Software Update: Affinity Suite 2

Serif has released version 2 of the Affinity Suite. The Affinity Suite consists of the programs Photo, Designer and Publisher, and can be regarded as the counterpart of, for example, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. The software is available for Windows, macOS and iOS, and is regularly offered at a discount. For example, a 40% discount is currently offered and Serif does not do subscriptions. Extensive information about the new possibilities of the individual programs can here are being found; these are the main improvements in Affinity Photo 2:

Nondestructive RAW Develop

You can now develop RAW files non-destructively, which means you can go back to change your develop settings at anytime, even after adding additional layers or adjustments to your file. Choose to embed into a document file or link externally to reduce file size.

compound masks

Easily combine multiple mask layers together non-destructively using add, intersect, subtract and XOR operations. This means separate masks you have created can be maintained non-destructively while creating new masks based on those component parts.

Live Mesh Warp

Want an image or file to be distorted to match the surface of an underlying template? Now you can apply a non-destructive warp to make that happen, and go back to edit whenever you like. It is highly effective for mock-up work, where you might place document files and composite them onto surfaces such as book or magazine pages.

Normal Adjustment

Adjust lighting information baked into existing normal maps. Great as a standalone feature for texture artists, but also allows the editing of lighting layers generated from 3D render software.

Live Masks

Build lots of powerful, non-destructive workflows with new Live Masks which update automatically based on the properties of the underlying image.

Hue range

Create a mask based on a specific color in your image, allowing you to apply adjustments, effects or just paint on the automatically generated mask for your chosen hue.

Band Pass

Band-Pass creates a mask focused around edges within an image. This has wide uses for retouchers who work on different frequency layers, but also enables the creation of artistic effects.

Luminosity

Mask specific luminosity ranges, for example, specific ranges of highlights or shadows (or anything in between) to apply controlled adjustments to those areas.

Saved Layer States

A powerful feature that allows you to save different visibility states of your layer stack to quickly review different design options or versions of your work.

Either create a manual layer state to save your layer visibility as it currently is or smart layer states which let you specify whether you want to turn layers on or off based on one or more of the following filter criteria: layer color tag, layer type, layer name and lock status.

JPEG XL Import/Export

Affinity Photo has been a leader in editing wide color gamut and HDR images, with full support for full HDR displays. JPEG XL support now allows you to export to a format which is being more and more supported—particularly by web browsers—meaning what you see in Affinity Photo can now be consumed by others.