By Graham K. Rogers

A few weeks ago I had a look at the newly-released Affinity Photo from the developers, Serif. I had already been running beta versions of the software while it was being readied and I liked what I saw. Very much. As soon as it was made publicly available, I bought my own copy and make good use of it.

While many will download versions of Adobe Photoshop by default, particularly in this part of the world, most have little need of the full range of options and tools that Photoshop provides. Affinity Photo is well-pitched at the semi-professional or amateur photographer, providing a wide range of tools and options.

I wrote about the first release version in early July this year when I downloaded Affinity Photo from the Mac App Store, where it is available for $49.99 (along with Affinity Designer - also $49.99).

I was not the only one impressed with this software as since its release it has become Editors' Choice in the Mac App Store and the Number One photography app in over 100 countries, Serif Labs write. Because of this, they are making the app available in a free 10-day trial version with no restrictions: "all adjustments, filters, tools, features, importers, exporters, and file saving work with no restrictions or watermarks" (my italics).

The download of this free trial version is available from the Affinity pages where there is also a good outline of its major features. See also, the embedded video below.

Screen-shot from Affinity Webpage

I have been extremely happy with this software from the get-go: I had few problems in its beta form and the release versions have proved robust. Now at version 1.3.5 it is optimised for OS X 10.11, El Capitan, expected to be released shortly.

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Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.