials if you're interested.

 

FYI

[ismosi]

Hmmm, I do have  PS subscription but at 50% off I think AP is worth a try.

 

Update: I purchased through the Mac Store ... family sharing bonus  

Edited by ismosi, 18 May 2022 - 12:36 PM.

[RedLionNJ]

I love Affinity Photo, although its memory-management seems a bit iffy sometimes. It's not unusual (at least on Win10) for it to go "out to lunch" for several seconds after a significant period of activity. I'm assuming it's reclaiming used memory during those seconds, though obviously I can't be sure.

 

Nonetheless, for under $30 it's great value, shares a lot of functionality with PS and has some interesting additional filters by default. It's also rumored to be compatible with PS plug-ins, although I've never tried this.

[Whereisclearsky]

It's also rumored to be compatible with PS plug-ins, although I've never tried this.

Yes but afaik not every plugin is compatible.

 

There is also StarXterminator plugin available in case somebody didn't know yet.

[galacticinsomnia]

I'm using photoshop plug ins from the late 1990's for some creative work.  Affinity in my use case is incredibly stable, very useful, and by a very long shot, is one of the best raster image editing programs available.  Imports and exports about anything, and edits about anything. 

I'd buy it at full price !  Half off is just great !! 

We have a numbre licenses in our home for each of their 3 products, and have had free updates without ever a request for more money.

Very nice !

Clear Skies !!

[Whereisclearsky]

has built-in astrophotography tools like stacking and gradient removal, and can work directly in 32-bit

Problem is Affinity is stretching the image after stacking, and there is no option to disable it.

Also 32-bit export was buggy for me on my Mac.

[nhandumuc]

I am also a fan of Affinity Photo software, bought the other two of the suite though just to support them even I have no use for them, I've been using AP since the beta time years ago and it is slowly replacing my PTS use (daytime photography) and I'm still receiving updates and features without any additional fees since I bought AP 4-5 years ago.

Highly recommended!

Edited by nhandumuc, 19 May 2022 - 01:01 AM.

[vidrazor]

Problem is Affinity is stretching the image after stacking, and there is no option to disable it.

Also 32-bit export was buggy for me on my Mac.

Hmm, interesting. You should make a note to the Serif team about that. They're very responsive (unlike Adobe), and may either make changes as needed, or perhaps point out something in their process that you may have missed so it won't stretch the image. I stack in either DSS or Siril, and just bring in my 32 bit data  for initial post work, then export to 16 bit to finish in Photoshop, so I've never experienced that.
 

[Spaceman 56]

I just bought Affinity and think its great.

 

love the one off payment and nothing more.

 

also it seems to have a fair bit of astro stuff embedded.

 

it can stack, remove gradients and do all sorts of stuff.

 

and whilst they are above my head The JR astrophotography macros look to be able to do incredible things.

 

​look at his tutorial for 5 minutes and you will get what I mean.

 

Spaceman 56

[Spaceman 56]

 

 

There is also StarXterminator plugin available in case somebody didn't know yet.

is that plugin for Affinity, and if so how does one buy it?

 

I never got Starnett++ working on Mac. like not ever... 

 

thanks Spaceman

[vidrazor]

is that plugin for Affinity, and if so how does one buy it?

I never got Starnett++ working on Mac. like not ever... 

thanks Spaceman

It's for PS and PI, but there's a trial you can load into AP and see if it works.
 

[DropTekRoon]

I've heard lots of really good things about Affinity. I use Photoshop for both my astro and terrestrial photography. The main plugin that I use for Photoshop is Astronomy Tools. Apparently some plugins for Photoshop will work in Affinity but not all of them. Does anyone know if the Astronomy Tools plugin for Photoshop will be compatible in Affinity?

 

Another question, how different is the layout compared to Photoshop? Is it easy to navigate for someone like myself that's been using Photoshop for awhile now?

 

If anyone has ever edited their terrestrial images on Affinity, how did you like it compared to Photoshop? 

[Spaceman 56]

 Does anyone know if the Astronomy Tools plugin for Photoshop will be compatible in Affinity?

 

 

 

 

I would love an answer to that question too DropTekRoon.

 

Anyone ???

[unimatrix0]

 

 

Another question, how different is the layout compared to Photoshop? Is it easy to navigate for someone like myself that's been using Photoshop for awhile now?

 

I just started using Affinity, actually I downloaded the trial just prior to this post, since I was looking for an alternative photo editing program. 

I've been using Photoshop for at least 20 years now (with all the versions ever since)  and as for first impression of testing Affinity, it's easy if you're coming from Photoshop.  It will take a few minutes to find your way around and things are a bit more simplified (for first impression) , but if you know how to use Photoshop, Affinity should give you no troubles. 

[vidrazor]

I just started using Affinity, actually I downloaded the trial just prior to this post, since I was looking for an alternative photo editing program. 

I've been using Photoshop for at least 20 years now (with all the versions ever since)  and as for first impression of testing Affinity, it's easy if you're coming from Photoshop.  It will take a few minutes to find your way around and things are a bit more simplified (for first impression) , but if you know how to use Photoshop, Affinity should give you no troubles. 

I have to say I haven't found it as intuitive. I've been working with Photoshop professionally for 30 years, and have a lot of "muscle memory" ingrained, so it's not there for me in AP. I do like that it can work in 32 bit, which PS surprisingly fails at (it can open 32 bit, but...). If they're there, I haven't found the layer luminosity gradient masks, which I use a lot in PS. The levels controls are "reversed" for lack of a better explanation. Little things like that and hot keys trip me up, but overall I think it's a great alternative to PS for those who don't want to pay Adobe's parasitical subscription fee.

Edited by vidrazor, 20 May 2022 - 10:34 PM.

[galacticinsomnia]

I would love an answer to that question too DropTekRoon.

 

Anyone ???

no. Astronomy tools do not work.  They are based on java actions which have their own action scripting language. 

Affinity offers Macro's, which are similar, but it is not that advanced yet.

Clear Skies !!

[DropTekRoon]

Hmm well that's a bit disappointing that you can't use the Astronomy Tools plugin on Affinity. Basically wasted money I suppose if you were to switch from Photoshop to Affinity. Not like it was expensive or anything but it's disappointing that you can never use it again unless you have Photoshop

 

I did hear that Affinity now has it's own set of astro specific tools like background removal which looks like it's supposed to remove bright backgrounds and gradients and it star minimization which is nice. I wonder how good these work. Too bad there isn't a tool that removes background noise like the Astronomy Tools plugin 

[jml79]

Russell Croman seems to be actively supporting Affinity with his astrophotography tools. I haven’t tested them yet but his support is actually what lead me to affinity and I may yet invest in some of his tools.

 

https://www.rc-astro...rces/index.html

[galacticinsomnia]

Hmm well that's a bit disappointing that you can't use the Astronomy Tools plugin on Affinity. Basically wasted money I suppose if you were to switch from Photoshop to Affinity. Not like it was expensive or anything but it's disappointing that you can never use it again unless you have Photoshop

 

I did hear that Affinity now has it's own set of astro specific tools like background removal which looks like it's supposed to remove bright backgrounds and gradients and it star minimization which is nice. I wonder how good these work. Too bad there isn't a tool that removes background noise like the Astronomy Tools plugin 

Affinity background removal is some of the best I have experienced.  Quality, and ease of use, not something you find in a lot of software, especially for 30 bucks.  Download the trial for free and try for yourself.  It's really good, and I'm very picky.

Clear Skies !!

[DropTekRoon]

Affinity background removal is some of the best I have experienced.  Quality, and ease of use, not something you find in a lot of software, especially for 30 bucks.  Download the trial for free and try for yourself.  It's really good, and I'm very picky.

Clear Skies !!

Definitely sounds like a good deal. I'll try it out I think and compare it to Photoshop. Do you use Affinity for stacking also? 

[vidrazor]

Well apparently it requires a good familiarity with the AP workflow, but there is a set of "macros" (the equivalent of actions in PS) by James Ritson, who I believe is part of the AP development team, that perform quite a bit of sophisticated processes for one shot and mono cameras, all of them parametric, so you can return and modify parameters at any time. He seems to be asking a donation for them, Check them out.

Edited by vidrazor, 20 May 2022 - 06:40 PM.

[galacticinsomnia]

Definitely sounds like a good deal. I'll try it out I think and compare it to Photoshop. Do you use Affinity for stacking also? 

I have, but I don't use it for that, as it isn't the strong point.  
I use Siril for stacking.  I do use Affinity for other creative work and for background, and using specific plug ins that are not available anymore.

You should definitely give it a shot.. its free, the install is small, and none of the phone home stuff.  It really is a great product.  Wishing I had 20 years ago, so I wouldn't have invested so much in Adobe.  No regrets, with the exception of different interfaces, and wording, work flows, just a bit different than PS.  But I think it better than PS.  My rasters are pure and clean.

Clear Skies !!

[Whereisclearsky]

Hmm, interesting. You should make a note to the Serif team about that. They're very responsive (unlike Adobe), and may either make changes as needed, or perhaps point out something in their process that you may have missed so it won't stretch the image. I stack in either DSS or Siril, and just bring in my 32 bit data  for initial post work, then export to 16 bit to finish in Photoshop, so I've never experienced that.
 

I already did few months ago.

 

is that plugin for Affinity, and if so how does one buy it?

 

I never got Starnett++ working on Mac. like not ever... 

 

thanks Spaceman

I've used the plugin in Affinity, but I don't remember if I've used an Affinity build, or just loaded PS plugin into Affinity. I guess the latter.

You can always contact Russel, the dev of the plugin.

 

I have to say I haven't found it as intuitive. I've been working with Photoshop professionally for 30 years, and have a lot of "muscle memory" ingrained, so it's not there for me in AP. I do like that it can work in 32 bit, which PS surprisingly fails at (it can open 32 bit, but...). If they're there, I haven't found the layer luminosity gradient masks, which I use a lot in PS. The levels controls are "reversed" for lack of a better explanation. Little things like that and hot keys trip me up, but overall I think it's a great alternative to PS for those who don't want to pay Adobe's parasitical subscription fee.

You can work in 32bit, but a lot of the functions won't be available from what I remember.

[James Ritson]

Problem is Affinity is stretching the image after stacking, and there is no option to disable it.

Also 32-bit export was buggy for me on my Mac.

Hi, just to clarify this—Affinity Photo doesn't destructively stretch the image after stacking. It adds a Levels adjustment (for gamma transform) and Curves adjustment (as a shaper) but you can disable both of these and use any tone stretching method that you prefer.

 

What might be confusing is that in 32-bit, Photo has a colour managed gamma-corrected view based on the document's colour profile (sRGB by default). So the linear scene referred pixel values are transformed and bounded to gamma-encoded values. This is only done during the view presentation stage, however—all compositing is performed in linear space. I go into this a little bit in my latest live stream: https://youtu.be/YIqPRqchoag?t=3329

 

You can disable this view transform and see the unmanaged scene-referred image data, but this is only recommended for analytical purposes—the whole point of having the ICC Display Transform is that you can safely export to 16-bit or 8-bit gamma-encoded formats without needing any additional tone mapping or tone adaptation, since the result will look the same.

 

As for 32-bit export being buggy, do you have any examples? Is there any artefacting on the final export? If so, it may be GPU compositing (which can be disabled in Preferences>Performance), but an example would help identify this.

 

Hope that helps!

[Whereisclearsky]

Hi, just to clarify this—Affinity Photo doesn't destructively stretch the image after stacking. It adds a Levels adjustment (for gamma transform) and Curves adjustment (as a shaper) but you can disable both of these and use any tone stretching method that you prefer.

 

What might be confusing is that in 32-bit, Photo has a colour managed gamma-corrected view based on the document's colour profile (sRGB by default). So the linear scene referred pixel values are transformed and bounded to gamma-encoded values. This is only done during the view presentation stage, however—all compositing is performed in linear space. I go into this a little bit in my latest live stream: https://youtu.be/YIqPRqchoag?t=3329

 

You can disable this view transform and see the unmanaged scene-referred image data, but this is only recommended for analytical purposes—the whole point of having the ICC Display Transform is that you can safely export to 16-bit or 8-bit gamma-encoded formats without needing any additional tone mapping or tone adaptation, since the result will look the same.

 

As for 32-bit export being buggy, do you have any examples? Is there any artefacting on the final export? If so, it may be GPU compositing (which can be disabled in Preferences>Performance), but an example would help identify this.

 

Hope that helps!

https://forum.affini...#comment-916800

 

I've tried changing GPU settings in the settings, but it didn't help. (M1 Mac here)