Affinity Photo is a new product from a company that used to be known as Serif. The company still is Serif and the old Serif applications are still available, but the development effort is now focused on the Affinity products. Previously available for Mac users, they now have corresponding Windows versions.
The interface is immediately both reassuringly familiar and startlingly different. Familiar-looking tools appear on the left side of the workspace, context-sensitive functions appears near the top of the screen, and a space for adjustments is on the right. But you'll find 5 mysterious icons at the top left of the screen. These control the application's persona.
From left to right, the personas:
Affinity Photo offers no import function (more about this later), so the user needs to copy images from the camera to the computer's drive. More significantly, unlike applications that store image modifications in either an associated database or in sidecar files, Affinity Photo does neither. As a result, performing non-destructive editing requires that the user open a file and then immediately save it in the proprietary Affinity Photo format. Effectively this doubles the storage required for files that have been edited. I also have seen no function that corresponds to Lightroom's ability to make a virtual copy of an image.
Here's an image of TechByter Worldwide headquarters. The familiar tools are along the left side of the screen (1), adjustments are on the right (2), and the context-sensitive section is at the top (3).
It's the mysterious persona section (4) that may catch your eye.
This is just a single raw image and I wanted to see what high dynamic range processing would be able to do for it. The result, with no intervention on my part, was excellent.
Next, I selected the "dramatic" option in the HDR panel. This created an image with some of the more garish attributes that are often associated with HDR images.
In fact. it's some of the more dramatic effects that may appeal to some users, but that's not to suggest that the basic features are deficient in any way.
Adjustment layers ensure that changes are non-destrutive, a feature called "inpainting" works much like content-aware fill, and un-do information can be saved with the image so that users can return to an image and delete previously made changes to restore a previous version.
Here's an example of some of the more dramatic effects layered onto a single image. These aren't effects that you would want to use routinely, but when you want to communicate a certain point, they can be very handy. In this case, the illustration was intended to spoof a requirement by a company's HR department that employees who work at home would be required to submit a photo to prove that their workspace at home was ergonomic.
Affinity has created a series of videos that introduce the application. These are available on Vimeo and YouTube. More than 175 videos in 19 project categories cover everything from the basics (Opening & Saving, Layers, Adjustments, Filters, and Exporting) to the program's most advances features (Filters, High Dynamic Range, Live Editing, and Focus Merging) and everything in between. Most of the videos are 10 minutes or less in length and clearly explain how a specific feature works.
The most significant missing feature in Affinity Photo is a way to organize images and view thumbnails. Adobe Lightroom handles this task natively and Photoshop uses Bridge. Affinity depends on the operating system or a third-party organizer.
Google no longer offers Picasa, but anyone who had downloaded it previously will still be able to install it. That said, Picasa is an orphan that won't see any updates, so it's probably better to choose something else. Fortunately, there are several such applications and there are reports that Affinity has a digital asset manager in development.
If you're using Picasa now, avoid the temptation to switch to Google Photos. That may seem like the obvious choice, but there are lots of disadvantages. Better choices exist. Here are a few:
What I see here is a program with an enormous amount of potential. The lack of an image management function is a significant liability, but once that has been resolved, the future for Affinity Photo is bright indeed.
Affinity Photo Brings a New Look to Photo EditingI'm fascinated by where Affinity is going with its new series of applications: Photo, Design, and a forthcoming Publisher -- a page layout program. The most serious shortcoming is the lack of image management and I suspect that professionals will avoid the application until an integrated image manager is available. It's not subscription based software, and the price is surprisingly modest for an application with the feature set offered and the instructional videos. With an image management component, Affinity Photo would earn 5 cats instead of 4.
Additional details are available on the Affinity Photo website.
My wife's notebook computer started having problems. The Firefox settings file was damaged and I had to create a new instance of Firefox. The boot process was taking far too long -- sometimes half an hour, and sometimes it just failed. Occasional blue-screen errors didn't point directly to the disk, so I ran some diagnostics.
The image on the screen went crazy. First, I thought that the video subsystem had failed or the screen had gone bad. The screen seemed OK, though, and when I grabbed a screen shot and sent it to another computer, everything looked fine. At that point, I suspected that the cable between the computer and the screen had either become loose or had failed.
The good folks at TCR Computers in Pickerington confirmed that it was the cable, ordered a new one, and installed it. The cost, about $100.
Then it was time to continue to analysis process to see what problems the computer might have. When I ran Crystal Disk Info, it sounded a siren and showed an indicator from the S.M.A.R.T. monitor that said that hard drive was about to fail.
Well, that explained the disk corruption, the slow boot, and the other general odd behavior. So I ordered a replacement disk. When it arrived, I used Macrium Reflect to clone the failing drive to the new drive. At least, I tried to. It failed about halfway through the process.
A second attempt produced the same result. Some additional research suggested that all of the commercial cloning products may fail if the source disk has bad sectors and I found a recommendation for a Linux-based application called Clonezilla. After downloading the ISO file, I used it to create a bootable CD and started the computer with it.
About halfway through the process, it encountered the same error and then switched to what appeared to be a recovery mode. When the process completed, I installed the drive but expected little in the way of success.
The boot process started and Windows switched to automatic repair mode and said that it was trying to repair disk errors. While that was happening, I placed the old drive in a USB case and connected it to the main computer where I could run CHKDSK on it with the "fix" option.
The new drive didn't have enough of the old files to recover, but I had run CHKDSK /F on the old drive, so I reinstalled it and tried the clone process again with Macrium Reflect. At this point, it was beginning to feel like the more appropriate course of action would have been to toss the computer into the trash and buy a new one.
It's possible, but doubtful, that the new drive has some problems because the clone process always ends with what I had assumed to be an erroneous message about corruption on the target.
So I cloned another computer's hard drive to the new drive. No problem. Whatever the problem is, it's the source drive, but CHKDSK /F reveals no damaged areas and CHKDSK /R /F completed apparently without finding anything.
The disk drive has a Samsung badge, but Seagate took over that business unit more than 5 years ago, so Seagate's Utility (SeaTools) might provide some additional guidance. Seagate's website has links to download the utility, but the links go to documentation or to pages that no longer exist. I found a copy at C|Net, but it was from 2012. Eventually I located the current (2015) version at Major Geeks and Softpedia.
The "fix everything (fast)" test ran to 97% completion and then stalled. So I repeated some of the previous tests and added a few more.
I made one more attempt to clone the drive. This time it got all the way to 66% and ended with "Clone failed - Read failed - 13 - Permission denied - 32." This was not unexpected.
For now, the computer is back in service and we're keeping an eye on it. As with many things in life, computer problems don't always come with clear answers.
Nearly any website can be infected with malware. When that happens and Google notices, search results can display a warning. Google also notifies the site owner. What they've seen though, are sites that clean up for long enough to get the warning removed and then suddenly become infected again.
As a result, Google has created a new classification in its Safe Browsing application. It's called "repeat offenders" and means exactly what it says. If your site finds itself on that list, the warning will remain up for 30 days and you have no recourse whatsoever.
Google normally allows site owners to request that the site be re-examined, but that won't happen for a month if you're a repeat offender. It's not just Google, though, because both Safari and Firefox use Google's Safe Browsing functions to warn users about rogue sites -- specifically in the form of a full page warning about the site being deceptive.
If someone manages to slip malware onto your site, the site owner can investigate, eliminate the threat, and ask Google for a new review. Normally that happens quickly and the site is able to return to operation promptly.
But Google says some sites seemed to clean up just long enough to get an all clear rating and then return to spreading malware or phishing schemes. If it was up to me, a repeat offender site would have one additional chance and -- after that -- the warning would be permanent and unremovable.
Google's security blog says that some websites stop harming users until warnings removed and then revert to harmful activity. The goal is not to brand hacked sites as repeat offenders, but only to take action against those sites where the behavior seems to be intentional.
"Only sites that purposefully post harmful content will be subject to the policy," according to the blog.
This is a step in the right direction.
Anyone who is reading TechByter Worldwide or listening to the podcast has an internet connection. Would it be reasonable for me to assume that you would like the best and fastest connection possible? Would it also be reasonable for me to assume that you want to be able to experience good performance from any website that you choose to open in your browser? And could I also assume that you would oppose actions by your internet service provider to degrade service from any content provider not owned by the internet service provider?
If all of those are true, then you want net neutrality -- and I can't imagine anyone who wants slower service, blocked sites, and higher prices. That's what net neutrality is all about and yet some are trying to position net neutrality as a liberal hoax that conservatives should resist. It's not political. It's all about profits.
Be skeptical, ask questions, and follow the money.
The big internet service providers want to maximize their profits. They can do that by blocking access to sites they don't own or by making the service so slow that it's unusable. Alternatively, they can charge fees for those services that they don't own.
Let's take Netflix as an example. Netflix streams content via the internet. They pay a lot for "big pipes" to deliver that content to the internet. You pay Netflix a monthly subscription fee and you also pay a monthly internet service bill. Everybody gets paid and everybody is happy -- right? But what if the internet service provider decides that Netflix should pay a premium to deliver content to the ISP's subscribers? Keep in mind that you're already paying the ISP for the service you use, but now the ISP wants to collect a toll from content providers.
What do you think will happen to the monthly fee you pay Netflix? Clearly, it will increase. So then you'll be paying more for exactly the same service you had previously. You'll be paying the ISP twice -- once directly and once via Netflix.
Maybe you don't care about Netflix. It is, after all, just an example here and the chances are good that you enjoy several internet sources that you'd miss if they went away. These are sites like TechByter Worldwide and the hundreds of thousands of similar small websites. TechByter Worldwide has no advertisements. The only income the site receives is from donations made by those who read the website and listen to the podcast. So the annual registration fee comes out of my pocket. The monthly hosting fee comes out of my pocket. The costs for any additional features on the website come out of my pocket. If the big ISPs tell me that I have to pay so that you can view the site or listen to the podcast, that will be the end of it -- and the end of hundreds of thousands of websites, podcasts, and other sources of information and entertainment.
So, again -- why is this a "political issue"? Liberals should be in favor of net neutrality. Conservatives should be in favor of net neutrality. Everyone who uses the internet should be in favor of net neutrality. It's not political. It's economic and it's the internet service providers who are doing everything they can to make it seem political.
