Affinity Photo 2 vs GIMP

Dedicated RAW development workspace with lens correction, chromatic aberration removal, noise reduction, and advanced tonal mapping. Supports major camera formats including CR3, NEF, ARW, and RAF with GPU-accelerated processing. Adjustments stay in a Develop-style workflow instead of forcing an external converter first.

RAW support comes through darktable, RawTherapee, and ART rather than a fully native Develop room. That plugin-based path is flexible and free, but it adds steps and window-hopping compared with Affinity's built-in persona.

Full non-destructive workflow with adjustment layers, live filter layers, and non-destructive RAW development. Changes stay editable; the history panel gives granular undo. Live filters are a daily habit for commercial retouchers who revisit files weeks later.

GIMP 3.2 introduced non-destructive filters (NDE) plus non-destructive layers including vector layers and link layers. Filters stay editable after application; layers can be rasterized and reverted. A real step up from GIMP 2.10, though the model still feels newer than Affinity's.

GPU acceleration via Metal on macOS and OpenGL/Vulkan on Windows. On Apple Silicon M3/M4, filter previews are near-instant and large files (500MB+) stay usable. Built for modern hardware rather than pure CPU paths.

GIMP 3.2 improved multi-threading but still lacks GPU acceleration for most operations. Large files with many layers can slow down. Startup is better than 2.10 yet slower than Affinity. Processing remains largely CPU-bound.

Dedicated HDR merge persona with tone mapping, ghost removal, and alignment. Focus stacking with depth map generation and automatic alignment. Results are production-usable without a third-party stack for most stills work.

No native HDR merge or focus stacking. You need third-party plugins or external tools such as Luminance HDR. Scripting can approximate the workflow, but it is not a one-click production path.

Much thinner plugin architecture than GIMP. Macros and limited automation exist, but there is no deep scripting API. Extensions lean toward asset packs and brushes rather than full pipeline automation.

Deep extensibility with Python 3, JavaScript, Lua, Vala, and Scheme scripting. Thousands of community plugins, including G'MIC filters. API updates in 3.2 enable multi-layer operations and GEGL filter integration. Automation cultures thrive here.

Modern persona-based workspaces (Photo, Liquify, Tone Mapping, Export, and more). Familiar layer and tool organisation for people coming from Photoshop. Contextual tooltips and guided features shorten the first week.

GTK3 in 3.2 improves HiDPI support, themes, and tablet handling. Multi-window mode still confuses beginners; single-window mode is the safer default. Highly customisable, but the first-hour experience is steeper than Affinity.

Broad format support including PSD (with layer preservation), PSB, PDF, SVG, TIFF, HEIF, and JPEG XL. Stronger Adobe-adjacent interchange for many commercial jobs. Native documents preserve non-destructive edits.

GIMP 3.2 added JPEG 2000 export, improved PSD import (more layer styles), BC7 DDS support, and SVG vector layer export. Strong on common and archival formats; some Adobe-only features still fail to translate.

Brush engine with dynamics, texture blending, and custom brush creation. Pressure-sensitive tablets with tilt and rotation. Hybrid pixel/vector work is easier because personas share the studio. Strong for concept art and illustration adjacent to photo work.

MyPaint brush integration in 3.2 adds about 20 new brushes with barrel rotation support. The standard brush engine is capable but less refined than Affinity or Krita. Fine for illustration, not GIMP's main focus.