Background information
Removing image noise: self-proclaimed test winner with grotesque results
by David Lee
Affinity is free – adios Adobe?
Affinity software has been available free of charge since autumn 2025. It offers plenty of features Adobe programs do as well, but not everything. Unfortunately, Affinity isn’t a perfect alternative, especially for photographers.
Adobe has made many enemies with its compulsory subscriptions as well as ever-changing prices and product bundles. The search for suitable alternatives is an ongoing struggle. Affinity often comes up as a possible alternative.
Particularly since it’s free of charge. In 2024, Australian company Canva bought out Affinity developer Serif. As a result, Canva merged three individual applications – Affinity Photo, Publisher and Designer – into one product and is now offering it as a free download for Mac and Windows. An iPad version will follow soon.
What exactly is Affinity?
Before its acquisition by Canva, Affinity was a suite consisting of three applications:
- Affinity Designer, a vector drawing program akin to Adobe Illustrator.
- Affinity Photo, image processing in the style of Adobe Photoshop.
- Affinity Publisher, layout software similar to Adobe InDesign.
In the new free version of Affinity Studio, these applications appear as subsections called Vector, Pixel and Layout. There are other bits too, such as Canva AI, Slices, Retouching and Color Grading. I’m not quite sure which bits are Canva originals, which have been remade by Affinity and which are completely new. However, I do know for sure that certain AI features in Affinity were put in by the new parent company Canva and require a subscription, priced at either 12 euros/16 francs per month or 110 euros/128 francs per year.
To use Affinity, you need to sign up with an e-mail address. That’s all the information required, however. According to Canva, no data is used for AI training either.
What Affinity can’t do
There’s plenty of novelty, but some crucial photography features are still absent. Affinity just can’t replace Lightroom, the suite follows a whole different concept. There’s no photo management, you can’t add keywords, ratings or tags, sort or catalogue photos, or even search for metadata. You also can’t apply a setting to several photos or export multiple images in one go. Single image processing only, just like Photoshop.
Unlike in Photoshop, however, your process settings can’t be saved either. When you open a RAW photo, you first have to finish developing it completely. And after that’s finalised, you’re locked in and can’t make changes any more. Developing images is a single process that must be finalised in one go. At least you can always reopen a RAW file in Photoshop and your previous settings will be applied.
But if you take a lot of photos and have a correspondingly large stock of images handy, chances are you won’t be happy with Affinity alone. At the very least, you’ll need a workaround with an additional image manager that can also display RAW files. Say, the free Adobe Bridge program. But even then, you’ll still only see unedited images. Affinity saves edited images in a proprietary format that no external image management system can read.
Examples of processing
I developed some of my photos again in Affinity to make a handy comparison. Since I don’t know Affinity as well as Lightroom, it may be my fault if the results aren’t as great. My results in Lightroom also apply to Photoshop. RAW development there is essentially the same and can be found under the Camera Raw filter.
First example: a landscape
In this photo, the seascape should be perfectly horizontal. Lightroom offers fully automatic alignment, while Affinity at least provides a guideline you can place along the horizon. Since Lightroom often messes up when it comes to automatic straightening, both apps perform more or less equally.
What bothers me more is the tiny range of camera profiles and complete lack of colour profiles in Affinity. Even after correcting the white balance, the colours still aren’t right in my opinion. And I don’t know how to solve this. I can’t fix it with the colour grading settings either.
A killer feature for landscape shots is the automatic selection of the sky and other landscape sections. Another feature missing in Affinity. Still, this picture doesn’t suffer too much for it. There’s a gradient mask, and you can also mask using a brush. Regrettably, this brush isn’t displayed in the correct size and you can’t change this using the scroll wheel either.
Second example: animal photography
Here’s a photo with 12,800 ISO, which was very noisy after processing. I use Lightroom’s AI function to reduce the noise to a minimum, without irritating artefacts. Affinity’s noise reduction is fine, but doesn’t use AI and produces worse results compared to Lightroom. Heavily using the normal noise filter loses you a lot of sharpness.
In Lightroom, I reduced the saturation of green tones so that the background isn’t brighter than the subject. I can’t find a similar feature in Affinity. I also used selective colour correction, an age-old concept in Photoshop, to fade the green. It’s just way less targeted and precise. In addition, the general colour scheme here also suits me less than Lightroom’s version.
Third example: an interior shot
In this snapshot, I didn’t hold the camera completely straight, so all the horizontal and vertical lines are slightly skewed. Affinity’s simple alignment tool only corrects one of the three possible axes, so the image will still be a bit wonky. In Lightroom, there’s a separate slider for all three axes under the Transform tab, so I can perfectly adjust the alignment. There’s also an automatic option, but it just can’t handle this particular pic.
As in Photoshop, there are various distortion filters in Affinity, including perspective distortion. I can get my photo halfway there, but it takes much longer and the result is worse. Those poles on the ceiling still look crooked.
Affinity also offers automatic correction for lens distortion. Only, it’s missing some lens profiles. For example, Sony’s FE 16-35 GM II, which is already over two years old, isn’t available yet.
Layout included
Affinity also serves as a vector and layout program. I haven’t tried the vector part since I don’t have enough experience with it. Layout is different: I’ve worked with Adobe InDesign on a daily basis for years and know roughly what those applications are capable of. Here, too, I prefer testing with a specific example. I tried to turn an online article into a print magazine report. And hey, it works! Compared to InDesign, quite a few features feel a bit more complicated, but I still achieve what I want. Here, too, I’d say it’s sufficient for hobbyists and occasional users. I’m less sure about professional magazine layout designers.
Verdict: good for occasional users
Affinity is perfect when you’re combining photos, vector graphics and text into a design. It’s an all-in-one application, eliminating that annoying switch back and forth between individual programs. The competition trumps Adobe in this regard.
However, if you’re looking for a Lightroom replacement, you’ll have to find other alternatives. RAW development in Affinity isn’t bad, but compared to Lightroom it lacks powerful features such as automatic selection of landscape parts or AI denoising. I can also adjust colours in Lightroom much better to my taste. The main problem, however, is that there’s no image management and your RAW settings can’t be saved. For people who only take a few photos and only edit single images, Affinity is fine enough. But once you’ve got used to the convenience of Lightroom, you won’t want to switch.
David Lee
Senior Editor
David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.chMy interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
Background information
Interesting facts about products, behind-the-scenes looks at manufacturers and deep-dives on interesting people.
Show allThese articles might also interest you
125 comments
later