Have you ever snapped a photo of a beautiful landscape, only to be disappointed because the processed image fails to capture the scene as vividly as you remember it? It’s a common story for professional and amateur photographers alike. However, High Dynamic Range (HDR), a relatively new photography technique that enables next-level image quality, is closing the gap in quality between the human eye and what’s possible to capture on a camera.
In order to edit and display HDR images, photographers need hardware and software that’s capable of supporting the wide color gamut requirements of HDR. Intel and Serif are lowering the barriers for HDR support through access to the JPEG XL format and a slate of new high-performance processors from Intel.
Serif’s Affinity Photo 2 is a professional-level photo editing application that offers advanced tools such as delicate retouching, large-scale batch processing, and panoramic stitching. It now offers JPEG XL support, creating opportunities to display HDR images on the web and beyond. When running on 13th Gen Intel® Core™ processors Affinity Photo 2 users will experience enhanced speed and performance.
Affinity Photo is optimized to run on Intel
Intel collaborated closely with the Affinity Photo team to integrate Intel® Deep Link™ technology into the application, enabling Affinity Photo 2 to maximize available CPUs and GPUs to tackle demanding photography workloads more efficiently. Photographers will be able to process large RAW and JPEG XL files faster while gaining access to tools that let them create HDR images with more detail in dark and light areas.
With more cores and larger cache than previous generations, 13th Gen Intel Core processors deliver lower power consumption and increased clock speeds. Affinity Photo 2 users can take advantage of a 15 percent performance improvement when running single threads and a 41 percent improvement when running multiple threads.
“. . . [W]e expect [Affinity Photo] will reach new heights of performance on the latest 13th Gen Intel Core Processor series. Affinity Photo will use the 24 advanced processor cores, the additional cache and the latest hybrid architectures to perform better than ever, unleashing capabilities like 8K HDR photo editing.”1
—Ashley Hewson, Managing Director, Serif
Exciting new Affinity Photo features
In addition to JPEG XL support, Affinity Photo 2 users can work with unlimited layers, diverse blend modes, multiple brush types, smart objects, and more. Here are some of the exciting features Affinity Photo 2 offers, optimized to run on Intel’s hybrid architecture.
- With non-destructive RAW development, users can change develop settings like exposure, saturation, and contrast at any point in the editing process, even after adding masks to the image
- Live masks automatically adjust to match the properties of an underlying image, saving manual editing time
- The live mesh wrap feature lets users more easily distort an image in the foreground to match the look of an underlying template, making it easy to create realistic-looking mock-ups
- The application supports the most complex vector documents used in high-end photography projects
- The new hue range mask tool allows users to create a mask based on a specific color in the original image, allowing for fast, easy hue adjustments
- The UI layout offers a variety of studio presets, so users can choose the dashboard best tailored to their workflow
- Affinity Photo is available as a single-payment purchase, not a subscription
Read more about these features and more in the Affinity Photo 2 launch press release.
Enable HDR editing and fast image editing with Affinity Photo 2 and Intel
HDR is raising the bar for photographers looking to create high-quality images. With JPEG XL format support, Affinity Photo 2 helps users tap into the benefits of HDR and other advanced editing tools, all while running optimally on 13th Gen Intel Core Processors. Check out our solution brief to learn more about new Affinity Photo 2 features and how Intel unlock maximum efficiency.
- “Affinity Photo Optimized to Run on 13th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors,” Intel, retrieved December 15, 2022.
Performance varies by use, configuration, and other factors. Learn more at intel.com/PerformanceIndex.
Performance results are based on testing as of dates shown in configurations and may not reflect all publicly available updates. See configuration disclosure for additional details.
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David is an Intel alum and recently re-joined the company as the Marketing Manager for the Intel Create program. Prior to his current position, David managed Intel’s Internet of Things (IoT) digital marketing and social media outreach. He has roots grounded in the Digital Content Creation (DCC) segment where he synthesized technology trends and insights across end-users and defined product strategies that helped establish Intel leadership in Mobile Client Platforms.
At home, David is happily married, is passionate about creativity media and as a struggling guitarist loves all music. In his spare time, he volunteers at Medical Teams International and has three grandkids under the age of six-years that keep him busy.