Gentleman Coders Raw Power 3.0 vs Affinity Photo

Austintatious

Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2010
Messages
114
Format
Multi Format
Gentleman Coders has released Raw Power 3.0 recently.
Anyone have experience with it ?
I wonder how it compares to Affinity Photo ? ( Now 50% off )
Looking for something to use on a Mac mini.
 

rick shaw

Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2021
Messages
162
Location
Studio
Format
Hybrid
Have your tried Apple Photos? It really is quite capable and has good RAW and printing support.
It is a lot deeper in functionality that it appears at first glance.
I have used Lightroom, Capture One, DXO, Affinity, Luminar, and others but now do everything in Apple Photos.
 

grat

Member
Joined
May 8, 2020
Messages
2,044
Location
Gainesville, FL
Format
Multi Format
It appears to be more of a Lightroom / Darktable type application, rather than a photo editing tool like Affinity / Photoshop.

I'm not sure a comparison is possible.
 

radiant

Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2019
Messages
2,135
Location
Europe
Format
Hybrid
I agree with Old Gregg. Affinity Photo is a photoshop replacement. I'm still looking for real alternative for Lightroom..

I use a bit hybrid system:
- XnView to quickly pick files from SD card that I want to continue with (by rating and then filterin by rating). Rest of the files goes to thrash.
- Add to Apple Photos - I use this to maintain catalog crop + levels + export.
- For more "advanced" things I use Affinity Photo.
 

grat

Member
Joined
May 8, 2020
Messages
2,044
Location
Gainesville, FL
Format
Multi Format
vedostuu said:
I agree with Old Gregg. Affinity Photo is a photoshop replacement. I'm still looking for real alternative for Lightroom..
Click to expand...

It's very much it's own way of doing things, but Darktable has worked well for me as a Lightroom replacement.
 

removed account4

Subscriber
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Messages
29,832
Format
Hybrid
after a "run in" with their "tech support" over at affinity photo I will never use their product. they don't care about their customers or trying to help them. if you use their product be advised you are pretty much on your own and often times the message board they send you to and the video library aren't much help. You might consider Pixelmator instead. From what I understand it is a top-notch program, and customer service actually tries to help you instead of giving you the finger
 

Adrian Bacon

Subscriber
Joined
Oct 18, 2016
Messages
2,086
Location
Petaluma, CA.
Format
Multi Format
Old Gregg said:
This is why I don't do consumer software. Customers expect too much for their tiny dollar.
Click to expand...

Actually, consumer customers expect everything for free. I don't mean that as being disrespectful to consumers, it's just a matter of reality. Business customers recognize that stuff costs money and know that support costs money. Paying a skilled support technician that is knowledgable about both the software and environment it's used in, AND has good people skills costs and keeping them on staff costs real dollars and lots of them. This is why Photoshop used to cost hundreds of dollars for a one time payment. You were paying to keep support personnel on staff and available in the event you needed them at some point down the road.
 

grat

Member
Joined
May 8, 2020
Messages
2,044
Location
Gainesville, FL
Format
Multi Format
I've never had a question about Affinity that I couldn't find an answer to either on the forums, or via a web search. Since the software cost me less than $50 (on one of their frequent sales), it's a small price to pay for software that's far more usable than Gimp, and nearly as good as Photoshop.

I'll admit the Personas took a bit to wrap my brain around, but once I did, it made the software much, much easier. Export persona turned out to be far more useful than I expected as well.
 

MattKing

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Apr 24, 2005
Messages
53,614
Location
Delta, BC Canada
Format
Medium Format
And none of that is an excuse for insulting a customer, no matter how little they paid.
 

grat

Member
Joined
May 8, 2020
Messages
2,044
Location
Gainesville, FL
Format
Multi Format
I agree with Gregg, who I'm going to guess worked in IT.

I also agree with Matt. That's inexcusable. However-- the vast majority of people who've tried Affinity Photo have not had that sort of experience-- and I would hope said customer service manager has been sacked. I would have also been rather vocal about it on social media, because the company needs to know they've got a problem.
 

MattKing

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Apr 24, 2005
Messages
53,614
Location
Delta, BC Canada
Format
Medium Format
My experience with customer service from commercial software vendors is that they often don't have the knowledge or experience to deal with the environments employed by the customers that they are attempting to sell their product to.
They try to make larger amounts of profits by selling to a lot of customers, but don't have the resources to deal with the problems that those customers encounter.
Adobe is big enough, and has enough cash flow and income, to be able to do better.
Many others don't.
I have had a decent amount of experience with software in the middle. Software that costs several hundred dollars a year used in a small business with specialized needs, but needs that are similar and common to other similar businesses. The price is high enough that they can afford to build in specialized remote diagnostic tools and to employ knowledgeable support, but low enough that they can sell enough copies and continue to collect enough annual fees to make money.
FWIW, I've been using Corel products for decades (including WordPerfect from before when it was a Corel product) and have been generally happy.
 

removed account4

Subscriber
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Messages
29,832
Format
Hybrid
my apologies for self - censuring. I broke a personal rule about airing dirty laundry. if someone is interested in my seemingly-uncommon experience with this wonderful top notch customer centric company feel free to PM me. I won't be posting in this thread anymore.
 

grat

Member
Joined
May 8, 2020
Messages
2,044
Location
Gainesville, FL
Format
Multi Format
MattKing said:
My experience with customer service from commercial software vendors is that they often don't have the knowledge or experience to deal with the environments employed by the customers that they are attempting to sell their product to.
Click to expand...

No one does. There are so many levels of Mac or PC, with varying combinations of hardware and software, that it's just bonkers. Linux can be even worse. The best you can do is write your code as generically, and modular as possible, so you can detect specific issues, and incorporate workarounds. You're still going to run into that guy with a copy of Windows XP running the one version of the graphics driver that crashes when you draw a widget in a particular color.


Your experience with the software is uncommon, yes. This is the first I've heard of a bad customer experience, but it's also one of the few incidents where someone had to contact customer service.

The story, by itself, is worth letting people know about. Having had a less insulting, but equally frustrating experience with customer service at a major optical company (Meade Instruments), I am seriously hesitant to recommend their products to anyone.

Don't take our surprise for dismissal.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…