This popular Photoshop alternative just got a massive, free six-month trial

Looking to start photo editing? Affinity Photo has a great offer

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Photoshophas been under fire lately following somecontroversy around its new smallprint– and now the Canva-ownedAffinity Photois looking to capitalize with an impressive-looking new trial offer for its photo-editing software.

A new six-month trial for Affinity Photo, which you can also get for its Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher software, covers the versions for Mac, Windows and iPad. There’s no obligation to buy and the best part is that you don’t need to give your payment details when signing up for the trial.

Free trials are nothing new, but they don’t usually last for six months – and this one is for the software we currently rate as thebest Photoshop alternative. One of the reasons for that is because 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 when buying it outright, taking it down to $35 / £35, although it isn’t clear whether this offer will still be available at the end of a six-month trial. Still, both are good offers for editing software that offers a clean interface, good range of tools and support for PSD files.

To check out the six-month free offer, head toAffinity’s official trial page. You get access to the full versions of the software for desktop or iPad, and can also sign up for the offer if you’ve previously done one of Affinity’s trials.

Is it worth signing up?

Is it worth signing up?

Right now, you can only get a seven-day free trial for Photoshop – so Affinity Photo’s six-month offer certainly looks a good one, particularly if you’re a beginner or starting from scratch.

Both Affinity Photo and Photoshop have a learning curve, so it’s good to have an extended free period to see if it works for you. As a photographer, I’m already locked intoAdobe’s workflows and use accompanying apps like Lightroom Classic (which is included in Adobe’s Creative Cloud Photography Plan), so the trial doesn’t hold the same appeal for me.

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But if I was a beginner or amateur who was starting out in photo editing, and didn’t want to get locked into subscription software down the road, I’d certainly consider this Affinity Photo trial. It may lack some of Adobe’s most recent AI-powered tools, likeGenerative 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 that doesn’t ask you for payment details up-front, given it’s easy to forget and thenwaste megabucks on tech subscriptions.

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Mark is TechRadar’s Senior news editor. Having worked in tech journalism for a ludicrous 17 years, Mark is now attempting to break the world record for the number of camera bags hoarded by one person. He was previously Cameras Editor at both TechRadar and Trusted Reviews, Acting editor on Stuff.tv, as well as Features editor and Reviews editor on Stuff magazine. As a freelancer, he’s contributed to titles including The Sunday Times, FourFourTwo and Arena. And in a former life, he also won The Daily Telegraph’s Young Sportswriter of the Year. But that was before he discovered the strange joys of getting up at 4am for a photo shoot in London’s Square Mile.

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