Visualization
About built-in and 3rd party, classic and real-time rendering solutions, settings, workflows, etc.

Photoshop? or something else.

Tom Krowka
Booster
Am looking to add some entourage to 3D photorendering models. Am hesitant to use Photoshop as it seems its pretty complicated to learn. Not really thrilled about buying and learning new software, but do need to be able to upgrade the AC renderings. Adding 3D trees, people, cars, etc really increases rendering time and also doesn't get that POP that one used to be able to do by hand. Any recommendations?

Thanks Tom
Tom Krowka Architect
Windows 11, AC Version 26
Thomas@wkarchwk.com
www.walshkrowka.com
17 REPLIES 17
have a look at Affinity Photo. Available on Windows, MacOS and iOS. No subscription, just a one time outright purchase at a price that's a fraction of what Photoshop used to cost. Good support and good reviews.
Think Like a Spec Writer
AC4.55 through 27 / USA AC27-4060 USA
Rhino 8 Mac
MacOS 14.2.1
Eduardo Rolon
Moderator
and 30% off during July 2018
Eduardo Rolón AIA NCARB
AC27 US/INT -> AC08

Macbook Pro M1 Max 64GB ram, OS X 10.XX latest
another Moderator

Tom Krowka
Booster
Thanks Will check it out. tom
Tom Krowka Architect
Windows 11, AC Version 26
Thomas@wkarchwk.com
www.walshkrowka.com
Tom Krowka
Booster
Aaron wrote:
have a look at Affinity Photo. Available on Windows, MacOS and iOS. No subscription, just a one time outright purchase at a price that's a fraction of what Photoshop used to cost. Good support and good reviews.
Do you use it?
Tom Krowka Architect
Windows 11, AC Version 26
Thomas@wkarchwk.com
www.walshkrowka.com
I do use it, but probably not the extent I could. That said, I think it would easily rival PS for the toolset required.

I say this having pored over architectural photoshop tutorials on YouTube. I don't see anything in them that couldn't be done in Affinity Photo.

lots of useful tutorials for the unfamiliar here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQZN-kIrZUQyoTnexM3jJAw Having watched many of these, I don't think the workflow differs significantly from what you'd do in PS.

When Affinity Publisher goes to public beta this month, Serif will have an Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign rival running on three platforms without subscription.
Think Like a Spec Writer
AC4.55 through 27 / USA AC27-4060 USA
Rhino 8 Mac
MacOS 14.2.1
alemanda
Advocate
I use both Affinity Photo and Design. Great products!
AC 19 and AC21 latest hotfix
Win 10 Pro 64bit
Double XEON 14 CORES (tot 28 physical cores)
32GB RAM - SSD 256GB - Nvidia Quadro K620
Display DELL 25'' 2560x1440
www.almadw.it
Erwin Edel
Rockstar
I'm still using photoshop CS4, still runs on windows10, even though it is 10 years old.

I don't know the price point for affinity photo, but I think you would be able to pickup a copy of CS4 design premium for fairly cheap on ebay or such. Just a thought.

I use GIMP at home, which is completely free (open source).
Erwin Edel, Project Lead, Leloup Architecten
www.leloup.nl

ArchiCAD 9-26NED FULL
Windows 10 Pro
Adobe Design Premium CS5
Anonymous
Not applicable
I also recommend Affinity, very inexpensive (I think I paid A$69), fast and a relatively small download

Regards
Scott
mikas
Expert
Me too use Affinity Photo (and Affinity Designer a little bit too). I started from the Mac beta ~3,5 years ago, and gradually I moved from Pixelmator to use Affinity only. It's really good and fast nowadays, the company is doing great job developing it further.

I wouldn't say it's any easier to Photoshop, but I haven't used Photoshop for years, so not sure. The speed is good, and stability too. And supported formats are enough for me.

I have bought it once at 39,99€, and I can use it in 5 of my machines simultaneously (App Store family license or something..). Very admittable license I'd say. I am not sure about windows license, did not understand it thoroughly, but I am tempted to buy win version too. If I use my Z800, I would like to have that familiar and capable photo tool available on windows too.

There is a iPad version of Photo too, haven't tested it. It costs separately though, 15€.
AC25, Rhino6/7+Grasshopper, TwinMotionMac Pro 6,1 E5-1650v2-3,5GHz/128GB/eGPU:6800XT/11.6.5 • HP Z4/Xeon W-2195/256GB/RX6800XT/W10ProWS