Photoshop has been under fire lately due to the controversy surrounding its new small print. Now, Canva-owned Affinity Photo is looking to cash in on the controversy with an impressive-looking new trial offer for its photo editing software.
A new six-month trial of Affinity Photo, which you can also get for Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher software, includes versions for Mac, Windows, and iPad. There’s no obligation to buy, and best of all, you don’t have to provide your payment information when you sign up for the trial.
Free trials aren’t new, but they don’t usually last six months – and this one is for the software we’re currently rating as the best Photoshop alternative. One reason for that is that it’s also possible to buy Affinity Photo as a one-time purchase, rather than an ongoing subscription.
You can currently get 50% off Affinity Photo if you buy directly, bringing it down to $35 / £35, though it’s unclear whether this offer will still be available after the six-month trial period. Still, both are solid deals for editing software that offers a clean interface, a good range of tools, and support for PSD files.
To view the six months free offer, go to Official Affinity Trial PageYou’ll get access to the full versions of the software for desktop or iPad, and you can also sign up for the offer if you’ve previously done one of Affinity’s trials.
Is it worth signing up?
At the moment, you can only get a free seven-day trial of Photoshop, so Affinity Photo’s six-month offer certainly seems like a good option, especially if you’re a beginner or starting from scratch.
Both Affinity Photo and Photoshop have a learning curve, so it’s good to have a longer free period to see if it works for you. As a photographer, I’m already locked into Adobe’s workflows and use companion apps like Lightroom Classic (which is included in Adobe’s Creative Cloud Photography plan), so the trial period isn’t that appealing to me.
But if I were a beginner or amateur just getting into photo editing and didn’t want to be locked into subscription software, I’d definitely consider this Affinity Photo trial. It may be missing some of Adobe’s most recent AI tools, like Generative Fill, but it’s powerful enough for most situations – and you only need a free Affinity account to start the trial.
It’s also refreshing to have a trial period where you’re not immediately asked for payment information, as it’s easy to forget and waste a lot of money on tech subscriptions.