Love hearing your perspective as a teacher on this. Couldn't agree more that schools should teach Affinity, even if alongside Adobe. FWIW, I'm a senior designer, and a *_former_* brand advocate for Adobe. I left them when they stopped allowing you to own your own software. To me, RENTING software is immoral for the company to do, and stupid for me to support. And for Canva/Affinity to provide their suite for free for schools? Very smart.
I like your idea of teaching Affinity alongside Adobe. I will really push the parents to get Affinity when I teach kids and teens since it won't cost them anything. It's a no brainer. I don't particularly like the idea of renting software either, but I can live with it. In the early days of subscriptions, I think most places gave you the option of turning off auto renew. Now you either have to cancel early or hope that you remember to cancel the following year. It should be our choice as a consumer to renew our subscriptions not remember to cancel it. I wonder how much Adobe makes each year from deceased customers because of auto renew.
I think Affinity is very good, especially Designer. Inkscape, Krita and Gimp are free open source options, good for beginners who want to try digital art, but also used by professionals. As long as your teaching also focuses on skills, design principles and fundamentals I don't really think the software should matter too much as a lot of the things you can do with Adobe software are things you can also do in other software.
Hello Art Squirrel! Thanks for the comment! I had convinced the place I teach during the summers to change to Krita for digital painting, but after a couple of summers they switched back to Photoshop. I think marketing was the main reason. I think they decided that pitching that they taught students on the industry standard software went a lot further with the parents. And I love Krita! I find the learning curved to be significantly less because of the pop-up pallet. And I agree that if you teach the fundamentals the software shouldn't matter. One of these days I will have to try out Gimp.
That is a shame but understandable. Hopefully they will be better about Affinity and that might get the ball rolling about other software becoming more acceptable as well. Good channel btw, thanks for making these videos 😊🐿️
Learning fundamentals is so important. Imagine the future frustration when Adobe's AI servers go down, even for a single day. How much productivity will be lost if those future prompt designers don't have "manual" or traditional skills to solve their assignments/projects.
I agree 100%. I have a funny story. Back in December there was an explosion at a power plant the night before final exams. Parts of the city experienced a blackout but at the school we were "fine." I was told we had power but no internet. I thought, great, I have all of my files on a flash drive so not problem. The lab tech pointed out to me that without internet access, NO ONE could sign into ADOBE Creative Cloud so we had to cancel the final exam for my class that uses Adobe Illustrator! It was crazy. It kind of blew my mind at the realization that losing internet access could mess things up so much.
@@Teacher_Tangents Worse yet, We get hit with hurricane season and a hurricane can drop the internet for a week, as towers go down etc….Generators are great, but if the net is down, so what!!
@@PhiddyPford I once spent 10 days with no power after a hurricane but l at least I still had internet through my cell phone. It's scary how much we depend on the internet for so much in our everyday lives.
My sentiments exactly! I'm a very part time semi-professional illustrator who wants a photo editing program but doesn't need the "advanced" functions included in Adobe. As a student I came to totally resent Adobe because even at "student" prices, it was expensive. My computer exceeded the hardware requirements specified by Adobe, but Adobe software would constantly hang and crash. Additionally, Adobe's Classroom in a Book series was extremely ridiculous to use because despite owning the latest version of CIB, the tutorials didn't match the software function. The reality of using Adobe software as a solo user without the support of knowledgeable colleagues available to coach me through the idiosyncrasies of using the programs was an exercise guaranteed to create excessive frustration and hours of wasted time trying to figure out why I couldn't do what I wanted to do. I'm a newbie at Affinity Photo, but after watching several introductory tutorials, I'm able to accomplish what I want to do with minimal frustration - a huge plus in my book! Affinity is my winner - hands down! I hope Adobe looses their anti-trust suit with the US Government and meets their demise as a result of it. I will NEVER use another Adobe product EVER!!!
Thanks so much! And I am still not deep into Affinity yet, but I can definitely relate to the difficulty in figuring out the Persona feature. One thing that I do appreciate about it is I feel like it was an innovation that actually makes the software easier to use by decluttering the interface depending on what you are working on. One problem I see with old school software like Photoshop is they have to balance innovation while also not frustrating it's users.
Affinity is great but you can’t automate your process with scripts and actions. If affinity adds automation I am switching over. They need to add styles, scripting, and actions
Now that the company was acquired by Canva they might now have the finances to add that to the software. I have heard that is the deal breaker for some photographers.
@@tiffanyw3794 Interesting. I use automated processes with Photoshop all the time, but I have never used them in Illustrator. I need to explore that. Actually that is not true . . . I once worked with a client and I had to do about 1,000 little labels. There were only slight variations with each. The automation saved me a good 8 hours of repetitive work. Hmmmm . . . well, my fingers are crossed that Affinity adds automation soon. But for now, I still have Adobe.
@@Teacher_Tangents with illustrator I use a cvs file along with my Jsx script and design templates. Hundreds of designs straight automation. Saves me hours
Yep, exactly my problem, too! There's some limited automation in Affinity Photo, but far from being enough. And completely missing in Affinity Designer - even though I only use it for *batch conversion* (and there's a real time saver with Photoshop and Illustrator). But there are some serious problems with export quality in Affinity Designer and handling of gradients on import and export - not ready for prime time, at least not yet.
Affinity is far from superior to Adobe. Affinity does not respect language support or RTL tools Despite all these years In your opinion, why all this deliberate neglect?
I agree that Affinity is far from superior to Adobe, no question about that, but most people don't need all of the features packed into Adobe Suite. I think the main reason they don't have those things you are looking for comes down to money. They were recently purchased by Canva for an estimated $380 million to $886 million dollars whereas Adobe is worth $240 billion. They have a lot more money to spend on developing their products. But since Affinity was recently purchased by Canva, I think they will likely start improving the product.
I wouldn't call it deliberate neglect. Serif simply has never made software on the level of Adobe in their whole 30 year history. A lot of people think that Affinity is a new company that came out of nowhere with 3 fresh new products. The truth is those 3 products are just rebranded versions of the same products that existed on Windows for many years prior. I was using them in the early 2000's myself. I was also using Adobe software back then both at home and on my job. The amount of things that Adobe has over Serif/Affinity is massive, but people don't know that. That's why there are so many youtube videos that make direct comparisons and compare prices as if these are comparable products. I mean, a pickup truck is cheaper than a 18-wheeler but nobody is doing price comparisons! But we do it with software and people really want to believe that you can get something like Photoshop for $50.00. In truth, there's nothing like Photoshop on the planet, at any price point.
@@KuttyJoe Hello KuttyJoe, at a one time price that Affinity sells for, I don't think they can ever compete on Adobe's level. I didn't realize that Affinity has been around for so long, thanks for that history. I have owned a copy of Affinity Photo and Design since 2019 but I keep them for the most part as a back-up to Photoshop. Occasionally Adobe cuts me off if I am not connected to the internet even though I have paid access. I teach beginner Photohop and Illustrator classes so I rarely teach automation. In 2020 when everything went online my students didn't have access to Adobe till about a month into the semester, so I pivoted to Photopea. It isn't Photoshop but I was able to do about 95% of my class with it. But yeah, it was very slow at times. Also, with Photopea since it is browser based, when the schools started handing out Chromebooks to students, many couldn't run Photoshop, so Photopea got the job done where Photoshop couldn't in this rare instance. What I am saying is I value students having access to Affinity year round even if it is inferior to Adobe.
@@Teacher_Tangents It's good that there are lots of low applications that people can use but there is an important distinction. Expensive software is built to support major industry. Cheap software never bothers with such features and functions because it's marketed to people who don't work in major industry. So it's not realistic to replace Adobe software with software who's sole focus is just painting images. The competitor for Illustrator is Coreldraw which costs the same as Illustrator. The competitor for Indesign is QuarkExpress which costs similar to Indesign. And there's nothing in the world like Photoshop. There are lots and lots of digital painting apps and a lot of them are really excellent but none of them are the total solution that is Photoshop. I hate Adobe pricing as much as anybody else. The reason I discovered Serif software back in the day was because I was looking for an alternative to Adobe, and this was long before the subscription pricing.
@@KuttyJoe You're quite right. For example, a gifted digital artist can produce wonders with GIMP, Krita, even MS Paint or PowerPoint. However, the Adobe products are still overall the most powerful on offer. It's as simple as that.
Love hearing your perspective as a teacher on this. Couldn't agree more that schools should teach Affinity, even if alongside Adobe. FWIW, I'm a senior designer, and a *_former_* brand advocate for Adobe. I left them when they stopped allowing you to own your own software. To me, RENTING software is immoral for the company to do, and stupid for me to support. And for Canva/Affinity to provide their suite for free for schools? Very smart.
I like your idea of teaching Affinity alongside Adobe. I will really push the parents to get Affinity when I teach kids and teens since it won't cost them anything. It's a no brainer. I don't particularly like the idea of renting software either, but I can live with it. In the early days of subscriptions, I think most places gave you the option of turning off auto renew. Now you either have to cancel early or hope that you remember to cancel the following year. It should be our choice as a consumer to renew our subscriptions not remember to cancel it. I wonder how much Adobe makes each year from deceased customers because of auto renew.
I think Affinity is very good, especially Designer. Inkscape, Krita and Gimp are free open source options, good for beginners who want to try digital art, but also used by professionals. As long as your teaching also focuses on skills, design principles and fundamentals I don't really think the software should matter too much as a lot of the things you can do with Adobe software are things you can also do in other software.
Hello Art Squirrel! Thanks for the comment! I had convinced the place I teach during the summers to change to Krita for digital painting, but after a couple of summers they switched back to Photoshop. I think marketing was the main reason. I think they decided that pitching that they taught students on the industry standard software went a lot further with the parents. And I love Krita! I find the learning curved to be significantly less because of the pop-up pallet. And I agree that if you teach the fundamentals the software shouldn't matter. One of these days I will have to try out Gimp.
That is a shame but understandable. Hopefully they will be better about Affinity and that might get the ball rolling about other software becoming more acceptable as well. Good channel btw, thanks for making these videos 😊🐿️
@@artsquirrel I hear you! And thanks so much Art Squirrel!! 😊
Learning fundamentals is so important. Imagine the future frustration when Adobe's AI servers go down, even for a single day. How much productivity will be lost if those future prompt designers don't have "manual" or traditional skills to solve their assignments/projects.
I agree 100%. I have a funny story. Back in December there was an explosion at a power plant the night before final exams. Parts of the city experienced a blackout but at the school we were "fine." I was told we had power but no internet. I thought, great, I have all of my files on a flash drive so not problem. The lab tech pointed out to me that without internet access, NO ONE could sign into ADOBE Creative Cloud so we had to cancel the final exam for my class that uses Adobe Illustrator! It was crazy. It kind of blew my mind at the realization that losing internet access could mess things up so much.
@@Teacher_Tangents Worse yet, We get hit with hurricane season and a hurricane can drop the internet for a week, as towers go down etc….Generators are great, but if the net is down, so what!!
@@PhiddyPford I once spent 10 days with no power after a hurricane but l at least I still had internet through my cell phone. It's scary how much we depend on the internet for so much in our everyday lives.
@@Teacher_Tangents Yeppers! I unfortunately know that well. Same here
My sentiments exactly! I'm a very part time semi-professional illustrator who wants a photo editing program but doesn't need the "advanced" functions included in Adobe.
As a student I came to totally resent Adobe because even at "student" prices, it was expensive. My computer exceeded the hardware requirements specified by Adobe, but Adobe software would constantly hang and crash. Additionally, Adobe's Classroom in a Book series was extremely ridiculous to use because despite owning the latest version of CIB, the tutorials didn't match the software function. The reality of using Adobe software as a solo user without the support of knowledgeable colleagues available to coach me through the idiosyncrasies of using the programs was an exercise guaranteed to create excessive frustration and hours of wasted time trying to figure out why I couldn't do what I wanted to do.
I'm a newbie at Affinity Photo, but after watching several introductory tutorials, I'm able to accomplish what I want to do with minimal frustration - a huge plus in my book! Affinity is my winner - hands down! I hope Adobe looses their anti-trust suit with the US Government and meets their demise as a result of it. I will NEVER use another Adobe product EVER!!!
Very good video. I am using them for years and I don't miss Adobe. The difficult part for me was figuring out the Personas feature.
Thanks so much! And I am still not deep into Affinity yet, but I can definitely relate to the difficulty in figuring out the Persona feature. One thing that I do appreciate about it is I feel like it was an innovation that actually makes the software easier to use by decluttering the interface depending on what you are working on. One problem I see with old school software like Photoshop is they have to balance innovation while also not frustrating it's users.
thanks for the video. i greed, ti,e to say good bay to predatory policy by adobe also in educational
Yes, I hope they make these predatory policies against the law.
Affinity is great but you can’t automate your process with scripts and actions. If affinity adds automation I am switching over. They need to add styles, scripting, and actions
Now that the company was acquired by Canva they might now have the finances to add that to the software. I have heard that is the deal breaker for some photographers.
@@Teacher_Tangents I’m not a photographer but I love being able to automate my design process.
@@tiffanyw3794 Interesting. I use automated processes with Photoshop all the time, but I have never used them in Illustrator. I need to explore that. Actually that is not true . . . I once worked with a client and I had to do about 1,000 little labels. There were only slight variations with each. The automation saved me a good 8 hours of repetitive work. Hmmmm . . . well, my fingers are crossed that Affinity adds automation soon. But for now, I still have Adobe.
@@Teacher_Tangents with illustrator I use a cvs file along with my Jsx script and design templates. Hundreds of designs straight automation. Saves me hours
Yep, exactly my problem, too! There's some limited automation in Affinity Photo, but far from being enough. And completely missing in Affinity Designer - even though I only use it for *batch conversion* (and there's a real time saver with Photoshop and Illustrator). But there are some serious problems with export quality in Affinity Designer and handling of gradients on import and export - not ready for prime time, at least not yet.
NEA is on Adobe payroll/blackmail
Maybe you are on to something!
Affinity is far from superior to Adobe.
Affinity does not respect language support or RTL tools
Despite all these years
In your opinion, why all this deliberate neglect?
I agree that Affinity is far from superior to Adobe, no question about that, but most people don't need all of the features packed into Adobe Suite. I think the main reason they don't have those things you are looking for comes down to money. They were recently purchased by Canva for an estimated $380 million to $886 million dollars whereas Adobe is worth $240 billion. They have a lot more money to spend on developing their products. But since Affinity was recently purchased by Canva, I think they will likely start improving the product.
I wouldn't call it deliberate neglect. Serif simply has never made software on the level of Adobe in their whole 30 year history. A lot of people think that Affinity is a new company that came out of nowhere with 3 fresh new products. The truth is those 3 products are just rebranded versions of the same products that existed on Windows for many years prior. I was using them in the early 2000's myself. I was also using Adobe software back then both at home and on my job. The amount of things that Adobe has over Serif/Affinity is massive, but people don't know that. That's why there are so many youtube videos that make direct comparisons and compare prices as if these are comparable products. I mean, a pickup truck is cheaper than a 18-wheeler but nobody is doing price comparisons! But we do it with software and people really want to believe that you can get something like Photoshop for $50.00. In truth, there's nothing like Photoshop on the planet, at any price point.
@@KuttyJoe Hello KuttyJoe, at a one time price that Affinity sells for, I don't think they can ever compete on Adobe's level. I didn't realize that Affinity has been around for so long, thanks for that history. I have owned a copy of Affinity Photo and Design since 2019 but I keep them for the most part as a back-up to Photoshop. Occasionally Adobe cuts me off if I am not connected to the internet even though I have paid access. I teach beginner Photohop and Illustrator classes so I rarely teach automation. In 2020 when everything went online my students didn't have access to Adobe till about a month into the semester, so I pivoted to Photopea. It isn't Photoshop but I was able to do about 95% of my class with it. But yeah, it was very slow at times. Also, with Photopea since it is browser based, when the schools started handing out Chromebooks to students, many couldn't run Photoshop, so Photopea got the job done where Photoshop couldn't in this rare instance. What I am saying is I value students having access to Affinity year round even if it is inferior to Adobe.
@@Teacher_Tangents It's good that there are lots of low applications that people can use but there is an important distinction. Expensive software is built to support major industry. Cheap software never bothers with such features and functions because it's marketed to people who don't work in major industry. So it's not realistic to replace Adobe software with software who's sole focus is just painting images. The competitor for Illustrator is Coreldraw which costs the same as Illustrator. The competitor for Indesign is QuarkExpress which costs similar to Indesign. And there's nothing in the world like Photoshop. There are lots and lots of digital painting apps and a lot of them are really excellent but none of them are the total solution that is Photoshop. I hate Adobe pricing as much as anybody else. The reason I discovered Serif software back in the day was because I was looking for an alternative to Adobe, and this was long before the subscription pricing.
@@KuttyJoe You're quite right. For example, a gifted digital artist can produce wonders with GIMP, Krita, even MS Paint or PowerPoint. However, the Adobe products are still overall the most powerful on offer. It's as simple as that.