Affinity 3.3 Is Here
Canva’s Photoshop competitor Affinity just received a new update, and photographers are getting quite a few new tools. Version 3.3 adds more control over curves, blending and masking, alongside a new Blend Tool for creating and adjusting repeated or transitioning elements. There is also a new scripting system that can automate repetitive pixel, vector and layout tasks, including parts of a photo-editing workflow.
The more interesting changes are happening inside RAW processing and colour editing. Affinity says it has substantially reworked its RAW development engine, particularly the way it handles exposure, highlights and shadows, with the goal of producing more natural tonal and colour transitions. Curves have been updated too and are now hue-preserving, so changing the brightness of different tonal ranges should have less of an unintended effect on colour. Affinity 3.3 also introduces separate Hue and Saturation curves, borrowing an approach that is already common in professional video colour grading software. New global presets have been added as well, including support for applying them across batches of photos.
Affinity now also has a dedicated Astrophotography Studio, giving astro photographers a separate workspace specifically for processing night-sky photos. Affinity itself remains free, although some of the AI-powered functionality connected to Canva requires a paid Canva subscription, which is $18 per month.
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