[9][10][11] Functionality includes RAW processing, color space options, live preview of effects, image stitching, alpha compositing, black point compensation, and optical aberration corrections.

[16] Serif established an R&D team for Affinity Photo in 2009, headed by lead designer Andy Somerfield.

[17] The initial stable release of Affinity Photo, version 1.3.1, launched on the Mac App Store on 9 July 2015 for macOS 10.7 and later.

[18] Version 1.4, in December 2015, added panorama photo stitching, support for macOS 10.11 El Capitan including six Affinity extensions for Apple Photos,[19] and augmented the languages supported in previous versions (English (US and UK), German, French and Spanish) with Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Japanese.

[21] Affinity Photo for iPad was launched during the keynote at Apple's WWDC in San Jose on 5 June 2017.

For Photo, it included JPEG XL capabilities, live warping, and non-destructive RAW editing.

[28] The macOS version of Affinity Photo was received favorably by professional photographers, and Apple named it as the best Mac app of 2015.