Slight niggle is that there is no comet stacking setting and if this could be included in a later edition, it would be a most welcome feature. These displayed great contrast and colour, and fine definition once processed within Affinity’s ‘Photo Persona’.īy adding dark frames, we removed the normal amp glow visible in the sub-exposures from our mono camera. The images we stacked from both one-shot colour DSLR and monochrome astronomy camera sub-exposures were superb. There is also the ability to select different types of mono or colour Bayer patterns, depending on your camera. Ifferent stacking methods can be used, depending on the results you require, or the data you have. Calibration frames such as bias, dark frames, dark flats and flat frames can be included to help improve the results. One-shot colour, monochrome RAW and FITS camera images can be stacked using Affinity Photo. What’s more, all this is available at a great price. If you’ve already used image-processing software, the transfer should be reasonably straightforward. The latest version with the new image-stacking and astrophotography tools makes it the ideal package for an astro imager. Overall, we found that Affinity Photo is a well thought out and extremely powerful product. Some Photoshop plug-ins can also be installed and used within Affinity Photo, which is a useful feature if you already own these. Unlike Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Photo cannot use ‘Actions’ to carry out repetitive processing tasks by using just a single mouse click, but you can create macros and save many pre-set ‘Adjustment’ tool manipulations to do the same thing. We did have an issue when saving TIFF files – these are saved as compressed files by default, which can cause problems if being used in other software. The ‘Adjustment’ tools work nicely, creating an adjustment layer above the image layer being worked on.These can be manipulated, moved about and even nestled within other layers. So it can take a bit of getting used to finding the ‘Adjustment’ tool you want, but this is a minor niggle. Tools can be switched on and off and their position on the screen can be changed to make it easier for the user to set up for their own convenience.īut we found that the ‘Adjustment’ tools do not allow you to re-arrange them, neither are they arranged alphabetically. We liked the way that the interface layout can be managed. The user interface is similar to most image-processing software and is easy to use, with a menu bar at the top, a tool bar down the left and lots of tabs to access different ‘Adjustment’ tools, including ‘Curves’, ‘Levels’ and so on. For this review we didn’t need to use the other three options: ‘Liquify’, ‘Tone Mapping’ and ‘Export’. The other is the ‘Develop Persona’, which is opened automatically when RAW camera image files are opened.Īdjustments can be made from here, before opening within the ‘Photo Persona’ for further editing. We only needed to use two of these in our testing one is the ‘Photo Persona’, where you make all the edits and adjustments to your images. The installation files proved easy to download and they were installed flawlessly on the Windows and Apple computers we tried.New updates were prompted, downloaded, and installed without issue.įour icons located at the top left, just below the menu bar, are the gateways to what Serif calls Affinity’s ‘Personas’, each of which changes the software to a particular role. You’ll need a separate licence to run the software on the different platforms. Unlike a lot of software, the licence allows the software to be installed on as many machines as you have, running on either Windows or Apple operating systems, plus there is a cheaper iPad version. The only time the licence holder will be asked for extra payments for the software is when Serif releases a major software update with new features. We particularly liked Affinity Photo’s single one-off payment user licence model, as it means you’re not locked into making long-term monthly payments. These new astrophotography tools will certainly turn the heads of many astro imagers who are wanting a single package that does everything at an affordable price. Here, we take a look at these and other features that are useful for astrophoto image processing. The most notable are tools for star alignment, and background and gradient removal, as well as Affinity’s ‘Astrophotography Stack Persona’. The program is constantly being updated, with some extremely useful astrophotography tools being introduced earlier this year. Serif Affinity Photo image-processing softwareĪffinity Photo is the image-processing package in Serif’s Affinity suite of products, gaining popularity with many professional photographers who are discovering just how powerful the software is.
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