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Comment by AmVess | Hacker News Reader

I had to give up. I got tired of the CC app itself breaking and requiring reinstall way too often. And this is on two different platforms! To uninstall, I had to get an uninstaller for the uninstaller because it broke.

I got the trial for Affinity Photo and bought it after using it for a few days on both Windows and Mac. It doesn't have the pure power of Photoshop, but it's 95% there for my amateur use. Only $50 and I put it on all my home computers for that $50.

The sub for Photoshop is cheap, but all the anti-theft crap they have baked into it makes it a royal PITA to use.

This is the first time since PS 5.0 that I haven't had PS installed on anything at all.

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/rant I do contract work and it’s ridiculous that some clients specifically request for graphics to be done on Adobe. When there are a myriad of other options now, like Affinity as you suggested, and Inkscape which I happen to prefer over Illustrator. And sometimes ad-hoc methods like online gif generators and filters are all you need for a simple job.

I'd stick with PS if I were using it in a professional manner simly because it is the standard.

Affinity Photo is perfect for me because it does 95% of what I want, and it has really good .psd support so all those gigs of .psds that I have can still be used. It is the first photo app that I'm happy with instead of using PS.

Sure, it has some warts here and there, and it's not as fast a PS...but Adobe has quite a long lead on them. They've done an admirable job catching up as much as they have, and they are constantly developing it, too.

It has a 10-day trial which is a healthy chunk of time to get used to it. I've been using PS since version 5, and I felt comfortable with Affinity Photo after a few hours. I'm not a professional, nor am I a hardcore PS user, but I am very familiar with it. 0 regrets switching so far.

> I'd stick with PS if I were using it in a professional manner simply because it is the standard.

And it will continue to remain standard until professionals demand the right to choose the program they want to work in.

Seriously, professionals whine all the time about Adobe but they aren't taking the steps to break out of the monopoly.

But what about that remaining 5%?

It reminds me of those that day that an iPad can do 99% of what you need to do. So to me, that says I still need a laptop for that last 1%.

True, iff you use that 1%. Most people never need Photoshop per se.

I do contract design as well and for some things there really is no competitor. I haven't heard of anybody seriously competing with InDesign since Quark XPress became not-a-thing-anymore.

I def prefer when contractors work in adobe, since then I can easily make tweaks to their work in the future.

Are you required to update yearly with Affinity Photo? I was initially bullish about Sketch App for CC replacement but unfortunately their business model isn't really consumer friendly either.

Sketch's annual cost gives you updates for a year, but if you don't renew you still have a license to run the app and updates up to a certain date. A professional will pay the recurring cost but most people would be fine paying for Sketch once and running that version for years. I still use Sketch 2 without issues.

If you don't renew Adobe CC, you lose access to everything. I think the difference is important.

Updating is optional. $50 is a one time purchase, but I don't know how they intend to handle major version pricing. No annual pricing, no subscription...just pay once and done.

No! Not only that, but you will also get updates up to version 2.0

It's on 1.6.x now, so you'll get 1.7, 1.8 and so on.

Cool stuff, never heard of Affinity Photo but looks great! You likely created a new customer for them!

What about Corel Photo-Paint?

I just bought the 2 Affinity apps late last week. They are incredible.

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