Canva Leaps Right Into Pro Photo Editing In Affinity Acquisition
News | By Stephan Jukic | March 28, 2024
The online graphic design platform Canva has been essential to many business owners by making graphic design easy. Now it also owns Affinity Photo.
The latter app is roughly similar to Adobe products Photoshop and Lightroom due to its suite of editing and image manipulation tools for pro photographers.
Canva has bought the complete creative toolset of Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher, which is generally similar to Adobe’s Creative Cloud.
With this, Canva’s user base has grown by roughly 3 million users, on top of the 170 million worldwide users that the Australian Canva already had.
Before this acquisition, Canva was almost entirely about graphic design services and tools for business owners, with little in the way of photo manipulation and editing offerings.
However, given the shifting nature of this market, this particular acquisition could be very useful for both Canva users and Affinity users.
As for Affinity Photo, though it’s nowhere near as widely used as Adobe Creative Cloud, the app suite has many dedicated, professional fans.
We previously reviewed the app and liked many of its features and tools. Notably, Affinity’s pricing model was refreshingly simple, relying on a single one-time fee instead of a subscription schedule.
The website PetaPixel even ranked Affinity as one of the best alternatives to Photoshop out there.
How many of Affinity’s features change in the wake of Canva’s acquisition is something we’ll have to see. The purchase should bring some benefits to both apps though, since Canva is also well-regarded by most of its users.
As for the price that Canva paid for Affinity, it’s being kept fairly secret, though the website Bloomberg has claimed that it rounded out at “several hundred million” UK pounds.
Affinity’s suite of photo manipulation features will complement Canva’s graphic design tools
With this purchase, Canva has also instantly made itself into a competitor against Adobe. While Canva is largely part of a different niche, this could change quickly as Affinity’s popular pricing model and tools gain more support with Canva’s heavy financial support.
According to Affinity’s CEO, Ashley Hewson, “Since the inception of Affinity, our mission has been to empower creatives with tools that unleash their full potential, fostering a community where innovation and artistry flourish,”
She also adds,
“We’ve worked tirelessly to challenge the status quo, delivering professional-grade creative software that is both accessible and affordable. Canva’s commitment to empowering everyone to create aligns perfectly with those values…”
In other words, Canva quite likely wants to keep letting Affinity do the things that have made it popular.
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Stephan Jukic is a technology and photography journalist and experimental photographer who spends his time living in both Canada and Mexico. He loves cross-cultural street photo exploration and creating fine art photo compositions.
