craigleeus

Don't hold your breath waiting. Of all the posts on this thread, not one was a moderator. Even though this is an "enhancements" forum, I think it is likely mostly intended for user discussion, or maybe just to appease us. In addition, I did do exactly what I suggested a year or two ago: I emailed Serif and suggested, professionally and respectfully, they take a look at this discussion and consider making the suggested enhancement. I never heard back from them. Remember, it's just a $50 app (when it's not on sale for $25).

I'm with Tony D's November 10 post. Recent comments seem to be drifting away from the primary topic of hoping Serif will make an APhoto update to give users more flexibility in setting the default Export As file location. Photoshop has an option for this in its Preferences. (Photoshop's 'Save As' is somewhat equivalent to Affinity Photo's 'Export As') I don't think Serif staff routinely read forum posts (there's probably way to many). But if one submitted an enhancement request, one could point Serif project owners to the comments in posts like these, perhaps adding more weight and support for the suggested change.

I think you are referring to the way Adobe Camera RAW saves the metadata for Camera RAW edits in an XMP file (non-destructively). From a RAW file editing perspective, this would be helpful, and a deficiency in APhoto. Once a RAW file is 'developed' in APhoto, as far as I can tell, cannot go back an adjust the changes made in Develop mode. Have to start over from scratch. At least with Adobe Camera RAW saving the metadata, if I have to start over, Camera RAW will open with the previous edits. As for linking all changes in APhoto to the original file and saving all changes in a metadata file, I don't suggest we hold our breath waiting for that. Not even Photoshop uses that approach -- but it is a great idea. This is how NLE video editing software works.

I wrote the original post and also uploaded the mockup screen shot. I want the change as much as every other person who's posted here. However, I imagine there are a vast number of posts on this forum on many different issues, and as such, it's hard for Affinity's product development team to monitor these posts. What I mean, is we might be just 'preaching to the choir'. It does not seem like a very difficult enhancement to make. There's clearly a lot of support. So I can only presume it Affinity isn't even aware of the request.

We're pretty much on the same page. I wouldn't characterize Photoshop as necessarily a simpler way to edit digital images, but Photoshop does make some things easier to use -- like what we're discussing, or like re-centering the image when zooming back in, more and easier to use presets, easier to create, import and use Actions, more options in Refine Mask, and much better handling of crop ratios, to name a few that frustrate me. But AP has good features too. I'm getting off track.... Of all those differences, the Export As control is my top request right now.

dcdancm: Thanks! You're correct, this should be a relatively simple implementation, and it addresses an issue that touches nearly every, if not every, AP user. I've found a number of nice-to-haves, some 'very' nice to have, but this is definitely at the top of my list of desired enhancements. As for 'what happened?' I think a great deal of their work has been technical refinement and bug fixes. Plus, given Publisher was rolled out last year, no doubt the last few years have been largely devoted to that platform. And of course, now there's 3 apps in the family, not to mention the other stuff in their store, to support. I have faith that one of the forthcoming releases will make me a happier camper. Photoshop is my benchmark. Hope springs eternal!

Default Export-as folder followup: I've come up with an idea that if it, or some variation of it, is implemented, it might be very helpful to a lot of people. I mocked up a screen shot (in Affinity Photo of course) of the Export-as dialog window (attached) with a new drop-down menu that has 2 choices: Use source folder (which means the folder either the background image file is in or the folder the .afphoto file is in if re-opening it) Use previous folder (which means use whichever folder was last exported to (for those who want to export repeatedly to this folder regardless of where source is located) An alternative would be for one of those to be the default Export-as location, and there be a radio button or check box to override that to the other option.

Export-As topic. I previously mentioned my preference of defaulting export-as to the source folder. Today, I played around with Photoshop's approach (for Export As, not Quick Export). PS defaults export-as to the image's source folder. If I choose a different folder when exporting a file, PS remembers the new location for that file (and others I choose a different folder for), but otherwise continues to default to the source folder. AP's approach of defaulting to the last used folder might be useful if I'm working with a large number of documents and want them all exported to a different folder, or where I open images from multiple folders but want all output files to export to a same different folder. So I guess there's a place for both approaches. Perhaps, as a suggestion, AP's export-as default could be the source folder, but if I change that folder for an export, maybe open a dialog box asking if I want to continue to export-as to the new folder (which would continue to apply until changed again, or give the option to revert to the source folder for other files.

Hmmm, I might be starting to catch up. Are you referring to the DAM as being a tool like Lightroom, which just links to original images and saves only metadata of changes made to the image? That would maintain high quality originals (RAW or TIF files perhaps) without the hugs afphoto (and likewise huge PSD) files. There are time when Photoshop is needed, but other times when Lightroom alone is sufficient. And Lightroom (and other similar tools), and I presume the DAM, also function as a photo organizer. Am I on track with this reference to DAM?

Yeah, zipping is not going to reduce file size much, but it will restore files to their original content when unzipped. Question all, what are DAW and DAM? (I think of DAW as digital audio workstation, but I don't see that as relevant to afphoto files so it must be something else)

A_B_C, perhaps you can compress it further outside the app (like in WinRAR, or with backup software). That won't significantly compress it, but could help. I would be comfortable with WinRAR, but Serif would have the tools to determine what data can be safely removed (for compression) and later completely recovered if needed. (Not an easy design task) More than likely, though, if they added some compression option, it would be at least partially destructive.

This has been an interesting discussion (for a newbie). Last couple days I played around with different scenarios to understand it all a little better. I am now fairly convinced that faster file saving is the primary driver for saving incremental changes in AP, much like doing incremental backup for you computer speeds that process. And I can attest that saving Photoshop PSD files is quite a bit slower than saving afphoto files. I have a feeling that the reason 'save-as' new files are smaller is that the process uses just the incremental changes needed to create the new file and discards the rest. A layer is added then later deleted. It created incremental increases in file size, but for the new file, it's not needed. If there's enough of those, it could amount to a pretty big decrease in file size. There was a comment on snapshots being a possible factor, so I dug into that, learning what they are and all. I found adding snapshots adds very little to the file size. If I save the file to a new name, all the snapshots came over just fine. (I'm glad i learned about those -- that's a nice feature!) I don't see snapshots as a factor in file size. There were some comments about maintaining a full resolution image being a contributor to added file size. This is probably valid. Unlike AP, keeping a full resolution image in Photoshop is optional. By default the image layer is destructive. To maintain the original resolution image content, one must convert the image layer to a 'Smart Object'. When that is done, the PSD file size increases significantly. I dropped my 141MB TIF file in PS- (1) just saved as a PSD (no smart object): 141 MB; (2) converted background layer to smart object and saved: 379MB; then (3) put TIF in AP and saved to afphoto file: 181MB. Advantage: AP.

You guys have an impressive understanding of the weeds of AP. Question: What's the difference between the 'snapshot' and the background (original) layer? Does AP place a second copy of the original image into memory and then pass that to the file when saving? Correction: in a previous post, I mistakenly said that for the image in question, I opened a RAW file in Develop Persona. In fact, I edited it in Lightroom, exported to TIF and then imported that to AP. [I just placed the TIF file in Dropbox (same link). 140,658 kb.] Clarification: In AP when I originally worked on this image, I reduced the TIF/RAW dimension from 6000x4000, and along with some cropping ended up with 2606x1629. I did increase the DPI from 240 to 300 in case want to print. Overall, though, this is a significant decrease in total pixels. Unlike Photoshop, this doesn't seem to have much effect on file size. More testing today: Today, our of curiosity and considering what I've learned from your posts, I put that TIF file in AP again (like I'm starting over). This time I immediately 'saved-as', without any adjustments. AP file size on first save: 332,333kb (for an unadjusted 140,658 TIF file). Wow! Did it get so much larger because of what I asked previously in this post--AP stores the actual working file and a copy (snapshot) in memory? Continuing my test today, I then, without any adjustments or even closing the file in AP, 'saved-as' again, this time to a new name. AP file size now dropped from 332,333 to 181,259! This is all very confusing. We should not have to dig through a mass of forum posts and trial-and-error to understand this and how best to handle it.

That's what it comes down to for me, and what got me looking closer at this. (Note, I have only been using Affinity Photo for about 4 months -- I still have an Adobe CC subscriptions for Photoshop/Lightroom.) I noticed that my hard drive was filling up quickly. I sorted my afphoto files by size (Windows) and was surprised at the file sizes. Then I started to notice that every time I saved, even when I had deleted layers or reduced the image size, the file size continued to increase. And, the larger the file size, the more Kbytes were added with each save. To me this is a really negative issue for AP. I should add, then even though I have a Photoshop subscription, I would love to drop it, but Serif's Affinity Photo, as good as it is, and it is good, still doesn't have the meat to stack up to Photoshop. (Then again, I readily admit that for the price, my expectations shouldn't be too high and I applaud the work Serif has done.) :-)

I had already overwritten the file in question, but I did the same with another large file. On dropbox is the "original" afphoto file (332,333 kb) and a new one created using the procedures I described (89,083 kb). Also attached is the original RAW file brought into the Develop Persona (24,416 kb) for this project. Link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/b25mbzmaerehuxc/AAAILWwqa0whMGormQ1KEiPGa?dl=0 Really appreciate your interest in looking at it. Craig