What it’s missing seems due more to the unwillingness of Serif to invest in areas that would only benefit a niche segment of their user base. The Affinity suite is much closer in concept to the professional-level tools of the Creative Cloud suite. I had the CS6 bundle, but unlike you did not subscribe when Adobe went down that road.

I used Photoshop often, and hated-but-used Illustrator. I did a sidegrade for InDesign when it first came out around the turn of the century (!), and considered myself at expert level. Prior to that, I was happily using the usual suspects-PageMaker, FreeHand, and whatever photo utility I could scrounge. It’s worth considering if you have your choice of software and want to save money.įollow on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.Thanks for the mention of this package Adam! I have a similarly dysfunctional relationship with Adobe that stretches back decades, when I purchased my first scanner and found it was bundled with Photoshop. And it’s still true that Serif’s apps are optimized for M1 Macs where Adobe is still fleshing out support. You can buy an app once knowing you’ll always have access to it for your next project.

Hopefully, the world will have improved to the point where sales like this aren’t as important.Īs before, there’s a simple allure: the Affinity suite offers much of the functionality of equivalent Adobe creative apps (Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign) without the need for a costly ongoing subscription. The studio had discounted its apps by ‘just’ 30 percent for Black Friday, so there’s no guarantee you’ll get this large of a bargain in the future. If you’re unsure, you can try any of the apps for free in a 90-day trial - even if you used a trial last year. The company is once again offering 50 percent discounts on Affinity Designer, Photo and Publisher whether you buy them for a computer ($35 each) or iPad ($14 each). Serif ran a sale on its apps to help creatives at the start of the pandemic, and it’s bringing back those deals at a particularly difficult moment.

Affinity designer sale