One of the Best Photoshop Alternatives Is Now Free for Six Months
The Affinity Suite is gunning for those switching over from Adobe products.
Adobe has been in the news for the wrong reasons lately, so it only makes since to see the competition swooping in to make the most of the opportunity to attract more users. Affinity, a pro-level creative suite owned by graphic design company Canva, is now offering a six-month free trial for three of its products that directly compete with Adobe's tools—Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher. These products are alternatives to Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, respectively.
How to sign up for the Affinity free trial
Affinity's universal license includes Photo, Designer, and Publisher. Simply navigate to this page to sign up for the trial. Oncer there, click the Free Trial button and use your email address to sign up. Once you install Affinity's apps, you'll be able to use them for six months with no charge. The company said it's not asking for payment information to sign up for the trial, which means that you won't have to remember to cancel the trial if you're not ready to pay.
In you like what you're seeing after a few days of use, you can buy the entire suite at 50% off right now, which means that you'll be paying $83 for the Mac, iPad, and Windows versions of all three apps. The regular price for the suite is $165.
Why would you want to swap to Affinity? Well, there are no subscriptions involved with Affinity's products. You pay a one-time fee and you're free to use the apps for as long as you like. Affinity will only charge you if you choose to upgrade to new versions as they come out. Even as your suite becomes outdated, you're free to continue using the software you paid for, although the company will likely provide you a discount to help you upgrade.
What the Adobe controversy is all about
As for what the Adobe outrage was all about, people were upset with Adobe's terms of service, which implied that the company could use your work to train its generative AI. Adobe responded to criticism by saying that it doesn't use your work to train generative AI and that it doesn't scan any content you store locally. The company also allows you to opt out of AI training, but as it still has access to your data, this hasn't been enough to quell some people's complaints. There's also concerns that cloud-based content might be aggregated with other user content to train "algorithms."
A few days after Adobe issued a clarification about the AI training uproar, the U.S. government then sued the company for charging hidden fees and making it hard to cancel subscriptions. Adobe's subscription fee practices include pushing people towards big annual subscription bundles that include apps they may not always need. Adobe would also charge you a cancellation fee amounting to up to 50% of your remaining payments, according to the FTC.