Most Photoshop replacements make big promises but collapse as soon as you push them past the basics. Affinity’s new app isn’t like that. It’s the exact same thing as Affinity Photo, one of the top photo and graphics editors out there, just repackaged. You’re getting all the same tools, layout, and flow that everyone already trusts. Except, it’s free now.

After being acquired by Canva, Affinity moved its entire graphics suite into one app with different workspaces. The whole thing is free to use, sans some AI features by Canva. This means that a Photoshop-level editor is now accessible to all, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this pushes more people to rethink their Adobe subscriptions.

What is the Pixel workspace in Affinity?

It used to be Affinity Photo, the only true Photoshop alternative

There are tons of Photoshop alternatives out there. Photopea is probably the best example of a free and accessible option that actually gives you most of Photoshop’s core functions. But at the end of the day, paid tools usually come out on top. This used to be the case for Affinity Photo. It was pretty much the only pro-grade image and graphics editor that could measure up to Photoshop. And it used to be a paid, one-time purchase app.

Well, now it’s completely free in Affinity’s redesigned all-in-one graphics app, called Affinity. After Canva acquired the company, they basically dropped a major curveball on the whole creative software industry - the old Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher fused into one app with separate workspaces. It’s available for anyone to use; all you need is a Canva account. I don’t think this is a move Adobe saw coming.

What used to be Affinity Photo is now the Pixel workspace in the Affinity app. This is the raster-based editing side of the app, and you will find all the same tools and features from Photo. It even still has the old Personas, such as RAW and HDR editing. It’s a true non-destructive layer-based editor, built for everything from skin retouching and compositing to graphic design and texture creation. Pixel is advanced enough for pro-level work, just like Photoshop, but it’s actually more intuitive to use, so even novices can pick it up.

Affinity’s Pixel workspace replaces Photoshop completely

There’s no need to pay for high-quality tools anymore

First I’ll start with the selection tools, since that is something Photoshop excels at. Affinity has Object Selection, which auto-detects subjects and selects them based on the mode you chose (add, subtract, intersect, etc) - it’s really fast and accurate. The Selection Brush tool lets you select with more precision, which is great for images with flyaway hairs and such. All selection tools come with advanced refinement controls.

Selection goes hand-in-hand with masking, which Affinity also handles like a pro. You can add mask layers, adjustment layers, color fill layers - pretty much any method for isolating a subject or creating composites is there. Moreover, there is a collection of brush tools specifically for subject refinement, including a smoothing brush, blur brush, and sharpen brush. And there’s also the Adjustment Brush which lets you apply effects and filter adjustments to isolated parts of an image. Photoshop doesn’t have these, so you need to use different methods to get the same effect.

I also wanted to touch on the color and lighting controls, since I’ve been using a lot of free tools lately that don’t offer much in terms of HSL control. So it’s refreshing to see Affinity sport features like Levels, White Balance, Recolor, Black & White, Vibrance, Exposure, Curves, and much more. You’ve also got your color wheel for color adjustments and a histogram to check the tones. Going to Pixel > Filters (or the hourglass icon) will open an even bigger toolkit for making adjustments to the lighting and color, as well as adding effects like blurring, depth of field, denoising, sharpening, glitches, vibrance, and dozens more. All of these can be used with the advanced Blend Modes, which you can preview in real-time.

There are a host of more graphic-design-leaning tools as well. My favorite is the text tool because there are so many fonts and customizations. And you can create some pretty cool text effects using masks and texture. The Paint and Node tools make it really easy to draw shapes and cutouts, but you can also select pre-defined shapes via the Shape tool.

Affinity’s limitations

No editor is perfect

The biggest downside to me is that users will no longer own the app as they did with buying the one-time license. While the majority of the app is free, Canva can lock key features behind the paywall whenever it wants. And speaking of key features - if you’re using the free version, you won’t have access to the AI tools. This includes stuff like Canva’s background removal and image generation tools, which replace Photoshop's AI tools such as Generative Fill.

Affinity changed the graphics game

I don’t think anyone would be missing out on much by not getting the Pro subscription. Everything that isn’t genAI is free - masking, blending, levels, filters, text, adjustments, brushes, the whole lot. And yes, I do worry a little that Canva might start paywalling some features, but for now at least, we have probably the most powerful image editor that’s ever been free.