Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo is a professional-grade image editing application developed by Serif (now part of Canva). It is widely regarded as the most powerful and popular raster graphics editor to challenge the industry dominance of Adobe Photoshop, offering a similar feature set but with a distinctive focus on speed, non-destructive workflows, and an ultra-modern user interface.

Crucially, in late 2025, Affinity underwent a major change: it merged its three separate applications (Photo, Designer, and Publisher) into one unified platform and made the core professional feature set available to all users for free.

Here is a detailed breakdown of its key features and current system requirements:

Key Features of Affinity Photo (Now Part of Affinity App)

Affinity Photo's features are now integrated into the single Affinity application under the "Pixel" studio persona, providing comprehensive tools for professional photographers and designers:

• Non-Destructive Editing: By default, all adjustments, live filters, masks, and effects are applied non-destructively via layers. This allows users to experiment freely and revert or tweak any change at any time without damaging the original image.

• Performance & GPU Acceleration: Built on a proprietary, hardware-optimized engine, Affinity uses GPU acceleration to handle massive files, complex filter stacks, and thousands of layers with full real-time responsiveness. Zooming and panning remain fluid even on high-resolution documents.

• RAW Development: It features a dedicated Develop Persona (or Studio) for making accurate, non-destructive RAW edits. This includes advanced lens correction, noise reduction, and precise control over details and tones before moving to the main editing workspace.

• Advanced Retouching Tools: Provides a full suite of tools for flawless portrait and image correction, including:

  • Spot Healing, Inpainting, and Clone Stamp.

  • Frequency Separation for high-end skin retouching.

  • Liquify and Mesh Warp tools for geometric manipulation.

  • Dedicated Refine Edge workspace for intricate selections (like hair).

• AI Tools (Optional): While the core app is free, the integration with Canva introduces powerful AI features (Generative Fill, Generative Expand, Smart Selections, and Depth-Aware Masking) that can be unlocked with a Canva Premium subscription.

• Professional Compositing: Supports unlimited layers, groups, masks (channel, luminosity, and depth), 30+ blend modes, and full high-bit-depth (32-bit) workflow with ICC profile management.