Affinity 2.6 Feature List

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The Affinity Suite has released a new Beta build. Most of the changes are quality of life changes with a couple of notable exceptions for page management in Publisher and for compositing work in Photo.

The most important change to the software is the implementation of the first AI/machine learning features in the form of Object Selection Tool and Select Subject. The developers have taken a lot of care in implementing the feature so it is run locally on your machine with no user data running the algorithms.

If you ask me, I think this bodes well with how Canva/Serif will continue to build AI features into its programs, since it is more of a separate add-on for Affinity that you choose to install on your PC rather than forcing you to install the necessary components to run them. Object selection is also one of those features I think most people can get behind due to it speeding up your work process rather than skipping the human creator altogether.

What are other Affinity users’ thoughts about this release and the implementation of AI?

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Things like selection or even fill in some cases (think repairing an area of a damaged photo, instead of manually cloning bits, use AI to do it automatically), make total sense.

While doing it all locally may make things slower (depending on your hardware), it’s the only option I’d use. While at the same time, it takes away any expense (or subscription requirements) for cloud based servers to do it all. Also means it will work, even if you don’t have a active Internet connection or a slow one.

By the looks of things, the models aren’t that big either, but I guess we are talking very specific use cases.

Another future prime candidate would be an upscaler/detail enhancer, so something better then the standard bicubic, etc or unsharpen mask.

I do own the Affinity suit, so will check this out at some point in time, tho maybe not till it hit stable release.

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