Reflex

Not necessarily. It doesn't need to be done using profiles. It could scan the patches to create a LUT or even bundle all the required adjustments into one "developer preset" which could be applied to batches of raw images.

I just purchased Calibrite Colo(u)rChecker Studio. Perhaps in ignorance I chose it over SpyderX as Data Colour seemed only to work with Adobe whereas Calibrite exported icc profiles. Anyhoo, trying (unsuccessfully) to figure out the most suitable workflow I had IMHO a great feature idea. If someone owned a photo spectrometer, imagine being able to connect that directly to Affinity Photo (in Develop mode) and scan colour patches with it. It wouldn't have to be an official colour card etc, but any collection of swatches which was used in the photo. Better yet, have a card like the normal ones you buy with a row of colours, and link the physical card with the card in the photo. AP could automatically make adjustments (to a batch of images) to match the photo colours to the physical sample. The benefit of this (if I'm thinking through this correctly) is that the colour card wouldn't need to match "official" sample colours and fading is less relevant as the software won't be matching a standard, but the physical card used in the photo. You could even print your own as long as there is a range of hues and brightnesses. Imagine the savings in doing that! In fact, AP would only need to rescan the sample at some interval to adjust for colour changes over time, as long as that card is used in the shots. Ok. Fire retardant in place. Interested in anyone's thoughts (especially Serif's).

Hi @v_kyr. Appreciate you taking the time to reply. I had already read / watched all of those apart from the OCIO one. It was watching the first ones which left me wondering why my photo wasn't behaving the same way. Perhaps it's a ProRAW thing? I've also noticed that there is a box to clip to the limits, but if I turn off EDR then turn it back on again, the clipping option becomes ghosted but fixed as active.

Hi @James Ritson. Thanks for the reply. This part actually makes some sense to me. Sometimes I think I understand HDR & EDR theory, and then suddenly that illusion falls apart. Although I would have expected that even if the values did get clamped, pushing up the exposure while in develop mode would extend them again. This also makes some sense. If the image uses linear values but the system interprets them as exponential (i.e. gamma adjusted) then it compresses the darker values and expands the lighter ones. Yet this gave me the most realistic result. The ICC option crushed everything at the highlight end. I'm guessing the curve mapping applied gamma adjustments but the system assumed linear still. Unexpectedly it even washed out the black of the interface surrounding the image. On a related observation, while Preview indicates a profile of Apple Embedded Colour, Affinity indicates the colour space under EXIF is uncalibrated. This is essentially the combination I mention as being too dark, then becoming less saturated when levels are increased. Note that I'm talking about having to go to the maximum exposure just to be realistic brightness for a normally exposed image, and then it becomes very flat. As a picture is worth a thousand keystrokes, I've attached images of various combinations of settings. Most of them are screen shots of the images open in Affinity, but I've also included the original DNG as well as a screen shot of it open in Apple's Photos and exported as a PNG for comparison. On my screen at least, the Photos presentation, Preview and quicklook are all close to being identical. But I can't get the Affinity Photo treatment to come close without requiring a lot of "corrections". Hopefully the filenames will indicate what they relate to. It feels like the ProRAW file has an embedded profile reflecting the behaviour of Apple's devices, and this profile is being used by Quicklook, Preview and Photos, but ignored by Affinity. Original.DNG

I'm having difficulties understanding EDR / not able to make it work in Affinity Photo 1.10.5. I have a Mac Studio running Monterey (12.4) connected to an 8K LG TV for a monitor (LG 65NANO95) through a DENON HDR compatible receiver. The option for HDR is available in Display Preferences, and activating it causes the TV to show a HDR badge. The DENON shows it's passing through a 12bit HDR10 YCbCr 4:2:2 signal with profile BT2020. I take a ProRAW photo with my iPhone 12 Pro, and open it in Affinity. Depending on the various assistant settings it can look quite washed out, or alternatively underexposed. I've found that if the assistant is set to Apple core image RAW Apply tone curve on (off and it's too dark) Display transform is unmanaged (ICC makes it washed out) Then I will get a nice looking photo which resembles what I expect / version displayed in Photos. Problem is ticking the EDR option has no effect on the image. It indicates a max 3.35 / +1.74EV and ticking EDR clipping shows affected areas when I push up the exposure, but the image itself doesn't change when EDR is on (other than the clipping indicator when that's on). On the other hand, if I set the following: Serif Labs engine all assistant options to no action Display transform to ICC Then the image initially appears very dark, and I have to thrust exposure up to +5 to bring it up to realistic levels, but the image loses saturation. However flicking the EDR setting on and off does at least show a difference in the highlights. This behaviour isn't what I would expect. I'd be hoping that there would be some combination of settings which open the initial image in a reasonable state, and turning on the EDR option would allow the highlights to shine even brighter. What is it I'm doing wrong?

IMHO I consider the main advantage of the current 3 product Affinity suite is being a cost effective alternative to Adobe software, plus a bit more streamlined. Even more than that is the advantage of it being young software – an opportunity for the developers to work from the start with a clear idea of how things should be done from a user's perspective. I also agree that getting in to video editing or other quite disparate offerings would be a tremendous undertaking. Even Adobe (and Apple) products were often purchased from other developers. What I could imagine as being possible and highly desirable would be web design / HTML editing software. There are a lot of synergies with the current suite and I have been searching for years for something which approached the task as efficiently as Serif does with their products. Every product I find seems to do one part well, but feels like the developer then gave up finishing it. I have longed for a (cost effective) product which would combine drag and drop UI with hand coded HTML. Flux was close but very buggy. Imagine having an html editor with StudioLink? A variation on Publisher with CSS & Javascript panes. To me, that forth package would round out the suite perfectly. I would be willing to pay 2x the price of Publisher to have that. I know it isn't a simple thing. Personally I look at the Affinity suite and wonder how Serif managed to create something of such quality and still be in the 1.x version. That is my dream and I cross my fingers that something is already happening behind the scenes.