Affinity Publisher beta now available!

[Paddy]

Apparently this just came out today - it was simply chance that had me check their website today. For those of us who are not enchanted by Adobe's subscription model, capable substitutes for Photoshop (there are now several very promising options - including Affinity Photo), InDesign, Lightroom, Illustrator, Acrobat etc. are all welcome.

https://www.techradar.com/news/serif-affinity-publisher-is-out-in-beta-for-those-seeking-an-adobe-indesign-alternative

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/

Downloaded it to give it a spin when I have a moment. Here's hoping! (especially as all of CS6 is not 64-bit, and that's going to be an issue soon too...)

[Xairbusdriver]

I highly recommend ON1 2018. They have directly targeted Adobe Lightroom. No subscriptions, of course. I've also seen/read of others using Afinity, as it is cross-platform, which I don't need.

[Dreambird]

This looks awesome too, however at the moment it's platform specific to Windows:
http://www.photopos.com/PPP3_BS/Default.aspx

Pity, but I intend to send them a note asking if a Mac version is possible. Maybe with enough queries they'd consider it?


Jim... please, what is ON1 2018? Not familiar with that one.

I'm OK with Photoshop CS6 for awhile still but I REALLY don't want to upgrade it with another Adobe product comes the time. Adobe Creative Cloud has become such a pest now that it's gotten itself noticed by MalWareBytes as Adware. I've managed to stop Adobe Application Manager from loading on startup, a TM restore was the only way to get rid of it after it installed the latest version of itself, so I don't want it  going there again.

[Paddy]

ON1: https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/

BTW - if you add yourself to their mailing list, they send you a massive discount coupon ($30 off the already special price...takes the price down to $49)

It looks promising, though opinions vary. General agreement that its catalogue system isn't as good as Lightroom's. Capture One is another alternative, though a lot more expensive.

And then there is Skylum Luminar - which is supposed to be getting the catalogue component some time this year.

You could easily spend days comparing all of these; there are a few more out there too.

In the Photoshop alternative universe, I already own Pixelmator, though admit to rarely remembering that I have it, let alone using it. If I'm going to wean myself off Adobe, I should start giving the alternatives some screen time. Since I'm pretty much forced to keep the OS up to date (web design - need all newest browsers etc. for testing) I will run into the 64 bit problem in a year or so when Mojave stops running 32 bit apps.

[Xairbusdriver]

Actually, for $49.99, you can get a 'bundle' of other items through the end of September.

I don't believe ON1 even has a "cataloging" function, but you can create your own system and then use "smart" folders, and/or create folders with any group of images and other sorting/grouping options. The lack of forcing a cataloging system on your images is one of the things they intentionally did not build; you keep images anywhere you want and ON1 just keeps an internal catalog of where they are along with the effects and filters you may have added. I am anything but an experienced user, of course.

And, like any powerful program/work flow, it will take time to understand when things are done a different way. But they have some excellent videos on how to use most of the functions. Their major supporter, Matt Kloskowski, has some very through tuts, as well. He has also done courses for Lightroom and has extensive knowledge on both programs.

Frankly, I hope all of Adobe's competitors do well.

[Paddy]

Moreover, I found a discussion of ON1 with a link for a FREE download of ON1 Effects (which normally sells for $59.99) so I got that too.

https://www.on1.com/promo/effects-2018/?partner=contrastly

An explanation of some of the differences between ON1's photo management system and Lightroom's:

https://www.on1.com/blog/10-things-lightroom-users-need-to-know-about-on1-photo-raw/