I use Affinity Photo on my iPad (they also have a Mac & PC version).
I bought it, because it’s the ONLY app that has photoshop-like capabilities (layers-based, can open RAW files, etc.) and works on an iPad.
But as soon I used it, I thought “this looks like a bunch of Adobe Photoshop developers quit, started a new company, and wrote a better product.” It looks and works a LOT like Photoshop... except lots of little minor things make it more user-friendly than Photoshop (it even opens .PSD files). (An experienced Photoshop user would learn it in a hot minute.)
You can’t “buy” Photoshop anymore... you have to “rent” it for $10/month for minimum 1/year terms (so basically $120/year) — but to be fair, for that price you do get both Photoshop and Lightroom as well as a few other things.
Affinity Photo is $49 ... on a traditional license (buy it once and it’s yours forever).
But here’s the thing... Photoshop is strongly tilted toward the needs of graphic designers and publishers... although photographers can use it too. It has a big learning curve and isn’t particularly user-friendly. Adobe Lightroom, on the other hand, is strongly tilted toward photographers and it “speaks our language” and is much easier to use.
Lightroom is also a “digital asset manager” (DAM) tool. Meaning that it imports your photos into it’s “library” and makes it very fast to manage and find things... it’s also possible to adjust entire photo-shoots en-masse (basically you apply your global adjustments for things like “white balance”, etc. to one photo, and then “sync” those adjustments to all the other shots taken in the same lighting conditions. It also lets your rank, keyword, etc. your photos and has built-in uploaders to popular photo-hosting web-sites.
But again... to get “Lightroom” you have to “subscribe” to that $10/month (minimum 1/year terms) package.
There is a product called “Luminar” which is a bit more lightroom-like. When I looked at it, it lacked the Digital Asset Management capabilities (they claim they are added those in 2018 ... and maybe they have already). The price was extremely reasonable. I’m sure I’ll test-drive it as soon as they have digital asset management capabilities (I heavily rely on those). If it works... I may dump my Adobe Cloud subscription and save myself a bit of coin.
Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da
Photoshop is the best post editor on the planet. Not wanting to go the full blown PS route, Elements comes as close as you can. It does everything and more that most people hobbyists or advanced amateur need.
