Overview
Affinity Photo is the serious alternative to the subscription raster editor, and it is serious in the sense that professional retouchers actually deliver work with it. The engine is 32-bit per channel throughout, it handles files far larger than the memory in the machine, and the pan and zoom stay smooth on layered documents where the alternatives start to stutter.
The application is organised into personas rather than modules. The develop persona is a full raw processor with lens corrections, tone curves and noise reduction, and it hands off to the photo persona without writing an intermediate file. The liquify persona is a mesh warp. Tone mapping handles single exposures and merged brackets. Export handles slicing and multiple output targets from one document.
Underneath, the toolset is complete: non-destructive live filter layers, unlimited layer nesting with masks and clipping, blend ranges per layer, frequency separation for retouching, a proper dodge and burn workflow, RGB and CMYK and LAB colour with soft proofing, and PSD import and export that survives a round trip with layers intact. Focus stacking, panorama stitching and HDR merging are all built in rather than bought separately, and the whole thing is a one time purchase rather than a monthly one.
What it does well
Personas instead of modules
Raw develop, photo editing, liquify, tone mapping and export as separate working modes inside one document with no intermediate files.
Live filter layers
Blurs, distortions, sharpening and lighting applied as editable layers with masks, adjustable at any point without re-rendering.
Retouching toolset
Frequency separation, inpainting, clone and healing with source rotation, and a dodge and burn workflow that stays non-destructive.
Stacking and merging
Focus stacking, panorama stitching, HDR merging and astrophotography stacking, all built into the application.
Colour and output
RGB, CMYK, LAB and greyscale at up to 32-bit per channel with soft proofing, ICC handling and layered PSD round tripping.
Changes in this build
- Selection refinement improved on hair and fine edges.
- Faster raw develop on high resolution files with lower memory use.
- New live filter types added to the non-destructive set.
- Panorama stitching reworked with better handling of parallax at the seams.
- Export persona gained per-slice format and scale presets.
What is in the package
- Affinity Photo installer, 64-bit
- Raw develop engine with lens and camera profiles
- Brush, texture and macro library
- Sample documents demonstrating the personas
- Multilingual interface files, 14 languages
System requirements
| Processor | Intel or AMD 64-bit with SSE 4.2 |
| Memory | 8 GB minimum, 16 GB or more for large layered documents |
| Graphics | GPU with 2 GB VRAM, 4 GB for the accelerated canvas |
| Storage | 3 GB free plus scratch space |
| Display | 1280 x 768 minimum, colour accurate panel recommended |
| System | Windows 10 or Windows 11, 64-bit |
Installation
- Extract the archive to a local folder.
- Close any earlier Affinity application before running setup.
- Run the installer and let the shared components register.
- Apply the included configuration step before first launch.
- Open preferences and set the scratch folder to a fast drive.
Before you start
Hardware acceleration can be turned off in preferences if an older GPU produces artefacts on the canvas.
PSD round tripping keeps layers but some adjustment types are rasterised, check before sending files onward.
Macros and brushes import from the shared library folder, back that up before reinstalling.
Questions about this title
Does it open PSD files?
Yes, with layers, and it exports back to PSD as well.
Is raw processing included?
Yes, the develop persona is a full raw processor inside the same application.
Can it stitch panoramas?
Yes, along with focus stacking, HDR merging and astrophotography stacking.
Does it work in CMYK?
Yes, RGB, CMYK, LAB and greyscale with soft proofing and ICC handling.
About this listing
This entry was checked on a clean install of Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) before it was published, and it is rechecked whenever the package is rebuilt. The figures on this page come from the site index rather than from the publisher, so the download count is what people here have actually pulled.
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