Looking for Photoshop Alternative

[tom95521]

I am looking for a Photoshop CC alternative that is not too expensive but does more than PixBuilder Studio. I know Photoshop is great but it's just a hobby for me and I don't like subscription based software. I see Graham Houghton recently mentioned Affinity Photo and is only U.S. $40. Before I purchase I was wondering if anybody has tried Affinity Photo or has a recommendation for their favorite image editing software (non-Photoshop).

Thanks,
Tom

Affinity Photo mentioned on one of Graham's blog pages.
http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=9925264577c370e71ea96e132&id=e6bbc0f82a

His blog
https://www.grahamhoughton.com/

 

[wideangle]

Why not have a look at Photoshop Elements as opposed to Photoshop?

Regards

wideangle

[Tauratinzwe]

Check out Paintshop Pro.  Haven't used it in a number of years, but it was the Poor Man's Photoshop back then.  Hear it's improved a lot since.  Corel has it now.

[gogs]

Have you had a look at GIMP. It is a free opensource application and is supposed to be well featured,

https://www.gimp.org/

Gogs

 

[nobeefstu]

 

hi,Tom

I have had and used many different products ... my best goto product that I use the most often is  PhotoFiltre Studio. Its not a resource hog and it has a nice assortment of features. Takes 8BF filters.

I first bought it in 2007 for about $40,00. It still has free lifetime updates/upgrades. You may want to check out their 30day trial.

http://www.photofiltre.com/

 

[tom95521]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm still reading and watching tutorial videos of the the various photo editors. Some of them like Paintshop Pro/PhotoFiltre are very reasonable in price and even free like Gimp. Photoshop Elements is a little more expensive. I have no doubt Photoshop and LR are great programs but I'm recently retired and have other hobbies like woodworking/gardening.

One interesting feature of Affinity Photo is that it can store edit history in the image file so you can undo any edits in the future. I wish PTE had a feature like this inside the .pte file.

 

And something not related to PTE but since it's very close to where I live I thought it was funny (and stupid wasting Coast Guard time and money).

 

[tom95521]

If anybody is interested I decided to purchase both Affinity Photo and Designer programs while they were still on sale in January. It's definitely a different workflow than my old Photoshop 5. Besides performance and features I looked at software development cycle, forum, and great video tutorials on Vimeo.  I have not loaded the free Google Nik Collection or my Topaz plugins but others have posted that they both work. Now that Spring is around the corner I hope to use my Panasonic FZ1000 that has been sitting idle for over a year.

Thanks,

Tom

[JudyKay]

Here is the thing, I used to be a sort of Photoshop guru. I really understood it, used it a lot to make all kinds of graphical whoopie. It came naturally and I mastered a good bit of what it could do other than movie and 3D editing. But, the thrill is over. Lightroom does 99.9% of what I need.  Experience helps getting it as right as possible from the get-go in-camera. I go to Photoshop maybe once a month for some project?  Little by little I am losing my edge, keyboard shortcuts forgotten, techniques that don't burst to mind--and I don't really care.  I wonder for how many other people that is true?

[tom95521]

Hi Judy,

Today we have so many image enhancement programs available to choose from compared to 5 years ago. I usually just use jpg capture in my camera but now I have more time to experiment with raw capture. I have used dcraw many years ago and was amazed how well it worked from the command line without preview. Maybe if I reach the limits of Affinity Photo raw conversion I will upgrade to LR. I also want to try HDR image stacking too. Now I need to find a good tripod.

Thanks,

Tom

[JudyKay]

My frustration with Adobe products mounts.  Again.  In Czech Republic, I get the "Lightroom CC access token expired" error.  Nothing will fix it.  Not even VPN. I need it badly and no cure.  So off to other software.  Adobe is still best, but really frustrating for those of us who switch locations a lot. Adobe can fix it...eventually, but too late for now.

[MUR]

Hi JudyKay

I use Photoshop CS2, a very old version that Adobe released as free. For my work in PTE, it's enough.

MUR

[davegee]

It depends on how much editing you need to do.

For basic RAW conversion both Nikon and Canon have their own free converters and both are underrated and largely ignored by users. As a long time NX2/NX-D user for Nikon RAW I could happily survive without Adobe but my need for layer based editing will keep me subscribing annually for a while longer.

DG

 

[JudyKay]

I won't keep posting on this subject, but Adobe still can't figure out how to fix the Lightroom CC problem. I am abandoning it for now.  Lightroom Classic still works fine.