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Affinity anyone?
I know that this has been discussed in the past, but has anyone successfully weaned themselves off of Adobe in favor of the Affinity suite? Are you able to comfortably share PSDs, and AI files with clients and collaborators? I use FCP, Motion etc, and I am planning to learn Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve. I love Adobe Audition, but hope to replace that with Logic Pro which I already own. Any thoughts?
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10 Replies
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What is the Affinity video editor for a Mac? I tried to use Resolve but it’s a different type of software and all the answers to my issues came back to hardware (GPU, drive speed, etc.). So I’m skulking back to Adobe. It kind of works, as long as you manage all the so-called upgrade versions. Sigh.
Robert
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I have only used Affinity Photo for the past three years. I don’t use it a lot but it did enable me to import .psd files from Photoshop. I don’t need to collaborate with others so I have no idea how compatible Affinity generated .psd files are in various versions of Photoshop. there are some features I prefer in Affinity to Ps.
As for swapping to Logic, why not try Fairlight in Resolve if you want a fully featured audio suite designed for video. No need to round trip anything.
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Michael, I defiantly plan to look at that workflow once I get to know Resolve well enough. My work involves a lot of Multicam, which FCPX is great at. I am hoping to find that Resolve is just as good. Thanks for your response.
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The Affinity suite and Pixelmator Pro are both good alternatives. Exchange between Photoshop and Photo is pretty good, but it depends on how complex the files are. There are plenty of things you can do in Photoshop that simply don’t translate correctly into Photo. If it’s a simple layered file, without layer styles/effects, complex masking, and grouping, then it’s pretty compatible. You’ll just have to do some testing.
I also use Logic and like it. I think it depends on what you want in an audio app. Do you want an audio creating/mixing app or a post app for mixing to picture? If the latter, then Fairlight may be the way to go. However, you can also get pretty deep into FCP just for audio. It falls down once you get into more complex bussing. But FCPXML to Logic works nicely. The one issue I’ve run into is where audio has had speed changes in FCP. That doesn’t appear to translate.
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Robert – Affinity refers to the Affinity apps made by Serif in the UK. They include Photos, Designer, and Publisher, which are comparable to Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
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I ran a quick test yesterday of a complex, multilayered Photoshop file. That PSD imported nearly perfectly into Affinity Photo. I tried the same with Pixelmator Pro and the translation wasn’t as good. So if you are going for Photoshop compatibility, then Affinity Photo is the better alternative for you. However I like working in Pixelmator Pro and would actually suggest you might get both. They are a fraction of your Photoshop rental cost over time.
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My company has the Adobe suite, but I myself prefer to use Affinity’s programs. Only use Adobe when I receive a document, and just need to edit and save back. Just started using Affinity Publisher for generating reports, and really love the fact that you can do complex vector and photo editing direct inside it, through the Designer and Photo Personas.
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Affinity just dropped a new version 1.9 and the blurb indicates improvements with psd compatibility amongst other new features.
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Hi Don. I can give you a personal opinion only about audio side. I love Audition too, and I used it a lot. Logic is not a replacement for Audition. Logic is a completely different software, much more composition-oriented. Audition, instead, has a “scientific attitude” about audio, and many great features of its waveform tab are simply unobtainable with any other software (mainly thanks to good old Syntrillium, certainly not to Adobe, of course!) The best option you have for “the great escape” from Adobe is going for Reaper. Reaper is “substantially” free and way more audio accurate than Logic, for sure! Anyway, in order to replace Audition’s spectrum features, you will want to add iZotope Iris 2 plugin to Reaper.
About Fairlight: I’m a Davinci Studio proud and happy user, and I obviously tested Fairlight a lot. It’s terrible: rigid and buggy (the plugins slots sector is absurd…) I really can’t understand how can be possible using it in a serious production. The worst audio software I ever used. Simply my humble opinion, of course.
About Affinity I can only say that up to now Publisher can’t handle plugins, and if you are a Blurb guy this could be a little point for InDesign. But it’s also true that if you are a Blurb guy you can always use their own software, right?
I hope I have been of some help. -
There was a video editor that ran on a Mac called Affinity by Accom, but that was over 20 years ago. We had one where I work.
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