Canva’s Affinity Combines Photo, Designer, and Publisher into One Free App
The market for high-end graphic design software just got weirder.
Several years ago, I wrote “Consider Switching from Creative Cloud to Affinity V2” (5 December 2022) to encourage those who were paying significant monthly fees to Adobe for Creative Cloud to check out a competing trio of apps from a company called Serif. Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher gave Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign a run for their money. They may not have fully matched up to Adobe’s powerhouse apps, but they were close, and the cost was a fraction of Creative Cloud. Pricing has varied a bit between versions and during sales, but a one-time purchase has typically been less than two or three months of the $54-per-month Creative Cloud subscription I was paying for at the time; Creative Cloud is now $69.99 per month.
In 2024, Serif was acquired by Canva, a leading online tool for lightweight design tasks in a collaborative environment. The acquisition seemed to make sense, since Canva’s online tools couldn’t serve professional designers who needed native software capable of precise specifications and long documents. (And, presumably, Serif’s owners felt that selling to Canva was more profitable than staying independent.) The addition of the Affinity tools allowed Canva to keep users within its subscription fold even if they outgrew Canva’s tools (see “Canva Acquires the Affinity Suite of Professional Design Apps,” 1 April 2024). At the time, Canva promised to offer affordably priced perpetual licenses forever, expand and enhance the Affinity products, provide Affinity for free to schools and nonprofits, and listen to and be led by the design community.
Canva has just announced the next big thing for the Affinity apps. The company is replacing Photo, Designer, and Publisher with a single desktop app called Affinity, available for free on macOS (Apple silicon and Intel) and Windows, with iPadOS promised soon. That’s impressive, but nothing in this world is really free. Using the new Affinity app requires a Canva account, which is causing conniptions among a vocal subset of users in the Affinity Discord community who would prefer the promised perpetual license to a free app that requires an online account. You can choose not to share usage data with Affinity, and privacy preferences in your Canva account let you specify which other data-sharing and AI-training options you’re willing to allow. You must be online to download and activate Affinity with your free Canva account, but once activated, the app works offline. Features like help documentation, stock libraries, and Canva AI integrations require an Internet connection.
Unlocking Canva AI tools within the Affinity app requires a Canva premium plan (Pro, Business, Enterprise, or Education). Along with the Canva AI “studio,” a premium plan is required for the Depth Estimation, Colorization, and Super Resolution machine learning models. The Canva AI tools include Object Selection, Generative Expand, Generative Fill, Generative Edit (shown below winterizing a summer photograph), Portrait Blur, Portrait Lighting, Colorize, Super Resolution, and Select Sampled Depth.
“Studios” (the buttons at the top, which the user can choose to hide or display) are essentially toolsets that match the previous Photo (Pixel), Designer (Vector), and Publisher (Layout) apps, plus new sets for Slice, Canva AI, Retouching, Color Grading, Typography, and Compositing. Some users will undoubtedly feel that Affinity is overloaded with features they have no use for, but others will appreciate not having to send data back and forth between the apps. If you only need tools for one discipline, you can work entirely within a single studio (Pixel, Vector, or Layout) and ignore the others. My understanding is that the apps had extensive shared code, so it may have been efficient for the Affinity developers to combine everything into a single tool once there was no business advantage to selling three separate apps. The new app is 3.5 GB on disk, whereas each of the three previous apps was 2.88 GB.
From what I hear, the new Affinity app offers all the same features as V2 of Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher. The new app can open files from previous apps, but its files are not backward-compatible with older apps; those apps remain functional but will no longer receive updates.
It’s out, Affinity has released their new Affinity Studio package. Most of you will recall that the company was recently acquired by CANVA.
They have now one app to combine all previous components Photo, Designer and Publisher.
And they make it FREE. You need a Canva account to download it, but you don’t need to stay logged-in to use it. CEO’s announcement is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP_TBaKODlw And their new website is here: https://www.affinity.studio
Lots to talk about it I guess.
I hope it stays like that. I have been worried about this transition. As of now you only need to pay to add “AI” components….
Just downloaded it. Looks like I may be able to finally ditch my Adobe CC subscription—if I can just find a good replacement for Lightroom Classic.
I’m looking forward to seeing a comparison of the new version to the equivalent Adobe tools.
I agree, the holy grail will be a competitive DAM/Raw Editor. There’s several other options but none of them are suitable replacements,
Very pleased this came out and with the pricing strategy. I will definitely be pushing this to my students.
I think someone here complained that it was the same app three times over. Looks like they have some validation here where each app is treated here like a mode or studio as they term them.
Just watched their Affinity Studio vid—am I missing something?
Or was there really no mention of the future of the existing Affinity applications?
Sure, we can keep AI out of the frame—but I set a fairly widely distributed newsletter in Publisher, never use Design, and employ Photo only to change the basic settings of JPGs.
So having a Canva account I will download Studio—but I’m concerned, deeply, by the future of Publisher…
Answering my own question from the Affinity website:
"* What if I prefer to use the Affinity V2 suite? Will it get updates?
That’s totally fine. Your Affinity V2 license (via Serif) remains valid and Serif will continue to keep activation servers online. But please note that these apps won’t receive future updates.
For the best experience, we recommend using the new Affinity by Canva app."
So they are doing away with Photo, Design & Publisher—just as we all feared when Canva bought Affinity… !!!
No, they’ve just rolled them into a single app - much like if you used StudioLink with the previous versions. If you only want to use Publisher, I think the UI allows you to hide the other two, but it seems fairly unnecessary.
I’m not so optimistic—DTP didn’t get a look in in their vid!
Today, Affinity apps, all of them, became free in one grand app. Ahh, but is it truly free? Canva wants to give you a gift. It’s an amalgam of the Affinity/Serif apps in one. However, as I suspected, the new permutation is heavily focused on AI features.Are these features built into this new and free creation? Nope. You must have a Canva account, a paid account, to get those features. Assuming you’re motivated to use AI in your workspace.Canva offers you a Pro plan or an Enterprise plan. They are both costly,and I’m not interested in paying for more stuff when apps like ON1 Raw 2026, or Skylum Neo or Luminar AI has them built in, no added fees. Yeah, I’m old, and hate much of today’s so called progress, but I have to ask, is your creative work still your own when you allow AI to be the determining factor in your production? Does anyone remember when Fractal Painter came out for the Mac so many years ago? It was a wonder because it was a painting/graphics app, that gave the user tremendous, lifelike powers to create on a computer.From there the decline began. We were told you needed a company to add their Machine Learning and AI to do real creative work. I’m not convinced. This new Affinity app is lacking in other ways, beyond the charge for the AI features. It lacks a method to set a default DPI. It is set at 72 DPI and I couldn’t find a way to change it. Even a TIFF 8 bit or 16 bit came out at 72 DPI. There’s no way to set 16X9 as a delault or to set a default long edge. I didn’t bother with the builtin new Pubisher or Vector apps. I said no thanks after my experience with the new Photo component. If you have the previous versions of the Affiniy apps you can continue to use them. Of course there will be no updates, no improvements, no direct support, but you still own what you paid for. Generous of Canva, wouldn’t you agree
I think you’re missing something. Publisher is still there (called Layout), along with Photo (Pixel) and Designer (Vector), all in one app (Affinity). You’ll still be able to do everything you can do now, but with a tweaked interface and a single app instead of multiple.
I just opened a book I created in V2 Publisher, directly in the new Affinity. It displays exactly as expected (as it does in V2). Maybe you need to take a look a bit deeper than their intro video. Have you downloaded the new app and tried opening a file?
I signed up for the new forum today - I believe the first time I’ve ever used Discord.
Boy, it’s horrible. I can’t see myself frequenting there.
Yes, I’ve a Canva license and I had Studio downloaded quickly. Naturally I could see the elements of Publisher there and did a bit of work in it.
But Canva are making ‘an initial public offering which is expected to make instant millionaires of some of its 5500 employees. “We could certainly go out tomorrow if we wanted to,” Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht said of his company’s IPO readiness. “From an operational perspective, we have been running like a public company for years now.” Canvas achieved a staggering $US65 billion ($98 billion) valuation in an employee share sale in August – up from $US42 billion this year’ (Sydney Morning Herald).
Thus my worries re Affinity are broader. By not speaking of the publishing or photography applications they’re keeping things opaque—that has to be a worry…
I wrote about this a while back, but the three apps were always just the same app with different things disabled.
https://x.com/gingerbeardman/status/1591134988598398977
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No, it doesn’t.
You’re essentially saying because something wasn’t shown in a short intro video they’re somehow hiding something. That makes no sense. By this logic, a car ad would need to show every possible feature of a car, or it could be accused of a worrying lack of transparency.
I have zero concerns at all. Being owned by a company worth $65 billion US dollars adds the kind of security of which Serif could never have dreamed. As for their staff becoming wealthy, good on them. Canva won’t be short of developers asking for jobs if people leave.
Certainly, I’ve been conscious of this. And Grand Perspective is interesting with this in mind:
trilo, I appreciate your optimism. I hope you’re correct. But it wasn’t such a short video, and I’m still pessimistic myself. “Free forever” has ominous echoes!
I see I am now expected to pay $150CAD/year for the AI features I was getting included with my “permanent” license for the Serif products. Not doing it. That’s why I dumped Adobe. I’ll stick with Nitro and Affinity Photo.
I am a huge fan of Discourse based forums (like this one) and have a similar level dislike for Discord based. The latter is just another disorganized firehose of posts that force me to try to follow a few threads I’m interested in.
Unless they’ve taken things out for Studio, which would be surprising, these are all possible in the separate V2 apps.
For example I created video game manuals in a ratio close to 16:9. And I set dpi in some window and also on export.
Also the AI is entirely optional and locked behind a paywall so unintentional use seems impossible. Easy to not use it.
I thought the AI features were new (and optional) to the new Affinity Studio.
The Object Selection tool uses AI, making it easy to select a subject (and by inverting the selection, a background).
I see where Adam mentions that in his overview article. I downloaded the segmentation machine learning module, selected an object, inverted the selection (selected the background), deleted the background, and save the resulting image. Looking more carefully, it seems this module is free. The others (Depth Estimation, Colorization, Super Resolution) do require an upgrade to the Canva plan.
I see, so that aspect is included. But if I’m not interested in their new AI tools is there any advantage (other than updates) to swapping to the new version?
A saving of ~5GB of disk space.
There are some be features and app customisation options. I can’t speak as to whether you would find them advantageous or worth swapping for.
I also can’t speak to whether you should swap to the new or keep old versions, except for the fact (I think) they’ve said there won’t be updates on the old versions. One could download and give it a try. My use of Affinity is really only for the Vector Studio, and even that is fairly minimal. I do like the new Quick Export feature. I’ll move to the new version. I see no downside.
I don’t see a downside either, loaded up my previous Photo and Publisher projects no problem. I welcome the extreme flexibility in setting up workspaces. I have relatively straightforward page layout but more complex photo editing requirements. I can see myself with a hybrid studio combining the two
I’d be more worried about the other direction – will old versions open files created with the new app? Maybe right now, but how long into the future?
Adobe keeps changing the file format of InDesign so older versions won’t open the newer files, effectively locking you into the upgraded version.
They’ve been clear that it won’t. There’s a new .af file extension for all files in addition to it.
So, it looks like the new version is presenting the combined old versions (which were actually combined behind the scenes anyway).
It appears they’ve extracted some AI thingies from the old versions and made them pay for use. But you know? Are all those old (and some new) AI thingies all that useful? Are you doing production with hundreds of files a month where the AI thingies really save you time?
Capture One has been pestering me with earnest suggestions to upgrade because of their newest features, some driven by AI. And I thought, “Oh, that looks really useful!” And then I thought, “Um . . . er . . . when is the last time you had to do that? Lemme see, now. . . . . . . . . .”
What perplexes me, here, is how are they going to make money with this revenue model? Really, really? You’re going to make millions and millions of dollars in development costs that you’re still paying-for free on the off-chance your AI thingies are going to so excite people they’ll subscribe?
The grim elephant in the closet (
) is that page layout, drawing, and imaging apps are a mature market. You can produce excellent products for vastly less than 30 years ago. So, how do you make money producing tools for publishing when the tools are already great? You know? Hammers are much better than 50 years ago, material science, design and all that. But they’re now less expensive because we’re at peak “hammer.” You just don’t hear advertising like, “Subscribe to our new hammer service! The latest developments in hammer science will arrive at your door yearly!”
An awful lot of software advertising is starting to sound like that hammer ad.
Dave
We’ll se what happens going forward, but the Affinity Studio app is separate to the three Affinity 2 apps and they continue to work as they always have, and have just been updated. I will continue to use those, but use the new Affinity Studio for collaborative work. One consequence of trying to fit all three functions in one app is that it is looks very busy and I think will be quite tiring to use for extended periods.
What about ePub? Does the new Affinity gain this export feature?
I like the fact that ‘Affinity Photo’ can embed itself in Apple’s PHOTOS app (in the EXTENSIONS button). I don’t know if this is still the case with Affinity Studio.
I just downloaded it, it seems ePub is available as an export option.
Yes, I do like that option from Affinity in Apple´s Photos. Sadly, it seems lost in the new Affinity Studio…
They have acknowledged this by making the whole UI customisable. Almost to build your own UI levels.
Yes, there were many things you could do in all the apps that overlapped, so I was not surprised they could easily turn them into one app the way they did it.
Although it does not appear in the EXTENSIONS button, you can use the new Affinity to Edit in Photos using the Photos IMAGES→Edit With.. command. Not sure if there is any substantive difference.
To say no more updates for the previous versions is not strictly true, sorry. While their long-established forum site has been set to read-only for customers, they announced a beta version of an upcoming maintenance release just over a week ago. 2.6.5 Release Candidate (3782) is available to beta test
So it currently looks more like they will make intermittent maintenance updates to keep the old versions operational for some time to come.
I’ve been quite happy with it exploring so far. I think to @Dafuki ’s observations that they may see a future for Affinity as a route to gain pro design users into Canva’s user base. Canva has always had a more broad everyman/woman base, rooted in education and business. Professionals use Adobe, whose efforts on the consumer end have been pretty small and minimal of late. This might be a smart expansion.
William Gallagher at appleinsider has a balanced account of the situation with Affinity, but closes with
“But it’s still going to be a shame that the individual Affinity Designer, Affinity Publisher, and Affinity Photo are behind us.”
Don’t like thinking of myself in a servile relationship with Canva. “Free forever”? We’ll see won’t we…
Then don’t use it, the simple solution to your self-confessed pessimistic view. Can you think of ANY software package these days which doesn’t require some sort of account or login?
It’s hardly servile when they’re simply moving from paid to free.
Interesting that the old apps were about 2.88GB each, HFS compressed 916.5MB each.
The new app is 3.5GB, HFS compressed… only 1.1GB for three-in-one!
More proof of the amount of duplication across the separate apps.
Same thing happened in reverse with Microsoft Office. I don’t have actual numbers to back this up, but back before Office apps were available in the Mac App Store, there was a large amount of installation files that were shared across Office apps. After the App Store, each app has all that shared program files, duplicated – they’re now inside each app package. It installs this way even if you’re using the stand-alone, full Office installer.
For example, look at the SharedSupport (773.1 MB) and DFonts (541.4 MB) folders in Microsoft Word.
I think that Microsoft could have still installed Office in a way that it shares the common resources. Notice how some applications, such as Xcode, download more files after you first open the application.
LibreOffice
Blender
Freecad
Kate
Firefox
Thunderbird
GIMP
VLC
Krita
…
…and that’s all without searching or thinking about it very hard. I’m not resigned to the idea that I have to allow tool vendors to lock my work behind doors that they control, regardless of how benign (or even friendly) their initial terms appear. I’m guessing the Canva license prohibits circumvention of their control and allows them to change their terms at will when the time comes for enshittification.
There’s certainly provisions against using it for illegal activities, or porn, or to aid the subversion of democracy, they have those requirements in their terms and conditions. If that bothers folks then they don’t have to use it.
For now, it’s good news. Serious pro tools for free with a stated intention that all future updates will keep it so.
Fair point, if you’re willing to live within the realms of open source I guess it can be avoided. But then there’s no substantive equivalents to the major packages I use. What are the feature comparable replacements for Affinity, Adobe, Filemaker, Capture One, Script Debugger, Photomator, Fender Studio? What about all the apps specifically for things like cameras, public transport, airlines, car rentals, government departments, banking, health care, the tax office etc?
Personally it’s not the world I want to live in. I’ve tried many, many variants of OS software over the years, and found them quirky, klunky, ugly, often difficult to install or get working correctly, and with arrogant, questionable levels of community ‘support’, but YMMV.
If the price of getting a better overall experience is handing someone a fake name and a burner email address, it’s a price I’m willing to pay.
I agree that isn’t a big deal. If the price, though, is potentially losing access to all the creative or business work you’ve done or workflows you’ve created using proprietary software, or being subject to extortionate fees for continued access, than that
would behas been a problem for me.No disagreement, but not all subscriptions have the same policies.
For instance, the Microsoft Office Suite, if run without a valid license/login, acts as viewer software. You can view and print, but not edit or create.
In contrast to Adobe’s suite, where you’re completely locked out.
This is the price of entry — especially for software used in business. I’m sure there’s plenty of open source ‘products’ which have withered on the vine and died. It’s the way of the computer world, nothing lasts forever.
Right now there’s absolutely nothing to suggest any problem with Affinity offering a free product. They already have their business model with Canva. If you feel this is locking you in, don’t use it. From this I assume you don’t use any software with a proprietary file format, good for you, but it’s not how most people want to use their machines. If it was, Linux would be the only desktop OS as no-one would need anything else.
I actually don’t mind paying for software that works for me. For example, as a photogrrapher by trade, there’s zero chance I would ever use Darktable instead of Lightroom or Capture one, or Gimp instead of Photoshop - life’s too short for software misery.
There’s an irony this discussion is happening on a Mac based website. I don’t recall hearing cries of conspiracy and suspicion when Apple switched from charging for MacOS to giving it away for free.
I do not know about the rest of Adobe’s suite, but Lightroom desktop and Classic require a paid subscription to use their full features. However, with a finished subscription, you can still use Lightroom Classic to view and organize photos on your local hard drive in the Library module, but you lose access to the Develop and Map modules.
This made me chuckle. I agree. But how weird that it needs to be said: I don’t mind paying people for the create stuff I use.
Photoshop Elements (what I use at home) used to have a simple license key. But now, it needs you to log in periodically to prove something or other. If you ever log off, or if your token expires and you don’t re-authenticate, the app refuses to do anything - you just get an error and a login screen.
It’s my understanding that all of the Creative Cloud apps are similar - if you’re not paid up, they don’t run. But I’ve never used CC, so this is based on what others have said in the past.
The Lightroom/Photoshop bundle continues to work in a reduced mode. The Develop (and Map) modules become inactive – but other features remain.
I can’t believe it – I’m defending Adobes subscriptions. Yikes!
All three are still there in one app/
head over to where the cool folks are Affinity Forum CreoFora: Creofora.com
Thanks, definitely not the same assault on the eyes the other forum is.
A word to the wise:
If, like I, you have been updating your installed copies of the Affinity apps from inside the application, NOW is the time to grab a complete up-to-date standalone installer from the Affinity site. Version 2.6.5 is available now. How long it will be is anyone’s guess.
In reality, only people who have no design skills need AI assistance to do their creative work. AI has the potential to rescue underexposed or very noisy photographs, but this technology is still in its infancy, imho. It still creates far too many weird artifacts to be as useful as it promises to be. People who want to just click a button to get “professional” results will love using AI to process their images or automate their graphic design projects. For me, processing my photos by hand is an integral part of the creative process. I wouldn’t give it up for anything, and I don’t need AI assistance for my design projects either. I suspect that many other creative professionals feel exactly the same way.
Exactly. My son is a graphic designer for an international commercial real estate corporation. He sees his colleagues getting laid off due to AI, and his creative friends in other fields having their work stolen and reappear as AI knock offs.
After reading all the comments about the new Affinity (all-in-one-app) I can’t help but think that many of the comments are from folks who perhaps haven’t looked at the new app too deeply. Because if they did, their many complaints might disappear.
I just want to make two short points about all this.
(1) FREE
All the back and forth about the free deal, is it really free or whatever? Hey, it’s free. That’s it. Most people don’t need the AI add-on features (that costs $120 per year), so that shouldn’t be an issue for most folks. So just forget about that. Just be happy you can bypass Adobe’s servitude and use this great free app! And if at some point it isn’t free (I have to believe Canva that it won’t be), then just move on. Complaining about something that is given to you for free really mystifies me.
(2) DEFAULT SETTINGS
The second and last point (although I could make more). Quote: “It lacks a method to set a default DPI. It is set at 72 DPI and I couldn’t find a way to change it… There’s no way to set 16X9 as a default or to set a default long edge.” Etc. etc. That comment is because you haven’t gone in and looked at the app too closely. Setting up a “default” page is very easy, with any parameters you want. Here’s how:
SET UP A “PRESET”
Go to:
FILE
NEW
You’ll be presented with a window with dozens of pre-set pages.
On the right side of that window, you’ll see a panel called
DOCUMENT SETTINGS.
Directly under that name is the current preset name.
Change that name to whatever you want.
I have two presets set up, “Don72dpi “and “Don300dpi.”
After naming your preset, go to the parameters under that name,
and make any changes to the page parameters that you want:
dpi (72, 300, etc. or whatever you want),
size units (inches, pixels, etc.),
color format (RGB, CMYK, etc.)
and lots of other settings.
After you set up the page the way you want your “default” settings to be, click
CREATE PRESET
and you’ll see your preset appear at the top of all the other presets!!!
That’s it. You’re done.
Now try it out.
Close down Affinity and reopen it.
Hit File/New and in the presets window, you will now see your “default” preset!!!
Bottom line:
I encourage everyone to download Affinity and check it out. In just a few short hours, I’ve discovered lots of great features. Looking forward to discovering more. As a “for instance” I found a way to do one of the more difficult things to do in Photoshop, which is to silhouette a person. I’m not sure this is the best way to do this, but at this point, it works. I’ll be exploring this more later. Talking to a buddy of mine about this silhouette thing, he asked me to show him how I did it. So I created a short “how-to” video and put it on my website so he could view it.
Here’s the link for you to check out if you’re interested:
https://thedesignbeacon.com/Affinity-Silhouette.mp4
I suspect there are other ways (maybe/probably better) of doing this. So I’ll continue exploring Affinity a lot more. Well that’s it. I’ve read the TidBits emails for years, but this is my first posted comment. If it helps anyone out, then it was worth the time in writing it. Bye.
The second segment in this YouTube video discusses at length the new Affinity-Canva relationship. Very informative.
Thanks for your points, Don. I am not mystified about the “free” aspect and the suspicions it arouses. It is the predictable outcome of at least two long-standing trends:
In my opinion Affinity falls somewhere in the “not-quite” zone on both those points.
The shame in all this is that justified concerns about other forms of software marketing have evolved into generalized suspicion about anything different than “Here’s the money, license please” transactions.
Personally, I’m happy to try the unified app and if I really hate having the capabilities of all three apps in one place I can fall back to the three separate Affinity apps I already own. And Adobe can still take a walk.
_____
*Sorry if I offended any developers here, but what else besides “crippleware” can I call an app that does little more than boot up and display a screen, then demand money every time I try to select a menu item? I’ll often convert genuine trial-period software to a license, but seldom do I reward crippled app developers with that because I still have no idea how the app will perform after I’ve opened it.