Affinity Revolution

 There's been lots of traffic on various sites about the new look of Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher, three useful products created by the firm Serif. October 30, 2025, a year and a half after the Australian company Canva purchased Serif to expand its professional software design product line, Affinity, version 3, was released. All three apps are included in the new Affinity. Each one is designated as a Studio, and the user can easily switch among the three.

The three icons for Photo, Designer and Publisher have been replaced by one unified symbol.

The new product is impressive. Speed and versatility second to none will probably make it rank as the best new application of the year. However, for users of the previous Affinity apps, there will be a significant learning curve. Virtually all of the old functions, plus new capabilities, are there, but the tools are hard to find. 
The user interface for the Affinity Photo Studio is simple enough when the image is first opened, but the right panel can become quite complex when performing edits with lots of masks.

Canva wasn't helpful by replacing color tool icons with simplified monochrome buttons. So, the veteran user of Affinity apps must learn what is the icon for the tool and where is the tool. As with the version 2 apps, the users can customize operations, but shortcuts, macros and other helpful customizations aren't ported over to the new Affinity.

Missing at this point are videos fully explaining where to find and modify tools and the "how-tos" of operations.

The switchover will be a tedious one. But this innovative software application promises to make the effort worthwhile.



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