To be fair, we have a good amount of experience working with such applications, and as a result Affinity Photo felt very familiar to us, so that’s a good thing - if you have experience with its competitors. Rather than turn this article into a bullet-point list, we decided to focus on how it felt to use them to work on a photograph. There are way too many to list in this short review, like PSD file support, RAW Support, masking, layering, retouching, removing blemishes, curving, a full set of 16-bit filters, to name but a tiny few. The list of tools is incredibly long, and rivals bigger, more expensive competitors, yes, even Photoshop itself, and for the price, that’s no small feat. You’ll find Affinity Photo is crammed full of the features you need to manipulate and otherwise improve a photo, or project. This feels like a step backwards to us, and sadly we could not find a way to revert back to the way the layout used to be.įeeling a little lost? Worry not: you have access to a wealth of online video tutorials (Image credit: Serif) You can’t have multiple floating windows open though: click on another tool and the parameters you previously selected are replaced by the new ones.Īlthough this saves you from a proliferation of endless popup windows, it would be good to have access to multiple tools in one go, rather than having to constantly click on thumbnails to reveal them. In order to apply the change, you must click on a thumbnail, which reveals the values you can alter in a floating window, and depending on the thumbnail you clicked on, applies some changes automatically as well. Your tools are still there, but rather than seeing any sliders or changeable parameters, you’re presented with multiple thumbnails of your current photo. Last time we explored Affinity Photo, they were all presented in a long scrollable list on the right. More annoying though was the Studio itself. It can sometimes be frustrating when you need to access parameters from the Studio, as a pop-up window appears (Image credit: Serif) Going back to software that still has pretty coloured icons felt odd to us. Many competitors have long migrated to a monochrome style, to limit any distractions to the image you’re working on, and its own colour spectrum. One minor gripe is that the toolbar is too colourful. This is actually all very reminiscent of Adobe Photoshop, and if you’re comfortable with that behemoth, it won’t take you long to feel right at home with Affinity Photo.īut it’s not all perfect (which software is?). Other tools and information about your current image file are along the top, with a detailed inspector to the right, known as the Studio, leaving the bulk of the interface to your canvas. Just like many other applications of this type, mouse over one to reveal a tooltip giving its title, and any tool with a small triangle lower right of it indicates additional yet similar tools are but a click away. You’ll find it to the left as a series of small icons. Nice and clean, packed with features, but with some design annoyancesĪffinity Photo’s interface is designed to be quite minimalist, while still presenting you with all the features you would need at any time.You’ll find toolbars on the top, left and right of the interface, leaving the rest of the screen real estate for your image (Image credit: Serif)
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Of course, those who drill down deep and need multiple pivot tables and esoteric functions will need to verify OpenOffice can do the job for them. Multiple imported consumer-level spreadsheets worked just as expected. The graphics, fonts, formulas and multiple sheets all worked fine in OpenOffice, mimicking Microsoft Office pretty much exactly. The same was true for other spreadsheets, like mortgage calculators. I imported a 401(k) planner from JaxWorks Small Business Spreadsheet Factory, and the file rendered just as well in OpenOffice as in Excel. While you can't work on a spreadsheet with someone else concurrently, you can modify and exchange back and forth with an Excel user and feel fairly confident that all will work as it should. OpenOffice's Calc spreadsheet does a good job of reading and writing Microsoft's Excel files directly. If you need a serious word processor and don't want to pay much, check out OpenOffice. Quibbles are minor and small, but the price is even smaller: $0. These more advanced features don't always translate well among different programs, so be aware. Normal academic-support tools are included, such as headers, footers, cross-references and a bibliographic database. LibreOffice and Microsoft Office call the tool Track Changes, but the name difference doesn't cause any problems in the function across all three similar suites. OpenOffice does support Track Changes, but calls the features Changes (Edit > Changes > Record). But if your ideas include wrapping text above, around or below images and graphics, OpenOffice is less flexible than the other two options. If you want tight control over the look and feel of your documents, you should have no trouble finding the tools you need. Styles, Themes, clipart Gallery and the Navigator are nearly identical between OpenOffice and LibreOffice. Unfortunately, you can't get rid of that slim toolbar on the right, although you can undock it and move it out of your way. If you like less clutter, click the hard-to-see icon of three lines with a down arrow on the top right of the work space. Added to the right side of the page are multiple style- and properties-management tools. OpenOffice Writer presents the common top menus and blank page when opened, just as do Microsoft Word and LibreOffice Writer. That's a little better, but not by much for those looking for real-time collaboration or a cloud platform. LibreOffice vaulted slightly ahead in the collaboration race by offering an easy way to access Remote Files, and supporting Google Drive and SharePoint servers. Yes, that means OO is falling behind in the cloud and collaboration world. Microsoft Office didn't include any collaboration tools in 2003, and OpenOffice doesn't include any now. If you memorized keyboard shortcuts such as Alt-I-H for Insert>Hyperlink, you'll be right at home. Fans of the Static menu will be happy to see File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Table, Tools, Window and Help across the tops of their documents again. Each application looks much like its counterpart programs in Office, at least the version of Office before the Ribbon interface created so much annoyance among users. |
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