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by samwillis 1337 days ago
I decided to go cold turkey a few months ago, cancelled my Adobe CC subscription, uninstalled and went with Affinity Designer+Photo (they had a 50% off offer on).

To be honest, it’s hard! Every time I open the apps the muscle memory isn’t there, everything takes longer.

I didn’t used CC often enough any more to justify the subscription. But 20 years of knowledge and experience (at times I was using it every day) doesn’t translate as quickly to another app when you are only using it once a month.

The Affinity products are good, they just aren’t exactly the same as the Adobe equivalents.

I’m committed to not going back though.
3 comments
WickyNilliams 1337 days ago
I have Affinity Photo and suffer the same problems. I was never a Photoshop expert, nor a designer (I know its fallen out of fashion for web design), but I had been using it for 20 years.

I struggle and get frustrated with affinity photo (why are there multiple types of pixel layer??), even if it is good software, because to me - wrongly, of course - photoshop is de facto _how_ a photo editor should work. I'm sure I'll adjust with time. But I use photo editors less than ever, so it's very slow going.

But, I can't really complain for the price I paid, and no subscription necessary. A lot of respect for Affinity in that regard. It's a business model that is becoming increasingly rare.

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mellonaut 1337 days ago
This is true. They are a rival creative suite, and not a clone. For some things you will need to adjust your mental model, for which their in-house video tutorial series¹ are quite nice. For other things such as studio layout and keybindings you can either try to make them as close to Adobe as possible, or invest some time adapting to the new situation.

1. https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/learn/

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lock-the-spock 1336 days ago
What stops you from using the older Adobe products that are available for legal free downloads?
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stoobs 1332 days ago
Certainly on the Mac, compatibility issues stop you from even installing older versions (installer is 32bit), then I think there were other issues with certain functions.
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