If you’re moving from Adobe Photoshop into the Affinity suite and its creative tools, there are a few things you’ll benefit from knowing first. Whether you think you'll prefer it or just want to save on expensive subscription costs, we want you to hear how Affinity can work in your favor. Here are some tips, tricks, and nuggets of knowledge to help you in the transition from Adobe to Serif tools.

8 Customize your Affinity workspace

Make it your own

Affinity’s user interface is similar to Photoshop’s — it’s a quirk of many Photoshop alternatives that they often replicate configurations that are similar to Photoshop, but are just different enough in their own way. So you'll be able to keep the familiar feel of the software you’ve previously worked with for so long, but the Affinity programs also allow you to set up custom workspaces to suit your preferences.

Make your workspace suit your needs, exactly the way you want to experience the tool. You can find the customize workspace functionality under View > Customize Tools. This allows you to decide the exact tool arrangement, as well as the layout of the program overall.

7 Learn Affinity’s lingo and keyboard shortcuts

Don’t waste time scouring menus

Most editing programs typically use the same (or very similar) language for their tools. However, this isn't a hard and fast rule across the board, and there will be some tools with new names, and there will definitely be different shortcuts compared to what you’re used to. Rest assured though, none of this will be tricky, since you likely already know which tools you use the most and wish to remember the names or shortcuts for.

Spend a bit of time hovering over each icon to see the tooltip showing the name of the tool. If you still aren't sure what the tool does, then select the tool and try it out. That’s the best way to learn each new tool, so give yourself some time to experiment. Look through all the nested menus to see which tools are within them, since they may not be in the same buckets as Photoshop’s nested tools are.

6 Change Affinity’s PSD settings

You can work with PSDs but it’s not the same as in Photoshop

Photoshop’s native file format, Photoshop Document (PSD), is great for sharing live documents with editable layers. It’s common to download PSDs when purchasing editable images from stock sites or vendors.

While Affinity can work with PSDs and allow you to open and edit them, it doesn’t allow for saving in PSD, only exporting in the same. Not being able to save the live document in PSD format can add to your file numbers and the time it takes to edit documents.

To edit text in the PSD file, you can change Affinity’s PSD settings to stop it from being rasterized upon import. Go to Affinity > Settings > General and change the setting to Import PSD text as text rather than bitmap. This allows you to edit the text, even if your system doesn’t have the same font installed. The negative aspect of Affinity’s non-native PSD hosting is that whenever you go to export your PSD file, it must rasterize the file, thus removing the editability of the text.

Certain other PSD types, like Photoshop’s Smart Object files, cannot even be effectively imported into Affinity. They will import as a flattened file, and the Smart Object cannot be edited.

Affinity has its own native file format called .afphoto, which you can save your work in for full editability later. You can export in PSD, but to save a file, it must be in .afphoto format.

5 Know that you can’t do everything in Affinity

You’ll need some workarounds

Affinity software is great for avoiding Photoshop and Adobe’s subscription plans. While you can achieve most things in Affinity, you can’t do everything that Photoshop or other Adobe software programs offer.

There are some workarounds, such as the above PSD change, or taking the long way to achieve a certain result. Sometimes, you may need to download another program, like Inkscape or Photopea, to perform actions like live tracing of bitmaps to vectors and a few other things.

While it won’t cost you extra money to find these workarounds, it may cost you extra time and some frustration. It's important to become familiar with what Affinity can and can’t do compared to Photoshop, so that you’ll know when you need to quickly jump into another software to finalize your projects.

4 You can work offline forever

Unlike Photoshop, Affinity works entirely offline

Although you can mostly work offline in Photoshop, it’s not indefinitely available. But it is with Affinity, which is great knowledge for new users, and a huge advantage to those who prefer or need to work offline.

Photoshop users must not only connect to the online Creative Cloud server every so often, but they also need online access to update the software whenever new updates become available. Since Affinity programs have perpetual licenses, you don’t need to join any servers or routinely update anything.

Secondly, since Affinity doesn’t run any online AI tools, you don’t need continuous connectivity while working in the software. Photoshop’s generative AI tools need constant online access in order to function.

3 Purchase the entire Affinity suite

Own your software for seamless creation

To get the best out of switching from Photoshop (and Adobe) to Affinity, you should purchase the entire Affinity suite. The suite includes:

• Affinity Photo — comparable to Photoshop
• Affinity Designer — comparable to Illustrator
• Affinity Publisher — comparable to InDesign

Affinity hasn’t released any video editing or animation software, and there are some tools that are common in Photoshop that aren’t available in Affinity’s suite; however, purchasing the entire suite will help make your workflow a seamless operation with cross-platform support, making your life as a designer much easier.

Purchasing the whole Affinity suite is still cheaper than four months of subscription to Adobe’s All Apps plan. That's the best reason alone that Affinity is a great Adobe Creative Cloud alternative. Plus, you can try it for free, to first make sure it's a good fit for your needs.

2 Back up and store your Photoshop files

Affinity doesn’t have cloud storage

Affinity on the desktop doesn’t offer cloud storage options, so it’s best to back up and store any of your Photoshop files to a local or external hard drive. You’ll need to create a new workflow if you’ve been relying on the Creative Cloud to store your assets and files. When using Affinity from an iPad, for example, you can save some files in your preferred cloud storage.

You can experience the same seamless connection of your assets and files across the Affinity suite if you own all the software, but when first shifting your workflow from Adobe to Serif Affinity, you should ensure you have backups of all your important work. And once you start creating in Affinity, you may want to consider some of the best cloud storage options if you want the additional backup and cross-platform flexibility.

1 Practice and experiment

Practice makes perfect

Overall, my best tip when switching from Photoshop to Affinity is to practice and experiment with the new software as much as you can. You can’t do much wrong, and there’s always an undo button (it’s still cmd/ctrl + Z) to revert any changes.

Learning new software can be daunting, but it can also be exciting and challenging. Don’t let the fear of moving on from Adobe stop you from creating your best work with Affinity.

Enjoy a seamless switch from Photoshop to Affinity

These tips aren’t all tech-based, because switching from Photoshop to Affinity isn’t technically very different, but there’s likely still a small learning curve. Knowing how to customize your workspace or change simple settings will make your creative life easier. Experimenting with your work is the best way to learn a new creative tool, so try to replicate art or design samples using the tools you can find in Affinity. If you don’t get on with Affinity, there are plenty of other Photoshop alternatives to try.