raster graphics editor
A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to create and edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many raster graphics file formats (also known as bitmap images) such as JPEG, PNG, and GI ...
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is a vector graphics editor developed by Serif for macOS, iPadOS, and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the "Affinity trinity" alongside Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Affinity Designer is available for purchase directly ...
and
Affinity Publisher
Affinity Publisher is a desktop publishing application developed by Serif for macOS and Microsoft Windows (with an iPadOS version being developed). It is a part of the Affinity product line along with Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer.
Overvie ...
. Development of Affinity Photo started in 2009 as a raster graphics editor for macOS. Its first version reached
general availability
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impr ...
in 2015 with the Windows version launched a year later. It is a successor to PhotoPlus which Serif discontinued in 2017.
Functionality
Affinity Photo has been described as an
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...
alternative, and is compatible with common file formats such as Adobe's PSD (including Photoshop Smart Objects). Functionality includes RAW processing,
color space
A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with color profiling supported by various physical devices, it supports reproducible representations of colorwhether such representation entails an analog or a digital represen ...
alpha compositing
In computer graphics, alpha compositing or alpha blending is the process of combining one image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render picture elements (pixels) in separate pa ...
,
black point compensation Black point compensation is a technique used in digital photography printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals ...
, and
optical aberration
In optics, aberration is a property of optical systems, such as lenses, that causes light to be spread out over some region of space rather than focused to a point. Aberrations cause the image formed by a lens to be blurred or distorted, with th ...
corrections. Working in Affinity Photo is always live, with pan and zoom at 60fps and
non-destructive editing
Non-linear editing is a form of offline editing for audio, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified and modified by specialized sof ...
. It supports unlimited layers and a dedicated workspace for developing RAW photos; as well as RGB, CMYK, LAB, Greyscale color spaces with ICC color management and 16-bit per channel editing.
Affinity Photo is not an image organizer like Apple Aperture or
Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom (officially Adobe Photoshop Lightroom) is a piece of image organization and image manipulation software developed by Adobe Inc. as part of the Creative Cloud subscription family. It is supported on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, ...
.
Development
Affinity Photo began as a raster graphics editor solely for macOS. It was Serif's second macOS app after
Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is a vector graphics editor developed by Serif for macOS, iPadOS, and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the "Affinity trinity" alongside Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Affinity Designer is available for purchase directly ...
and, like that app, was built from the ground up to leverage core native technologies, including Grand Central Dispatch,
Core Graphics
In Apple's macOS operating system, Quartz is the Quartz 2D and Quartz Compositor part of the Core Graphics framework. Quartz includes both a 2D renderer in Core Graphics and the composition engine that sends instructions to the graphics card ...
,
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...
and Metal 2 hardware acceleration.
Serif established an R&D team for Affinity Photo in 2009, headed by lead designer Andy Somerfield. A free
beta test
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
version was released to the public on 9 February 2015. The initial stable release of Affinity Photo, version 1.3.1, launched on the Mac App Store on 9 July 2015 for macOS 10.7 and later. In August Version 1.3.5 was released providing numerous bug fixes and improvements. Version 1.4, in December 2015, added panorama photo stitching, support for macOS 10.11 El Capitan including six Affinity extensions for
Apple Photos
Photos is a photo management and editing application developed by Apple. It was released as a bundled app in iOS 8 on September 17, 2014—replacing the Camera Roll—and released as a bundled app to OS X Yosemite users in the 10.10.3 update on ...
, and augmented the languages supported in previous versions (English (US and UK), German, French and Spanish) with Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Japanese. Versions 1.4.1 and 1.4.2 in January and June 2016 provided stability and bug fixes, and the app was optimized for macOS 10.12 Sierra with version 1.4.3 in September 2016.
In December, 2016, Serif launched Affinity Photo for Windows and released version 1.5.1 for macOS at the same time, adding a 32-bit RGB editing mode with support for 32-bit file formats and more than 70 new camera RAW file formats, as well as the ability to develop RAW files directly into a 32-bit document. It also added support for the new MacBook Pro with Touchbar.
Affinity Photo for iPad was launched during the keynote at Apple's WWDC in San Jose on 5 June 2017. In September 2017, the iPad version was updated for compatibility with Apple's new iOS 11. Major updates to Affinity Photo, as well as to Affinity Designer, were released in November 2017. Affinity Photo 1.6.6 was optimized for macOS 10.13 High Sierra (and Metal 2 acceleration), better integration with Apple Photos, improved Photoshop Plugins support, and added an option to switch between a dark or light user interface. Serif discontinued PhotoPlus in 2017.
In February 2020, version 1.8 added support for Photoshop smart objects in PSD files, and expanded plug-in compatibility, with focus on DxO's
Nik Collection
Nik Software was a software development company established in 1995 and based in San Diego, California. The company developed multiple image editing plug-ins and tools (for digital image processing applications, such as Adobe Photoshop) and Snap ...
of plug-ins.
Reception
The macOS version of Affinity Photo was received favorably by professional photographers, and Apple named it as the best Mac app of 2015. In 2016, Affinity Photo was awarded the prize for ''Best Imaging Software'' by the
Technical Image Press Association
The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA)Technical Image Press Association is an international, (TIPA) at
Photokina
Photokina (rendered in the promoters' branding as "photokina") is a trade fair held in Europe for the photographic and imaging industries. It is the world's largest such trade fair. The first Photokina was held in Cologne, Germany, in 1950, an ...
. In November 2017, the iOS app was named by Apple as its best iPad app of the year, and Tom's Guide selected Affinity Photo for their first list of ''Best Tech Values''. In February 2019, Affinity Photo received ''Amateur Photographer'''s ''Software of the Year'' award, followed by Photography News' ''Best Software'' award in March 2019.
See also
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Comparison of raster graphics editors
Raster graphics editors can be compared by many variables, including availability.
List
General information
Basic general information about the editors: creator, company, license, etc.
Operating system support
The operating systems ...