[00:02] quitting Adobe and finding other solutions out there that might be a least very cheap when it came to doing the same things as I could do with Adobe. After I put up the video, I all of a sudden got like spammed inside my
[00:16] YouTube feed with other content creators who apparently also quit Adobe. And I started thinking, well, okay, so this is not just me. This is like a general guess I've just kind of been living inside a bubble, not knowing what other
[00:30] content creators were thinking. But essentially, I saw that there was people were very unhappy with when it came to Adobe, especially when it came to privacy and Adobe saying that they have the rights to whatever you create
[00:45] inside Photoshop. Like they have the right to use that for other things or at least they were very vague about like the rights they had to use it. So, there are other things apparently that Adobe are doing that is not just about the
[00:59] pricing model that people are very unhappy with. But that wasn't really about in this video here. It was just something that was really weird that made the last video. I thought it was very interesting to share. What I really
[01:13] wanted to address is a comment that was made in my comment section in the last video where a person said, "Oh, you should try Affinity Photo." And I have been looking for alternatives when it comes to specifically Photoshop because
[01:27] I have found some alternative to video editing which is the Vinci Resolve. It's just absolutely amazing. I can't recommend it enough. It's just so much better than I guess what I I got from Premiere. And Premiere was good. Like it
[01:40] it helped my hand for 14 years and I was very happy with it. I it felt natural to use. But um Dinci Resolve just has something, you know, a little bit of I don't know, showmanship. Like it it knows how to produce something that
[01:55] looked really good very easily without you having to, I guess, fight a little bit for it. The tools inside Premiere, like they they had them, but I always just kind of like struggled getting the the coloring just right and the lighting
[02:07] and the contrast. And you know, it had all the tools, the exact same tools as as Da Vinci Resolve has, but I don't know, it just feels easier to to get the right outcome that you want inside Resolve. So, um, it's just kind of like
[02:22] a thing. But when it comes to Photoshop, it it's been very hard cuz the free alternatives out there are Like, that's the best tool you can get for free. And they did just release a 3.0 O version, which I actually didn't realize
[02:36] they had cuz I I guess like one and a half month ago when I started trying to look for free versions of like what could you use instead of Photoshop. Uh it wasn't out then. But I have the the third version on my computer now as
[02:49] installations of uh on my computer. And just I guess the workflow is just too different from what I'm used to that I I after really trying to use it for about a month, I just never really was able to
[03:05] when you when you use the software and it just feels like an extension of yourself, it's like has to do the same things as Photoshop does, but it takes like like three or four extra steps to do so. And it had a very
[03:19] destructive workflow when it came to especially adjustment layers and which I think they addressed inside the latest version like the 3.0 one. I just installed it. I I didn't really like get too deep into the third version. Uh but
[03:32] they do have some new features which I think a lot of people have been looking for. But I opened up the third version. I checked it out for like an hour or so and it, you know, even though it did possibly have some new features, the key
[03:45] issue I had with is still there, which is that, you know, the way you get things done is just so far away from Photoshop that it just didn't really feel natural for me to use. Can we just talk a second
[03:59] about the fact that Adobe Photoshop is so dominating the market that we don't ask the question, you know, is it better than Photoshop? We ask how close does it get to Photoshop? Like that that's the main thing we're trying to do here. It's
[04:13] like we can't even comprehend that there might be a piece of software out there that actually competes with Photoshop. Like people don't think that cuz it's just so dominating and it's it's kind of like I don't know. I just don't like the
[04:25] feeling of a company having a monopoly on a piece of software. We felt the same thing back with Unity, you know, the game engine. All of a sudden, like all the all the people who, you know, wanted to get into creating video games and
[04:37] didn't want to like spend a lot of money on on something or or wanted to do it in a fairly easy way like Unity was the was the program to use, right? And then all of a sudden they changed their pricing model and people freaked out and Unity
[04:50] like the the people at Unity got death threats and stuff like that and oh they had to change it back again. Like when a company has so much power that if they ruin themselves by changing the policy inside their license agreement or
[05:04] something that people can't do anything about it. like we just kind of sit here and we think, "Oh, okay. So, either we have to swallow this or we just have to like find a crappier version of what we're using right now." Like that's kind
[05:17] of like the situation that we don't want to be in. So, because of that, I actually have never been outside my Adobe bubble for the past 14 years. I have been just using Photoshop. I've been using Premiere because why wouldn't
[05:30] program you learned in school. like Adobe made a a deal with the university that that was the software we're going to be using. So, um you know, when you get trained from like the very beginning
[05:42] to be using like certain software, you're going to continue using it into your professional work too, which Adobe really got like their fingers, you know, getting you groomed since like since the beginning into using their software. But
[05:56] a person commented underneath my comment section on the last video saying, "Why don't you try out Affinity Photo?" Affinity Photo is, from what I can tell, because I did actually go in and Googled not free alternatives, but like the best
[06:12] alternatives to Photoshop. And Affinity Photo was like the top contender for competing with Photoshop. And I do have it installed here. I've been using it. And oh my god, I'm actually kind of angry about this. So for people who
[06:29] don't know, there exist a company out there that creates software which is, you know, up against Photoshop, in design, and Illustrator. Like they have that three pieces of software that is basically like 95% a clone of, you know,
[06:45] Photoshop, Illustrator, and Inesign. And if you install them and use them, you'll immediately know how to use them because they're so close up against the Adobe products. And it's a one-time purchase. There's no subscription cost. You buy it
[07:00] There's no subscription cost. You buy it and you own it. For 14 years now, I have been paying a subscription to Adobe. And my mind cannot fathom that you can buy a piece of software that does the same thing that I've been paying monthly for
[07:15] for 14 years. It does the exact same thing as Adobe does. Now, we haven't really gotten into why I'm saying that. Like, I have the software here, but I haven't really shown off any features yet. But
[07:27] just know that I'm actually a little bit upset that I've been paying for so long for something that I could essentially just have gotten without paying a subscription. And again, it speaks volumes to the fact that Adobe is just
[07:40] volumes to the fact that Adobe is just so u it has monopolized the market in such a such a great degree that you know, you don't you don't even consider alternatives to Adobe. It's just that that's the thing that you use. But, you
[07:53] which I I was never aware of. And I really think that the worst part about that they're going to be people watching this video here thinking, "Oh, okay. those, you know, oh, is it like close up against Photoshop?" You know, it might
[08:09] be like 70% like Photoshop with the features and everything. And he's sitting here just with like his roast tin goggles. You know, he Oh, he just he's going to say it's so much better. just just wait a couple of months till
[08:23] the uh the honeymoon phase has like worn down and and and take a look at the software to see is it actually as good as Photoshop as you say it is you know as Photoshop as you say it is you know but no really it has a free trial go to
[08:35] their website download it and you'll see for yourself uh so for 7 days you can try it out and if you want to purchase it it's about 1 and 1/2 month of Adobe subscription and then you own the software you don't rent it like you do
[08:50] which is crazy. Like you don't actually think about it. You don't own Photoshop if you pay the subscription cost to Adobe. You rent it. It's like you don't own the apartment. You're renting an apartment. You know, the landlord can
[09:05] just come and kick you out the next day if they want to. Like Adobe has all this if they want to. Like Adobe has all this control. But with this one, you own it. It's a one-time purchase and you just have it. It's so dumb cuz I'm sitting
[09:17] these notes down like these bullet talking points I need to talk about, you know, onetime purchase and like it's are going to be thinking like I'm I'm
[09:30] I'm BSing them, which I'm not. I do also have a pros and con list here when it comes to using Affinity Photo 2 versus Photoshop. And, you know, it is 95% of
[09:42] what you'll find in Photoshop. like it has all the features that you typically use inside Photoshop. It does not have the AI tools, you know, like the new and like, oh, okay, actually I need it to be a little bit wider, but there is
[09:56] no more photo. So, you just like kind of stretch it out and then you have, you know, Photoshop autofill in using AI and it looks great. And, you know, it doesn't have that kind of feature because AI is just not part of this
[10:09] software here. And apparently it also misses some 3D text tool things which misses some 3D text tool things which Photoshop has which it does not have. Um but like besides that it's it's really just about like the fact that you know
[10:22] there's so much content about Photoshop on the internet. So if you want to look up a tutorial or guide you know there's going to be a lot stuff about Photoshop but Affinity Photo 2 there's going to be you know less of it cuz it's less known.
[10:35] It's not the industry standard, you know. So there there will be less stuff, but that's really it. Everything else is just like Photoshop. And I'm not just talking features. I'm talking the interface. If you know how to use
[10:48] Photoshop, you just need to boot up Affinity Photo 2 and you know how to use it. There might be a couple of shortcuts that are a little bit different, but really, you know, you tried the shortcut, oh, it didn't work. you try
[11:01] the next logical alternative that you might think, well, maybe it's this one then. And it works and it's it's that one. So, it's it's just so close. It's one. So, it's it's just so close. It's it's 95% Photoshop with features, with
[11:14] UI, basically everything. And it's so dumb cuz it's a onetime purchase and it's literally like one and a half month Photoshop and then you have this one and you own it. But I do want to just kind of show off the the software here cuz
[11:28] curious. I'm sitting here saying that, oh, okay, why are you using Photoshop? It's like, you know, when they have this out there. So, I just opened up Affinity Photo 2 and you can see I'm greeted with the the start screen that you also see
[11:41] inside Photoshop, my recent projects. I made a thumbnail just to kind of like trial version, by the way. Uh, but once this trial version is expired, I will actually purchase the full version cuz it is just stupid not to. Of course, if
[11:56] you don't have any money and you want a free alternatives, 3 is by far the the thing you should download. But if you have just a little bit of money to spend, this one is the one to go for. Um, but as you can see, I'm greeted with
[12:09] the startup screen and I have my latest project, which is right here. I only here, by the way, for people who come from Photoshop and you want to swap over and you're thinking, "Oh, but you have so many Photoshop files, uh, with all
[12:22] those layers and, you know, like they do have some compatibility with Photoshop files from my understanding. I haven't tested it yet. Uh, but essentially, you should be able to continue your workflow into the software
[12:35] directly from your Photoshop files. So, let's go ahead and just um see if we click here, you can see we have all the defa the you know the standards when it defa the you know the standards when it comes to uh paper or you know screens
[12:49] and you know you can choose whatever uh over here on the right we can choose what the dimensions we want. Do we want you know 72 dots per inch? I can actually turn this up to 300 if I want to. Um I can go into color. I can change
[13:03] it to transparent background. That's just something I typically do. I don't like the bottom layer. And then I click create. And you'll actually notice that immediately as I create this one, there is actually no layers inside the layers
[13:16] panel because usually Photoshop they come with a default background layer that is just like white or something. Um, Affinity Photo 2 does not because there's no layers yet. So why why should it? Um, I always just have to delete
[13:30] kind of annoying to always have that first layer there. It's either just there and I build on top of it or I delete it. Um, so having a project just completely from scratch, you know, that you can start with is in my case
[13:44] you can see, if you look at the interface here, like if you had to compare to Photoshop, we have the tools in the left just like Photoshop does. It does have them in color, which I know some people who are very, you know, oh,
[13:57] I want it to look 100% like Photoshop, you know. Uh, you can go inside the settings here. And if I go down, uh, it does give you the option to change the, uh, the user interface. So, they do not have colors. If I go in here, you can
[14:11] see that we have a, let's see if we can find it here. Icon style mono. So, if I click this one, you can see, oh, all of a sudden it looks uh, gray and boring. I guess some people they preferred this way. You know, I I thought I was going
[14:25] to prefer it this way, but you know, as soon as I saw the colors disappear from kind of like, h let's swap it back again. You know what? I actually kind of like this. I know this has something to do with colors cuz I can see it. Um, so
[14:37] this this is nice. I'll just uh keep this for now. Uh, by the way, I also changed one more thing in here. I did actually change it so that when I use my mouse wheel, I zoom because there is actually another zoom feature. If you
[14:50] hold down controll and alt and then you actually that's not right. If you hold down set uh and then drag your mouse to the left and right then you can see it zooms in and out but it does kind of snap to 100% which I'm not too happy
[15:04] with. Um so instead I changed it to scrolling cuz that's just how I like things. And it's just a one button. You just like toggle it and okay you want to use it for scrolling instead. Um if you hold down the mouse uh scroll wheel you
[15:18] drag around. you don't actually have to click space. So, if I click another tool here, uh right now, you know, I'm not I'm not dragging anything, but if I hold down the space key, then you can see now I'm dragging just like in Photoshop, by
[15:30] thing with the middle mouse wheel here. You can just kind of like, you know, change how you want things to to be aligned, which is just kind of neat. On things that pops up whenever you choose a tool. So if I were to let's say the
[15:44] the flot fill tool which is the paint bucket tool in this case here then you can see we get some uh some different options like tolerance blend mode so on you were to choose another tool just to kind of see it. Let's take the clone
[15:57] more options here that you can uh choose from but it's just like Photoshop. You just go up and you tweak them as much as you want. Uh we do also have some windows over here in the side. like this one I kind of just like uh uh took from
[16:10] up here like inside my window I believe. Um but you'll actually see that the window on the right side is also just almost completely identical to Photoshop. You have your layers. Now mine does look a little bit different
[16:22] because I do believe that the navigator may have been at the bottom there, but I just kind of like shifted things around like I wanted it to be. Um the navigator is just basically to navigate your canvas. Then you go to histogram. This
[16:36] you've done so far inside your project going to show. So, if I were to take my paint bucket here and actually create a new layer, which you can do down here, says, which is a little bit different, but we'll we'll get to that. So, if I
[16:50] were to go in here, click this one, I can fill in with some sort of color, showing inside the histogram. And if I just kind of like swap to, let's say, here. If you click the X key, you can see it swap around. I'm going to do it
[17:04] again. Then you can see we get some some stuff going on here. And I can take this slider and I can actually drag throughout the history of what I've done, which is kind of neat, I think, um that you can just kind of do this. And
[17:16] then you can see what you've done so far. It does also, just to point this out, and this is actually something that Photoshop does not do. When you save Photoshop does not do. When you save your project, it saved your history.
[17:28] project inside Photoshop and you have a bunch of things you've done and then you open like let's say Photoshop crashes and then you open your your project up again. Oh no, now you can't go back inside the history because Photoshop
[17:41] deletes it. Uh but this software here actually saves it. So if I were to close down the project and open it up again, it should have the history saved and back again if that's something you want to do. But we do have like the color
[17:55] section up here just like you do in Photoshop. I did actually add a adjustment which is up here which is adjustment layers that you can add in. So you'll actually notice that if I were to let's say I want to take a a photo of
[18:07] myself. Let's actually go and open up my previous recent project here. Um now we can actually test it. If I go in here, go to history. Uh right now we do not have the history. I think I may have distogled it cuz it has
[18:22] the option. I know for a fact it has the option to to save the history, but I don't think I toggled it on when I saved this project here. But what I can do is I can actually show that we do have different adjustment layers here. So if
[18:35] adjustment, let's say I click on this top uh image here and I want to add in some levels. I can, you know, either choose a preset, I can just choose the default one. So I'll just click it here. You can see we get the options here. The
[18:49] level uh layer is actually up here, which is the non-destructive workflow that uh did not have, at least before the 3.0 version. Um, so I can to. And you'll actually notice that if I
[19:02] do it, notice how it's changing everything inside my photo. So if I were things here, you can see everything is getting changed. So, what I can do now is I can actually take this adjustment layer and not have it work on everything
[19:15] but I can actually have it working on just one specific layer. Now, just ignore this photo here cuz this is actually not the photo I'm using right now. The photo is actually sitting down here. Um, so if we were to actually take
[19:28] this adjustment layer and drag it on top of the image, but a little bit to the side here, then you can see that now, oh, it disappeared. And if I click this little arrow uh on the left side of my layer, you can now see all the
[19:40] adjustments I've made to that particular layer. But now something I just really something that I use quite often that I'm very happy to see that the workflow to this particular piece of software here. Um I use something called
[19:55] highpass, which is a filter. So whenever you use any kind of filter inside Photoshop, you will have to take a copy of a particular layer. Maybe there's has something similar. But it was just very intuitive to just find this sort of
[20:10] solution inside this program here. Uh so just kind of show what I mean. If I make just kind of show what I mean. If I make a duplicate of uh myself here and I just filters and stuff like that. So I have to just remove all of them. You can now
[20:23] see that this is the raw image, right? I can actually just kind of hide the one I have below here. Uh so now we can't see the original. So, if we were to untoggle, you can see it disappears, right? Um, so what I would have to do
[20:36] been doing things, is I would then make a copy of this image by making a duplicate. So now there's another one on top of it. Then I take my filters tab up here. I go down to sharpen. I go to highpass. And then I start changing the
[20:52] highpass, which adds a little bit of clarity. Like if you have a bad photo from a bad cell phone or something, this tool is highly recommended to check out. But basically, you can go up here and you can just sort of like add some more
[21:04] details to the face. So, I'm going to click apply. When I do that, it's going to look like this. So, I can then go inside my blend mode up here. And then I choose something called soft light. If I do that, you're going to think, well,
[21:16] that looks the same. But if I actually untuckle it and toggle it, let's actually zoom in so you can see it here. If I untuckle it and toggle it, you can see that there's a little bit more detail going into the face. Now, this is
[21:28] as you can see, you could do it in the same way inside this program here. But delete this layer, because we don't actually need it, and instead take the original, which is this one, right?
[21:43] workflow where I would have to create a copy of the layer and then change it using a filter and then add a blend mode, instead I can just go down to the bottom here and click something called live filters. And as you can see, we get
[21:57] all the different filters as an option down here that you can choose in order down here that you can choose in order to add a filter directly onto the layer. actually choose highpass, you can then see we get the same option as before,
[22:10] but I can actually choose a blend mode. Okay, so if we were to turn this one up here, just like before, same settings. Go down to blend mode, go down to what it says soft light, you can now see that. Oh, okay. Well, now I have the
[22:25] create an additional layer. I didn't have to go up inside filters. I didn't the other. Everything is within this little window here. And not just that, but if I close it and think, oh, okay, well, maybe I should have added a little
[22:41] it's too strong. I can actually just go over here on the side where you can see, effect added to my layer. If I double click it, I can change the settings again. I can actually readjust how it it
[22:55] turned out before hitting apply and then it just changed it and it got locked in place. I can actually do a nondestructive workflow where I actually readjust the filter directly by just clicking on top of my layer. And again,
[23:09] if you start adding more and more things on top of this layer here, you know, space. Like there's a limited amount of space on the right side of this you click this little arrow on the side cuz Oh, okay. And now they're all listed
[23:23] see anymore, they just kind of get listed below there. And again, you can double click it and you can readjust it here. That is amazing. Okay, something I've never been able to, at least I haven't found inside Photoshop. And I
[23:38] just discovered this just by looking at the software. Like it was so intuitive. thing down there? Live filters. What is that?" And then I just kind of like did this thing. So yeah, like this software here for the things that I use it for is
[23:51] here for the things that I use it for is is definitely very good. Um, but basically really my point with this video here is that it has so many things video here is that it has so many things that you find inside Photoshop. Like 95%
[24:04] it's going to be inside this software here. And again, this is not a full-blown tutorial. I could, you know, show the text tool, you know, start that you can just kind of like move it around just like inside Photoshop. Oh,
[24:19] actually, there's one thing I do want to show here. Uh, Photoshop does something that I hate when it comes to um working with these sort of things. So, I have this box behind my text here and I rotated it. You know, I actually went
[24:35] corner here and I started rotating it. Now it's at an angle. Oh, but I changed be a little bit longer to cover the text. So, if I start dragging it, okay, well, this is just like this is how you would think this needed to work. But if
[24:50] you go inside Photoshop after you rotate one of these boxes here and then you start stretching, it's going to start stretching like an image instead. To show you what I mean, like if I were to take this thing, I'm just going to take
[25:03] paste it in just so you can see. Like this is how Photoshop does it. If you start stretching, you see how it gets stretched over there? That's how Photoshop does it. And there's probably a way to get around it, but this one
[25:16] just does it. Like you don't have to figure out how to get around it. It just doesn't do it, which is just kind of neat. Again, like this software, it Photoshop. I think really the the strength of this software here is the
[25:32] workflow and the non-destructiveness of the way you edit things. because Photoshop does also have non-destructive workflow, but I think it's a lot easier to find and just use inside the software here. This software does not have AI
[25:46] tools. It does not have 3D text tools, which apparently is the thing that is missing. But really, you know, look at how this is pretty much Photoshop. Cutting out backgrounds you can also do inside here. like Photoshop does have AI
[25:59] tools to help you do so, but you know, you can also still just kind of use it in here like you would inside Photoshop as well. I don't know, like it's just so cool to see that you do have all these different options that you typically
[26:11] click on my photo here and I'm thinking, well, is there like a Lightroom sort of top here, you can see we have different things. Um, well, these don't really automatic tools for things. But if I were to click up here, it has something
[26:27] called, for example, develop persona. Well, okay. What does that do? Like it it looks like a light bulb with some lighting and there's some colors around lighting and there's some colors around it. So, is this perhaps if I click it?
[26:39] Oh, it is. It is sort of like the like the features you have in Photoshop where you can adjust the exposure, you know, the brightness, the contrast. If I can scroll in here. That's the other window, I believe. um the saturation,
[26:53] the vibrance, the white balance, the shadows and highlights, you know, and where you can also refine things. So, if you want to refine the details, you can do that. If I turn up the amount here, you can see that okay, things get
[27:06] sharper if I do that. Like you can find all the same features. And if I dislike the top here instead of develop. So, some bad luck just happened here. My screen recorder for some reason decided to crash my computer. So, I had to
[27:20] restart. And when I opened up Affinity Photo again, I reopened the the last edit that we just did together here on the recording here. And wouldn't you know, there is some history that you can boot back on what we did. So, this is
[27:35] it does have some non-structured workflow when it comes to the history as well. It does actually save it, especially when it comes to recovery files. It just automatically toggled on the uh uh you know this the save history
[27:49] mode, I guess. So, I could actually go back if I needed to. But yeah, like this software here comes with a lot of different options. There's also liquify, which you may also know from Photoshop. So, essentially, I
[28:01] don't really have anything specifically that I can put my finger on that I'm Maybe like the AI tools are kind of like nice to have. But um really my point
[28:13] about this video here is that we do have a piece of software here that clearly is not just you know like oh okay so it's like you know how how close to Photoshop does it get like this is actually a Photoshop replacement and people don't
[28:28] know about it which is is kind of crazy. So, if you're looking for a Photoshop alternative, I can highly recommend downloading the trial version for this software so you can try it out for yourself. I will leave a link in the
[28:40] you know, find it immediately. Honestly, I think if you're considering not paying a monthly subscription or, you know, maybe you have an excess of money you just want to throw left and right, you
[28:54] know, maybe that's fine for you. But uh for people who want to save money and have something that is pretty much, you know, so close up against Photoshop, uh this is definitely like the the best alternative I was able to find. Uh and
[29:07] thanks to the commenter who actually pointed it out to me cuz this was like a godsend when you're looking for like editing software. Now I have my uh Davinci Resolve for video editing and now I have Affinity Photo 2 for photo
[29:20] editing. So I'm not really missing anything here. So, uh, thank you so much for watching this video. What do you think? Have you been using Affinity Photo 2? I'd love to hear what some people who might have been trying to,
[29:32] you know, download the trial version of this one uh, might be thinking like, do there something you dislike? What features is it missing? Um, I'd love to know below inside the comment section. So, with that said, I hope you enjoyed
[29:45] So, with that said, I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you guys next time. and I'll see you guys next time. [Music]