Rarely I see any of those Youtube-Pro-Photographers using Affinity but instead praising the new possibilies and powers of AI. And this could be the step for Serif to not fall behind. I think many Affinity users would not hesitate to use AI-tools if they would make their workflow easier. There was no real wow effect like "finally you can do this". Even 1.x to 2.0 felt not that big even if I aprreciate new masking possibilites and the change of layer organizing, grouping and so on. To me 2.0 to 2.1 was still a minor and not major update. And I like those minor changes, bugfixes, additions. Sharpening (why do we have to rely on expensive 3rd party tools? I know there are many ways to sharpen in Affinity Photo, tons of different ways to find on Youtube, but those are often invented by some really creative users and are based on knowing Affinity inside out)Īlthough there are great things in Affinity such as astrophotography stack (where there exist plenty of free open source tools) and on top of all that the complete workflow experience of all the Affinity suite products together. Sky selection (without having to manually use those really great masks Affinity Photo 2.x has) Subject Selection (as the creator of this thread mentioned) Noise reduction (sorry, but Lightrooms new AI-based noise reduction is just amazing in keeping details) As I am almost only using Affinity Photo I can just speak for that product and miss at least the following AI-based features: There are many tools based on AI integrated in other competing products. Still I purchased 2.0 and hoped that those AI-tools would eventually and very fast find their way into the Affinity suite. Interestingly I had the same feeling: shock and disappointment that 2.0 had no AI-integration. Some of the improvements though were too tempting to ignore and optimism that Serif will continue to innovate came into play.
![does affinity photo allow plugins does affinity photo allow plugins](https://insmac.org/uploads/posts/2018-11/1543337065_affinity-designer-beta_03.jpg)
Tbh I was a bit disappointed and dare I say shocked that Ver 2.0 was lacking in A.I. I've even asked Bard if it "thinks" Affinity will ever have such tools and the answer came back as "very likely". Some are thinking of going back to Adobe thanks to the new A.I. Having said that all of the pro photographers I know stick with Adobe or Capture One. I can't speak for the powers that be but it seems to sit somewhere in the middle. and Luminar 4 in Affinity, it may be worthwhile for you to have another go at enabling 3rd party software in Affinity Photo, simply point to the location of the exe file for each plugin and make sure you have "Unknown Plugins" selected as you can see in this screen shot. For example I recently trialled DXO PureRAW3, I opened the files as I normally do in another program called Fast RAW Viewer, the image opened in DXO PR3 was processed then DXO automatically opened the processed file in Affinity Photo 2.0.4., I can also open other plugins like Topaz Denoise A.I.
![does affinity photo allow plugins does affinity photo allow plugins](http://www.nwpphotoforum.com/ubbthreads/JM_Pieces/2017_Articles/AffinityPhoto/Plugins_w.jpg)
I don't have problems integrating Photoshop plugins though. I share those worries, really don't want to see Affinity Photo falling by the wayside. Right now I can't even smoothly integrate external AI tools like those from DxO or Topaz which have Photoshop plugins that don't work with Affinity Photo. That's where the most meaningful current advances in imaging tech are, and Serif really needs to up their game here. I'm actually worried about Affinity Photo's future if nothing happens in regard to AI-based tools.