Affinity Photo Vs. Designer: Which is Better for Painting?

Whether you are an experienced artist or just starting, having the right tools for the job is paramount for success. If your chosen medium is painting, then having the right paint, brushes, and canvases are the building blocks for your success. With advances in technology, there are other ways to paint as well. One of those ways is digital painting.

Affinity Designer is better for painting than Affinity Photo. With Designer, it is more forgiving when you make a mistake, comes equipped with more tools to help your ideas come to life, and provides a more user-friendly experience. However, there are a few more things to note about these programs.

While digital painting is beginner-friendly and in many ways is easier to learn and make headway, as with traditional painting, having the right tools is important. Two well-known programs that many artists use are Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. Both of these programs can be used for painting, but Affinity Designer is better suited for it. Read on to find out why.

Why Is Affinity Designer Better for Painting?

As mentioned already, both of these programs are great. They are both affordable and around the same price. They both produce professional-looking projects sure to satisfy yourself and your clients. However, when it comes to painting, Designer is the ideal program and we will explain why in more detail.

It Is Easier to Fix Mistakes with Designer than Photo

When you are creating, there are always going to be times when you do not like the way something turned out and you want to try something else without having to start the project from the beginning.

With Affinity Designer, you can press the Undo button as much as you need (up to 8,000 times if necessary) and save whatever you like. This saves time and frustration and helps you be more creative as you can adjust and tweak as you go.

With Affinity Photo, on the other hand, it is trickier to save your work. For example, if you used a filter and you adjusted it to certain settings, that will not carry on to any other slides. You will have to adjust manually each time. This can be time-consuming, and frustrating, which is not conducive to creativity.

Designer Has More Tools than Photo Does

Being able to have variety in an artwork is something that many people crave.

Designer has a variety of tools for you to work with to create exactly what you want. Not only can you switch between vector and raster mode, but once you are in those modes you can switch between vector inking and coloring in vector mode, or raster brushes, pixels, or Layers panel in raster mode.  

While Photo also has a variety of tools at its disposal, its focus tends to be more along the lines of editing photos or using different tools to remove parts of a picture that you do not like. It also has a feature where you can do text editing, directly editing, and decorating a text that has been imported. While these are both great tools and artistic in their own right, it is not quite the same.

Designer is Easier to Use than Photo

If you are going to be using a program for your artwork, then it must be easy to use and easy to learn.

Designer has an interface that is designed to be learned quickly. It also has a superzoom which makes it easy to focus on and perfect tiny details and an advanced grid which makes it easy to simplify and improves the accuracy of what you are making. Most importantly, it is easy to use on a tablet.

Photo, on the other hand, is more complicated if you are using it on a tablet. For one thing, the tilt and pressure may not always work or be as sensitive and responsive as they would be on Designer. Furthermore, there is a limited number of plug-ins that are compatible with the program, which makes being creative a trickier process.

Conclusion

Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo are both great programs that are affordable and can help you produce high-quality work. Both of them can even be used for painting, however, Affinity is better for Painting for several reasons. It is easier to use. Its interface has a more natural feel to it, so you can get used to it faster. It has more tools that can enhance painting than Photo does. Some of them include using raster brushes, pixels, or the Layers panel. Finally, Designer is designed in such a way that it is easy to fix mistakes with the ability to undo up to 8,000 times.