Feathered Dino

This is a test drive with Affinity Photo 1 (my OS can't handle AP2.) I've been using Adobe Photoshop since about 1998 but have been stuck on CS5 because I am just not down with a monthly payment plan.

If Adobe still had the upgrade when you want and it's one payment until you want to upgrade again, I probably would have upgraded 2 or 3 times by now, I used to get every other version. Too many companies are doing this "rent to use" software or Software as a service, as they call it. Total BS and cuts out a lot of people who want to do digital art as a hobby, are learning or just don't make a lot of money off it but want to have access to the software.

I sometimes like to try out alternative programs to see what's out there. I've heard Affinity Photo was good and they are having a sale, and had a demo available too. Unfortunately I couldn't do the latest version bc I am locked into Mac OS El Capitan bc of my Adobe software, but I found a demo for the latest version of AP 1.

So far I am very impressed! There are some differences I am missing, especially when it comes to functions I need for my job, but I think for the most part it seems fantastic and seems very similar to Photoshop and I would 100% recommend it for people who want to get into digital art without the monthly plan, and for a much more reasonable price. If you're curious, check out the free demo and see what you think. Looks like it's available on Mac, Windows and iPad (maybe other tablet software?) You might have to look into an older version if you are on an older OS like I am.

I do wish the channels worked more like PS, AP has channels but as far as I can tell it doesn't look like you can paint them like you do in PS. I was able to load my brush and color swatch palettes from Photoshop into AP, so that's cool. Would prefer if the selection stuff was more similar to PS as well, also I love keyboard shortcuts so some of those were different. You can change some but not others, like I want to command H to hide selection and extras but it hides the whole program. Probably a workaround to that but couldn't resolve it.

At any rate I just wanted to do a relatively quick illustration with similar techniques as I would in photoshop, so I busted out this feathery purple dino/dragon dealio. In this pic she is apprehensive about having to make a phone call and is debating whether she should just call tomorrow, after all it's 3 pm and the office is probably closed, right?