Affinity Photo 2

Serif's powerful editing app gets a serious update

- IAN EVENDEN

$19.99 (universal licence $169.99) 

From www.affinity.serif.com

Needs iPadOS 15 or later

SERIF'S AFFINITY SUITE rivals Adobe in bringing prograde image editing without a subscription to Macs and iPads. The latest releases of the three Affinity apps, released as version 2 rather than a free update, may mean you have to pay once more, but a universal licence - which gets you all apps on all platforms with no extra costs - is about the same as one year of equivalent Adobe apps.

There's a 30-day free trial too. The iPad version of Photo 2 is probably the most interesting of the apps, as it has the broadest appeal and is cheaper than the desktop app if you buy it separately. Photo 2 takes on Photoshop directly, as while it has raw image processing capabilities it lacks the organizational tools of Lightroom or the browsing of Bridge, two things that are missing from the whole Affinity suite.