A new astrophotography processing contender Affinity Photo has entered the Mac…and PC race. Affinity introduced it’s suite of applications to compete against Adobe Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator a few years ago. They are extremely capable applications and in their effort to remain competitive come at a very nice discount in pricing compared to Adobe’s applications. Currently Affinity Photo is for sale at a 50% discount.
- Affinity Photo Vs Photoshop Mac
- Affinity Photo Photoshop Actions
- Affinity Photo Photoshop Mac Download
Affinity Photo is Photoshop’s fiercest competitor. Some advanced features are missing from Photo that Photoshop has, and vice versa. I think that Affinity Photo is the only professional-level. Adobe Photoshop. Definition: Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed by Adobe systems for Mac & Windows operating systems. Affinity photo is a raster graphics editor published by Serif for MacOS, iOS, and Windows. Features: Functionality can be extended by using add-on programs called Photoshop plugins.
They’ve recently upped their game to add features beyond Photoshop’s set of tools by getting into the Astrophotography realm with the following new features in their 1.9 update:
Dedicated Persona for stacking
RAW and FITS image support
Stack light and calibration frames (dark/dark flat/flat/bias)
Stack, tone stretch and retouch entirely in 32-bit
Stack files from different sessions using file groups
Create full color, composite (HaRGB, SHO), grayscale or false color images
One advantage to Affinity Photo compared to existing astrophotography stacking and calibration applications is that it takes advantage of the GPU in your Mac for very fast processing and stacking. I calibrated and stacked a set of 12 images in about 1-2 minutes on my iMac Pro. This compares to about 10 minutes in APP and PixInsight.
Not only does this program calibrate and stack your images, but it’s a full fledged photo editing program, so you have all the tools at your disposal for stretching, sharpening, color enhancement, mask manipulation, and more with a vastly superior interface for ease of use.
Here’s a set of tutorials to get you up and running with Affinity Photo’s new features.
Astrophotography stacking: LRGB composition (mono cameras)
Adding Plugins to Affinity Photo on Mac
You can use Photoshop compatible plug-ins with Affinity Photo on Windows and Mac. Read the instructions for the Mac version.
Note: The AKVIS plugins are compatible only with Affinity bought from the official web-site (serif.com), not in the App Store.
Learn how to install the AKVIS plugins in this photo editor on Mac (for Windows click here):
Method 1.
Affinity Photo Vs Photoshop Mac
Affinity Photo Photoshop Actions
Copy the plugin file into the plugins folder of Affinity Photo: HomeFolder/Library/Application Support/Affinity Photo/Plugins.
Method 2.
You can also add the plugins in the Affinity Preferences: Photoshop Plugins -> Open Default Folder in Finder. For example, you can choose the Adobe Plugins folder.
Enable Allow 'Unknown' plugins to be used.
Click on the Close button and re-start Affinity Photo.
To call the AKVIS plugins in Affinity Photo, choose Filters -> Plugins -> AKVIS and the plugin you want to use.
Affinity Photo Photoshop Mac Download
Note: To call the SmartMask plugin, make sure that the layer is unlocked.
Selection made in Affinity Photo cannot be transferred to the Chameleon plugin with the Chameleon - Grab Fragment command. You can use the selection tools in the plugin.