Adobe Photoshop is the best known graphics product on the market.
$20
per month
Affinity Designer
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
Affinity Designer is a vector graphics software developed by Serif (Europe) Ltd, replacing the former Serif DrawPlus. It is designed for professional illustrators, web designers, game developers, and other creatives.
Affinity Designer stacks up really well against Illustrator, especially for the kind of work I do. While Illustrator might have more niche features that Affinity does not but It does covers the core functionality I need for vector design. And without the ongoing subscription …
Photoshop is a useful tool for everything from creating social media graphics to editing and sizing photos. There is a bit of a learning curve, so you need to have a bit of experience to master it and use it for a variety of tasks. You also need to have a good sense of file organization so you can find files quickly without losing track of them.
I first started to use Affinity related tools with Serif in 2004. When these tools became available, I started using them, and much to my surprise of the people that use Affinityit is now universally accepted. More people will use this in the future due to the total cost and value it brings.
We get a lot of use out of this software. It's vital for work with production in our industry and has a lot of cross-functionality - creating social media images, retouching photos, editing photos, creating gradients, and more. It's pretty fuss-free in that we haven't had to reach out to support and the program hasn't crashed on us. We are trained on the software (so again, this isn't for beginners), but for detail-oriented designers and creatives like ourselves - it's a no-brainer.
Adobe PhotoShop is a professional-grade tool that requires months/years to get a grasp of how to use it well. Even then, after over a decade of using Adobe PhotoShop both casually and professionally, I feel like I'm still unfamiliar with a large percentage of the available tools. Without a dedicated training program, it can be extremely overwhelming and/or you may not get good use out of it. That being said, once you do get comfortable with it, the layout and workspace are excellent with myriad shortcuts that speed up your workflow exponentially. Put in the time to learn it, and you'll love it.
Coming from Photoshop and Illustrator, the transition was pretty smooth and most tasks translates well. There was a bit of a learning curve with certain tasks, like masking images, but nothing too steep. The align tools are excellent and the use of personas (especially the Export persona) adds a lot of functionality when exporting slices or working with different formats. The interface is user friendly with frequently used tools easily available
Adobe Photoshop is very reliable, but is never 100%. There have been times when Adobe Photoshop has had trouble opening, but nothing a little computer restart couldn't fix. I use Adobe Photoshop on a Mac for both work and at home on a daily basis, and I would be lost without it.
Speed can be an issue when you are dealing with large files for large format printing or billboards. When working on web images, speed is not an issue.
While I never contacted Adobe directly, there is so much content out there in the form of YouTube videos, Lynda/LinkedIn learning that almost any issue, including bugs, can be worked around (and this method is generally faster as there's no turnaround time involved).
I have not had much opportunity to go directly to support, but the training modules that are employed by the company are fantastic. I also find that if I need to understand something, there is always another user ready and willing to share their secrets. As this tool becomes more accepted local communities will also start to organize
I took a course so it really helped. I didn’t take the course until much later after beginning to use it, so I wish work would have sent me right off the bat. It would have alleviated a lot of frustratinon
[Adobe] Photoshop offers the best photo editing as well as content creation. The layer-by-layer approach of [Adobe] Photoshop helps to work between two apps or even two PCs of entirely different Creative Cloud apps seamlessly. The stability and the speed of the tools in photoshop make it even better to make a canvas of creativity.
Affinity Designer stacks up really well against Illustrator, especially for the kind of work I do. While Illustrator might have more niche features that Affinity does not but It does covers the core functionality I need for vector design. And without the ongoing subscription cost. I chose Affinity Designer primarily because it's a one-time purchase, which makes a big difference for my small business.
It does take a long time for the program to start up, however
The most difficult task is onboarding new employees into Adobe PhotoShop who don't have experience with it. It's an investment for their future so we see value in it.
