You can collapse clipped images for a cleaner-looking Layers panel, though. You have to drag and drop a layer into another layer-there's no button or a key like holding Alt in Photoshop, and it can be very finicky. You can clip a layer into another layer in Affinity Photo, but it's a bit trickier than Photoshop. You can hide layers in Affinity Photo by hitting the checkmark on the right, similar to hitting the eye icon to the left of layers in Photoshop, and you can arrange the layers by dragging and dropping, just like Photoshop.

You have your Opacity and Layer Modes on top and the various layer effects, masks, and a Create New Layer button, or Add New Pixel Layer in Affinity Photo, in the bottom-right of the Layers panel. 3. Layers and Smart Objects 3.1 LayersĪffinity Photo's and Photoshop's Layers panels are almost identical. In fact, I do want to note that Affinity Photo is all around slower than Photoshop. This makes things a bit more organized and user-friendly however, Affinity Photo is noticeably slower while in the Liquify persona. You have a lot of the same options and functions as you do in Photoshop.Īll of Affinity Photo's personas activate a new user interface, almost like opening a different program altogether. In Affinity Photo, you go to File > Personas > Liquify, or click the second button in the top toolbar, which will enter Affinity Photo's liquify user interface. In Photoshop, to access the Liquify feature, you would go to Filter > Liquify to open the Liquify panel, which opens in a new window. While there are five personas in total, including the default Photo persona, I am going to be focusing on the Liquify persona as Photoshop also has a liquify function that I use very often. You can access them by going to File > Personas and then choosing a persona, or alternatively you can change the persona by clicking the different persona buttons in the top-left corner of the Toolbar.Įach persona serves a different function, almost like some of the more in-depth filters in Photoshop. It's a very small but very smart change!Īffinity Photo has these things called 'personas'. In Affinity Photo, it's exactly the same, except you hold Shift when you don't want to preserve the image's original aspect ratio. If you don't hold down Shift then the original ratio of the image will not be preserved, leaving the image stretched or squished, which I find you usually don't want to happen. When transforming an image in Photoshop, you would select the Move Tool, click on one of the image's anchor points, hold down Shift, and then drag to either enlarge or shrink the image. One of my favorite features of Affinity Photo is how it keeps an image's original aspect ratio by default when enlarging or shrinking an image using the Move Tool. Both programs open with a New Document prompt, but will also allow you to create a new document by going to File > New.Ģ. Navigation and Interactions 2.1 Transforming Images However, I turned it back on for the sake of this article.ĭo note that you can also customize the toolbar, which is very handy! 1.2 Creating a New DocumentĬreating a new document is very similar and equally straightforward in both programs.

I'd like to note that I usually have the top Toolbar in Affinity Photo hidden, which you can do by going to and unchecking View > Show Toolbar. I personally have my Photoshop workspace set up in a very specific way, and after 10 years of using Photoshop I am very used to its tool setup, but I was able to mimic my workspace almost exactly in Affinity Photo! That makes the transition much smoother. This also means you can almost exactly replicate the Photoshop Tool setup in Affinity Photo. You can even choose how many columns you'd prefer!

Go to View > Customize Tools to mix and match your own Tools panel. Just like in Photoshop, Affinity Photo allows you to arrange your different modules however you want, with one exception: you can't move your Tools module in Affinity Photo.Īffinity Photo makes up for it in a big way, however, by letting you customize and arrange the individual tools themselves! Something Photoshop has never allowed you to do, this is a big win for Affinity Photo in my book. That's great for anyone looking to possibly make a switch from one to the other, like me! 1.1 Customizing Your Workspace The first thing you may notice is that Photoshop's and Affinity Photo's interfaces are very similar. Top 8 Affinity Photo Features That Might Just Convince You To Switch from Photoshop

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