Affinity (2025)

Affinity (now own by Canva) has made its move to a freemium model with its latest Affinity 3.0 Software, released on October 31, 2025. You can download the latest version at affinity.studio. The software is completely free to use, with some pay options if users wanted to unlock extra features, such as such as A.I. editing.

The new Affinity software unifies Photo Editing, Vector Graphics, and Desktop Publishing. Previously, you had to purchase and use the software separately…. so, it’s nice to have everything in one software. Additionally, for power users, you can create your own personal toolset for your workflow. My own personal usage of the software is strictly photo editing, but I do appreciate having access to the other options – if I need them for the future.

You may recall that I paid $100 for the Affinity 2.0 Software Suite in November 2022, which included Photo Editing, Designer, and Publisher (for magazines publishing). In my review, I compared it to Photoshop, as it offers all (or most) Photoshop features, but does not require a costly subscription. I basically only used Affinity Photos, but due to their restrictive licensing (I can only install it on one computer), I had to abandon using it.

If you use Affinity before, you should know that the developers seemed to be more Apple/Macintosh developers, so their idea of save-as doesn’t exist. Instead, its wording is export. Another example is “de-noise” is called “luminance” … so to achieve some of these things, you need to understand their own naming.

I gave Affinity 3.0 a test run, and based on my experience, I would say that the software is not exactly ready for prime time (at least for Windows 11). Like I said, I believe these developers are all Mac/Apple developers, so they don’t fully understand Windows. The biggest problem is Affinity’s crashes and freezes if you have hardware acceleration turned on (it’s on by default so it crashed my computer three times). You need to turn it off under settings: performance. You also need to turn off OpenCL Compute Acceleration. If you can’t install using *.msix file, you need to install the *.exe files… all sorts of Windows-type problems. I can’t complain that much, since it’s free… but just be aware that the PC version kind of sucks at the moment.

I don’t use (or care to use) the A.I. stuff, so it’s completely fine that those features are locked behind a paywall. I fear that as time roll on, that Canva might lock features like exposure or de-noise behind a paywall… but for now, all the features that I use (and need) are free on the new Affinity. I tested out a photo I recently took of Aaron Dugan Band (but did not use for the review). I still had the RAW file, so I still had access to all the exposures and other settings. Here are my adjustments:

Exposure: +2
Shadows: 30%
Noise Reduction: Luminance: 20%

Take a look at the slider comparison of the before (raw file) and after.