N97972 Loc: Chelan County, Washington

Latest update to Affinity Photo is out. 1.7.

I've been with their Beta testing for a while now. Pleased that it is a vast upgrade, much faster than 1.65

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/87100-affinity-photo-for-windows-170/


Pete Karp
Cashmere, WA

James56 Loc: Nashville, Tennessee

Thanks for the notice...updated mine. Own the software, so the update was free. I like that and I do like the better performance.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

I updated to this new version. Agree it's faster and for people who are considering it there's a sale right now. At $39.00 it's an excellent buy for a very good pixel editor.

Cautionary note: Their problem with a forced destructive raw workflow remains unchanged and that's a big deal. Consider Affinity in conjunction with an different raw converter.

Joe

srt101fan

Joe, I have Affinity and am concerned about the raw issue you have raised here and in other posts. Would the Nikon software be a good option to use instead of the Affinity Develop Module?

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Yes in that Nikon Capture NX-D will save your work. Capture NX-D like DPP from Canon have the unique advantage of being produced by the camera manufacturer and of course they should know the capabilities of their own hardware better than anyone.

The negative of both Capture NX-D and DPP are that they both provide limited raw file conversion without much if any ability to further process the image. As a result they pretty much set you up for a two app processing workflow. app 1) Convert the raw file to RGB image, app 2) Finish processing the image to your desired final output.

There is no quality issue with the above process. You can do just as good a job and in fact a more detailed job when the second app is something like PS or Affinity.

There is however a workflow issue: The two app solution basically creates a gap between the two apps that you can't jump back over (ACR/PS being an exception). In other words once you start working in app 2 any work you complete there would have to be re-done if in the future you decide you missed something or would prefer to change something in app 1. It's a raw workflow issue with non destructive editing.

The two app solution has been the way we worked for decades and many folks are still very happy and comfortable with it. Pairing Capture NX-D with Affinity photo would be an excellent version of that and allow you to produce no-compromise-quality results. Compared with a single app solution (LR, Capture One, et al.) your workflow is more complicated, you may get bit occasionally re-doing some processing work and you'll need a lot more disk storage space.

Joe

srt101fan

Thank you very much!

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

I don't understand the concern about preserving your raw. I open raw with affinity and save the edited file as an Affinity file with all the layers and edits. The raw file is not changed in any way. I normally keep the original raw and the Affinity file. This allows me to back and tweak the adjustments done in Affinity or
use the raw file to start over again should I feel the need. For immediate use I export a jpg or Tiff file before closing the Affinity file.

I have on occasion used NX-D to develop raw and save as Tiff for further editing in Affinity but 99% of the time I am happy with Affinity's handling of raw.

srt101fan

Carol, I assume you are responding to my post. Glad you chimed in. I was reacting to comments made in another thread re the Affinity raw processor:

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-594738-1.html#10206662
and
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-594738-2.html#10207046

I've had Affinity for a while now, but have not been able to do much with it yet. So I'm basically still starting. I don't have a good understanding of what happens in the Develop Persona and the transfer to the Photo Persona. I'm probably overly concerned and overthinking this, but I just want to get to a workflow I'm comfortable with and then stick to it. So Ysarex's comments were of interest.

If you read his comments, he's not saying that transfer from Affinity Develop to Affinity Photo destroys the raw file; he says you can't go back to Develop and make changes to the adjustments you made before. I just need to decide how important that is for me.

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

You can actually go back to Develop and make changes. What I don't know is how close the file is to the raw file at that point. I've been using Affinity since it first became available for PCs and I really love it.

I'm happy with my workflow because there are no sidecar files! That's the thing I can't stand.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Hi Carol,

srt101 gave you a good answer. How about an example as well.

Here's an old photo of mine taken in 2010. I still like it -- it's a favorite of mine. Trouble is I like it different ways and I will never be able to chose one over the other. In the bottom version if you look carefully just left of center and above the ice you'll see a bird house on the tree.

Sometimes I like it with the bird house which adds a human touch and sometimes I like it without the birdhouse. I also sometimes like it warm with the ice white as it really was but sometimes I like it cold and forbidding and to make matters worse sometimes I like the cold one with the bird house and sometimes without and same for the warm one. In other words 4 different versions.

The overall processing of the image to get the tone response the way I wanted it (burning and dodging) requires 4 different layers.

Let's think about that image then in terms of how to process using Affinity: Right out the gate I get in trouble with Affinity because I have to commit to a WB setting. I want the color variation accomplished by a WB change during raw conversion. Yes you can change the color of an afphoto file once it's been converted from raw but that doesn't produce the same result. I want to be able to process the photo using one WB setting and then later change the raw WB setting for the second version. Affinity slams that door shut in my face. I can start over from scratch with the raw file but that's doing my work over.

And then there's the bird house. I need two different color versions of the bird house and do different color versions of the cloned out bird house. If I had used Affinity to process the first version of the photo and removed the bird house and then if Affinity allowed me to go back to the raw file and change the WB that WB change wouldn't update to any cloning work. Affinity is complicating my work flow and both making me redo part of my work as well as save huge RGB image disk files.

That raw file is 21 megabytes stored to disk. That raw file and all four of my versions of the photo require 21 megabytes of storage -- all the processing is saved in a couple text files that don't amount to more than 4 kilobytes. All four versions are contained in a single version in my catalog. Because my processing of the image is accomplished parametrically I have non-linear access to any and everything I did. If I had an afphoto file(s) they're huge and my access to work done with the raw file is not only cut off but in fact discarded.

Using Affinity doesn't compromise the quality of the work but it complicates and frustrates the workflow. Ideally we shouldn't have to do work over again.

Good news as far as I know is that the folks at Serif have at least said they plan to fix the raw work discard problem in the future. Even so Affinity will still remain a 2 app solution however with raw processing separated from some necessary pixel pushing.

Joe

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Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

Joe, thank you both for the further explanation. I understand the issue now. With Affinity, what is the file after you hit "develop". The name doesn't change from the raw designation but "modified" is added. Is it still raw data until you save it as an Affinity file? You can go back to Develop but, as you say, there is then no record of the changes you made before. It really hasn't bothered me because most of the raw adjustments can be tweaked with adjustments in Photo but you are surely right that the result may not be the same.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Once you click "Develop" you lose access to the raw data. Affinity at that point converts the raw file into a 16 bit RGB image which is fine -- that's the right thing to do, but at that point you're working with RGB data and even though you can return to the Develop Persona with that RGB data the results you'll get are not the same as if you in fact had the raw data. In some cases things you may have originally done with the raw data in the Develop Persona can't be undone.

Affinity will save your RGB image as an afphoto file or TIFF file which you can return to later to do additional work. Compared to your raw original that file will be huge.

Nearly every other raw conversion program available will save the work you do processing the raw data so that you can at least return to that point if you want and not have to start from scratch. If you do all your processing parametrically then you can get seamless and surgical access back to any point in the process.

Joe

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

Joe, you lost me at "parametrically". I looked it up but still don't really know what it means. However, I do understand the issue now. It isn't a problem for me personally but I can see where it could be for some.

srt101fan

Carol, I think you've got the right view on this, that is, the Affinity raw processing concerns Joe is talking about are not a significant drawback in your workflow. And you conclude that based on your significant experience with Affinity and the high quality of the images you have produced.

I'm not in a position to do that yet. Not enough experience with photo editing in general and Affinity in particular. I'm still struggling with the basic issue of how far to go in Develop before going to Photo. I wish they didn't have so much duplication of the adjustments you can make! I just find that confusing. But with regards to the "destructive" issue, at this point I'm leaning towards agreeing with you that it will not be a big problem for me. I'll just have to wait and see....

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

If I can ever help with Affinity just send me a PM. I'm no expert but I'm doing a lot with it. Once you are comfortable with the basics which their videos will help with, the Affinity Workbook is another good learning tool but it is not the place to start.

In Develop I usually tweak the histogram - highlights and shadows - to get the basic exposure right. Then on to contrast and clarity and sometime saturation. I may redo these same things as I go along in Photo.