Affinity (Photoshop replacement) is free

I have often touted how much better the workflow is in Affinity than in Photoshop/Illustrator by combining them. Well now it's free. https://www.affinity.studio/ As an open source tool I might now bother releasing my UI presets to help others too.
Affinity
Affinity | Professional Creative Software, Free for Everyone
Powerful, precise, and free forever. Discover Affinity — the next generation of professional photo, design, and layout software built for creative freedom.
14 Replies
Robb
Robb4w ago
What's the catch? Project limit? Sharing/team limit?
AngryBeaver
AngryBeaverOP4w ago
AI based upsell features is the biggest one I've seen so far. Ah and AI training that's manual opt out.
Rex
Rex4w ago
AIUI it's not open-source. But still, free as in free beer is nice
The Urban Goose
So in other words they made it free so they could charge money for the one thing most sane end users wouldn't spend money on? Sound business strategy... Well that and steal their users work I guess...
AniMouse
AniMouse3w ago
Honestly I'm very skeptical and conflicted about it, but who knows
The Urban Goose
I don't trust it at all tbh. A free AI-integrated tool with opt-out AI training using my work? Yeah... I feel like the opt out tick just wouldn't do anything, AI companies aren't known to be particularly ethical. I'll stick with GIMP and Inkscape, they're proper FOSS, I trust that way more.
Rex
Rex3w ago
I really like GIMP myself, I end up finding a way to do what I want somehow
The Urban Goose
Inkscape is really good too. I made that custom UI for the rail markers in Passenger Train Cars (https://discord.com/channels/555424930502541343/1427479263329779812/1435256257174044804) in like 2 hours. That's all vectors, I just rebuilt all the elements based on the light control panel.
Rex
Rex3w ago
I see
AngryBeaver
AngryBeaverOP3w ago
Canvas and Affinity aren't known for being lying cheats. They have enough reputation to lose that I expect the opt out to work.
AniMouse
AniMouse3w ago
I don't want to be that person, but the only way to not have your data used in any way is live in a cave And I'm sure most of us never donated to Foss devs for maintenance either Or read privacy policy, or terms of service of any software
The Urban Goose
I have donated to the Blender Foundation I even bought blender merch in person at the Blender offices Also I'm sure they have a decent reputation, but opt-out AI training is a deal breaker for me.
AngryBeaver
AngryBeaverOP3w ago
Which is absolutely fair. I just wanted to be clear that the opt out would actually op[t out. I understand no liking opt out though
Mike Da Bird
Mike Da Bird3w ago
I am happy to have bought the V2 pre-acquisition, also being pre-AI. I also don't trust the new freemium version with the integrated AI. Such an amazing set of tools I can highly recommend (all available in the free version) but I want to see concrete evidence first that they aren't training their model with our work first (even if some of the new tools would be a life saver for me)

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