Affinity Photo, the photo editing app for iPad and iPad Pro, unveiled during this year’s WWDC keynote, has received a new update and a lower price.
The first fully-featured, truly professional photo editing tool for iPad was unveiled during Apple’s WWDC keynote in San Jose, in June.
Reviewers and Affinity’s customers around the world have since acclaimed it as a game-changer for professional photo editing on the move – it truly is an impressive app, whether used by finger, or Apple Pencil on iPad Pro models.
Affinity Photo for iPad was launched at US$19.99, which is A$30.99 for an “intended introductory discount period, at around 30% off the full price”, but Affinity Photo’s maker, Serif, has “announced that the app is to remain at the lower price point permanently".
{loadposition alex08}Whether this price "drop" due to not raising the price by 30% is real, and not a marketing stunt is explained by the company's managing director, Ashley Hewson, below.
Hewson, explained: “We’ve been blown away by the response to Affinity Photo for iPad – sales have been beyond our most optimistic predictions.
“Because it’s a genuine world first for fully-featured professional apps on iOS, there’s really no precedent we could use to judge the right price for an app of this quality.
“Now we’ve had chance to assess the response, and settled on a price which is not only value for money for our customers, but also sets a benchmark for the price of high-end, professional apps on iPad in the future."
Here is the company’s video for Affinity Photo – story continues below.
Serif stated that Affinity Photo for iPad has also “received another update, version 1.6.4, bringing new features as well as the quick bug fixes that Affinity customers expect".
The company said the latest update, which is naturally free to existing Affinity Photo owners, “strengthens the compatibility between the desktop and mobile versions of the app. Users who have set up and saved macros in Affinity Photo on Mac or Windows can now play them back on iPad. The ability to record new macros on the iPad itself will be in a future update".
Serif’s developers also say they are “working constantly to make the most of the iPad’s unique Metal graphics technology, allowing users to work easily on large super-high-resolution photographs, or complex compositions with potentially thousands of layers".
Hewson added: “Affinity Photo already brought unrivalled capability to work on huge images with incredible speed when retouching, applying effects or adding adjustments.
“To do this type of work on iPad is something that no-one has ever attempted before, and we are learning all the time how we can squeeze every ounce of power from the device. This latest update raises the bar again with big performance increases - it’s now faster, smoother and more productive than ever.”
Other changes are said to include “UI improvements, improved PDF and vector export and better integration with the Apple Photos app".
Affinity Photo for iPad is compatible with the iPad Pro 9.7-inch, 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch, iPad Air 2, iPad 2017, and optimised for Apple Pencil. It does not work on older iPads.
More information here.
Some of the additions and improvements in v1.6.4 include:
- Macro studio import and playback. Supports interactive playback.
- Significant improvements in performance for large or complex documents.
- Even better HDR merge of RAW images.
- Increased maximum size of the liquify brush tools.
- One-press switching between button menus (e.g. document, command menus).
- Improved loading of images from photo library (now shows all user albums/folders).
- Use “Place Image” to place original images from Photos.
- Powerful adjustment previews.
- Enhanced selection refinement.
- Improved PDF and vector export.
- Better TIFF loading, including support for malformed 8bit grayscale TIFFs.
- Dismiss font size chooser by pressing return.
- Focus Merge can now use RAW sources.
- Show progress when committing a refined selection.
- Metadata available when creating a document from the camera.
- Export LUT added to document menu.
- Convert to Curves added to command menu.
- Wet edges can now have a custom interpolation spline.
- Pinch gesture support for grouping/ungrouping layers in the layers studio.
- Passthrough blending for groups.
- Icon improvements, especially in text studio.
- Selection marquee tools support extra-finger-constrain.
- Improved reading of DPI from files.
- Exposure adjustment now operates in stops, not % and has wider range.
- Arrow tool has more options.
- Paragraph leading UI improvements.
- New option to dither gradients in preferences (defaults to “on”).
- Significantly smoother pan / zoom.
- Directional lights in the lighting filter can now be directed using on-canvas handles.
- Smart selection brush improvements.
- Adjustments / filters preview react to changes in canvas size.
- Further memory management and localisation enhancements.
- Numerous fixes and stability improvements.
Serif also offers its Affinity Designer app, and promises that Affinity Publisher is “coming soon".