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    Affinity Studio now free

    (www.affinity.studio)
    1199 points dagmx | 11 comments | 30 Oct 25 15:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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    mns ◴[30 Oct 25 17:21 UTC] No.45762506[source]▶
    Devastated about this. Good for them for making money on the sale to Canva, but still, this is a sad day. Studio is now freemium, in the future probably more and more features (outside of AI) will be added in the subscription, and you will end up with an app full of disabled features and pop-ups encouraging you to subscribe and unlock the new and shiny thing.

    There is absolutely nothing in the world that anyone can say to convince me that this is not the end for Affinity. Every single product that went through this ended up being an ad data gathering subscription pushing unusable app for anything useful.

    I have both a V1 and V2 license. V2 is probably now useless considering that it will never get any updates. This marks the death of one of the last popular pay once and use forever apps (in the sense that a V3 with new features will never exist).

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    t-writescode ◴[30 Oct 25 17:23 UTC] No.45762554[source]▶
    [flagged]
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    1. miladyincontrol ◴[30 Oct 25 18:17 UTC] No.45763236[source]▶
    Raw formats arent going away but new cameras and lenses do keep coming out which at minimum need correction profiles.

    Also the DNG spec does continue to be iterated on, not that users will be forced into the latest features like jpeg-xl compression, but some of the changes can be very breaking to older apps.

    replies(6): >>45763376 #>>45763982 #>>45764033 #>>45764357 #>>45765754 #>>45766594 #
    2. t-writescode ◴[30 Oct 25 18:26 UTC] No.45763376[source]▶
    Very true, this is an area that could have a major miss. Thankfully, I believe most camera companies have a RAW to JPEG converter with some basic level of UX. “Is it good enough” is a very real question where the answer is probably “No.”
    3. microtonal ◴[30 Oct 25 19:06 UTC] No.45763982[source]▶
    I haven't checked, do they use Apple's RAW library on macOS? If so, at least support might evolve with macOS updates for the time being.
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    4. starkparker ◴[30 Oct 25 19:11 UTC] No.45764033[source]▶
    Especially with v2's lack of real plugin or scripting options, and with no cross-version interchange format like IDML or apparently even partial backward-compatiblity support in v3, it's also less possible to drag v2 even slightly forward than it was with Adobe CS4/5.

    If you're a freelancer using v2 and someone gives you v3 files, you can't work.

    5. HumanOstrich ◴[30 Oct 25 19:37 UTC] No.45764357[source]▶
    That sounds like ongoing work that you should pay for if you want to benefit.
    replies(1): >>45764461 #
    6. shrinks99 ◴[30 Oct 25 19:47 UTC] No.45764461[source]▶
    Yeah, but Lensfun (the library they use for this) doesn't have anywhere to donate.
    replies(1): >>45764557 #
    7. shrinks99 ◴[30 Oct 25 19:47 UTC] No.45764471[source]▶
    Serif (I guess Canva now) maintains their own which uses the Lensfun database.
    8. HumanOstrich ◴[30 Oct 25 19:55 UTC] No.45764557{3}[source]▶
    That does make things a bit more complicated.
    9. Gigachad ◴[30 Oct 25 21:45 UTC] No.45765754[source]▶
    If you need a constant stream of updates for the software to be useful, this seems like a reasonable fit for a subscription.
    10. prmoustache ◴[30 Oct 25 23:21 UTC] No.45766594[source]▶
    > but new cameras and lenses do keep coming out which at minimum need correction profiles.

    For it to be a problem you need to actually buy said new cameras and lenses.

    I am still using my Pentax K5 II and Samsung NX from a bit more than a decade ago (as well as some analog cams but I disgress).

    There is a lot of FOMO + Gear Aquisition Syndrome to make that a problem. Maybe one should focus more on actually having a life,using the products they akready own, make arts or memories instead of thinking what is new on the market they are missing out and what to buy next.

    Makes me think of those people, perfectly happy with Airpod pro v2 who purchase v3 ones, only to end up frustrated by their new purchase.

    11. SulphurCrested ◴[31 Oct 25 08:25 UTC] No.45769561[source]▶
    The Photo (v2) app gives you a choice of using Apple’s converters or “Serif” converters. But, when last I looked, lens corrections were not available with the Apple converters.