Amateur John

The afphoto file created by a default develop is an RGB 16 bit per channel non compressed file. No information from the raw file (typically 12 or 14 bits) is lost. That implies that HSL can be done just as well in afphoto as in ACR. I suspect that the detractors are hardened Adobe users who are very set in their ways. You may find that the afphoto file looks flat because the default curve applied during development is not aggressive. If you disable that curve then the result looks even more flat. Some people like to start from the flat state. Expert videographers, for example, demand flat files so they can create consistant colour grading. If you want to start editing from an image that looks like the jpeg preview on your camera screen, a perfectly reasonable way to work, then you can do your raw conversion to 16 bit tiff using your camera manufactures' software. Then use Affinity to do the real edit. If you go down that route then make sure that you avoid any form of jpeg as an intermediate file format. 16 bit Tiff files are big because they throw nothing away; Afphoto files are even bigger but huge discs are cheap so who cares. Affinity is an excellent alternative to Photoshop. It is not a replacement for LR yet. Hopefully it will soon replace both of them.

I have wondered about this myself. My present approach is to do the least possible in Develop. I use the defaults in Develop Manager so I get lens corrections. Then I run a batch job on all the raws in the directory of new pictures saving as afphoto files. When you select a large number of files you may get a brief 'not responding' message. No problem; it just needs time. When you run the batch you can see progress and I used to watch it. The present release (1.7.2.471) seems to be reliable, so now I go and make a cup of coffee while the batch runs. The batch uses all the cores of the processor. Its best not to try and do anything else on the computer while the batch runs. I would be interested to know how Serif developers intend it to be used.

When Serif produces some form of DAM it will handle files from Designer and Publisher as well as Photo. It could also handle Publisher dependancies and give warnings when you attempt to change a design or photograph which has been used in a publication. The degree of integration possible in Affinity is likely to be market leading.

Thanks Walt. That was the problem but I have no recollection of changing that default deliberately.

OOPS Creating the flood selection does work. It was the next part of the exercise that failed to work as expected. When creating the new adjustment layer this is created as a child layer of the background layer rather than a layer above. In this case the adjustment of course works because the background layer has no layers below it. So no real problem except to someone learning from the book who sees something not working as described. Sorry for confusion.

Please check that all the examples in the Workbook work as described. This is possibly a very basic check that nothing fundamental has been upset. Perhaps you could even recruit a team of keen users to do this check. Instead of releasing on a Friday, and expecting a member of staff to respond to queries over the weekend. Hold off until Monday while volunteers do that simple but time consuming check. Shared between around half a dozen people it would not be too onerous. For example 'Creating a flood selection' does not do so in the new release 1.7.2. It does work properly in 1.7.2.464 (beta). A more positive issue. Congratulations of doing rather well in both Amateur Photographer's affordable alternatives to A***e and Practical Photography's Powerful editing suites for under £100. Knocking the opposition for four in both cases is very good. With an optional DAM or Library module I reckon that you would have hit them for six.

I think that we have two things missing. One is the ability to quickly brouse files and show them in an affinity product ready for processing. Even crude products like Nikon's own free software allows a similar ability. One can quickly traverse (backwards and forwards) a directory of files and process or discard as appropriate. There is no need to inport. Second is a full DAM such as Light Room. Let's remember that LR is not a raw processor or an editor. LR sits above ACR and Photoshop and calls on them as needed. For this functionality a formal inport is needed. I agree with Cecil that refining the present products should take precedance at present however I would expect that the architecture of the Affinity suite was developed with provision for an overall application that could sit above the other products. I would not expect that to be a free 'add on'. I like the modular approach by which I have purchased licences to Photo and Publisher. I would purchase a DAM module licence at the same sort of prices as the existing modules. Incidentally I noticed the term 'inport' was used somewhere in the documentation before getting photo and publisher. It confused me somewhat because we don't import anything. I guess that DAM is planned. Also we export rather than 'save as'. Another clue that developers within Affinity might have something cooking?

No need to apologise Walt. This captioning process tends to be repetitive for some publications, especially the one I am practising upon. I have found that creating the required field correctly once and copying it into Assets to be very effective. For the next field j ust click in assets and drag to the required position. Make minor changes to the text; job done. This works and is very effective. The behaviour might be a bug, or maybe not. In looking for a workaround I have got into using Assets at an early stage of my self education. This might all be obvious to experienced users, but to me is a huge improvement to what I was using.

Almost every body who uses a computer learns how to use Word. It may not be the best, but it is ubiquitous. Even primary school children use it to do their homework. I would think that Affinity's next venture might be asset management for their Designer, Photo, and Publisher files. The database behind Lightroom is useful if one can be bothered to use it properley. Even as an amateur I feel that the big thing missing from the Affinity suite of applications is the database. It does help that the Designer, photo, and publisher files are really just the same format, but with different filename extensions. I am not stating that it would be trivial to develop, but it could be a lot more difficult, if the present three applications were not really just three different personas based on the same structure.

Hello Walt, I have been away, and of choice have avoided the interweb. for a couple of days. I thought that my posts were clear. In the context being discussed if you want to create a new text frame over a picture which has displaced text in Affinity then you have to create that text frame else where and then drag it into postion. In MS Publisher that is not the case. You just start your new text frame over the picture and it does what you want. That is not a big criticism of Affinity, a piece of brilliant software at its first general release.There is an easy work round. The work round is often even easier than I first thought. If your picture is next to a margin (often the case) then start your new text frame beyond in the margin and drag over the picture. A trivial adjustment in position then solves the problem. Don't be over protective of Affinity. I am sure that Affinity employed experts scan these forums looking for possible improvements. Affinity does things better than MS Publisher in too many ways to enumerate. But in those cases when it does not, then let them know. Also through these forums let users know the work arounds. Of course in these forums we keep these minor criticisms/suggestions in the family.

I think that we should agree to disagree but you are welcome to the last word.

Thanks Walt. That is what I have found with the help of previous contributers to this thread. By comparison, in MS publisher if one selects the text tool then click and drag within the picture which has displaced an underlying text frame by wrapping, then a new text frame is created over the picture. If one makes the first click in the exposed part of the existing text frame then an insertion point is selected within the existing text. It is very intuitive. It is very early days for Affinity Publisher and I am very impressed how good it is at this release. I would expect niggles like this to be sorted in time. Its not a deal breaker. John

I am still learning how to use the software and am in no position to make suggestions. If something does not seem right then I assume that I have missed something, possibly in setting up defaults. Generally I already prefer Affinity to MS publisher, with which I am reasonably familiar. In this particular operation, MS seems to be quicker.

But to create the image caption text box I seem to have to do so outside any text box, then check 'ignore text wrap' and then drag it into position. What am I missing? It seems clumsy.