Let me make this clear:
I do not work for Affinity
I get no financial or other benefit from endorsing this product.
I am only doing this because I would have wanted someone to tell me about this.
Affinity Photo software is currently on sale for 30% off until December 6th ($35).
There are no annual license fees like photoshop.
Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine switched from Photoshop to Affinity products.
Keep in mind I am an amateur (read photo butcher) with these products.
The photos below show off some of its abilities.
#1 Photo Stacking
The initial costs and annual fees always prevented me from getting this needed software function.
Limited depth of photo focus is the number 2 bane (after lighting) of shooting model scenes.
The software has access to 70+ tutorial videos and the focus merge function is a 3-minute tutorial.
The following photo (merged 6 shots) maintains good focus for more than 10’. It can be touchy but is fairly easy to use and usually does a good job.
Affinity handles panoramic shots.
My layout is in a 12’x17’ loft that does not allow moving back far enough to get an overall view but 5 overlapping photos were stitched together to get this:
It does perspective corrections. Compare this perspective corrected background photo to Ed’s original shot (Sept 8, 2020).
It does single button correction of contrast, colors, and white balance in addition to the usual photo straightening and cropping.
It can easily un-fuzz night shots and remove haze from day shots using filters.
Like I said I am a pure amateur with photo products (plus red-green color blind) but I was able to create this lead page photo for an upcoming article in N Scale Magazine.
Bill Lane loaned me the following photo from his collection.
I loved the PRSL engine line-up but didn’t like the overhead clutter and the dismal sky.
Using the inpainting tool and the color tone tool I was able to clean up the sky line and pull out the weak blues in the sky:
If this interests you, great; otherwise you may now go back to sleep.