Travelling Man

In fairness, Linux has been "the future" for years - but it still isn't converting many people.  Mainly because most flavours of it have always been so impenetrable for anyone that is not a tech geek.  I think we can be sure that OSX is going to be around a while yet - while it may be Unix under the hood, the user experience is so much better.

it is unlikely that adobe stops developing around its proprietary file format. however, affinity phot use s a proprietary format too, so imho there's no point in switching from photoshop to affinity due to adobe's file format.
there is only one solution to this issue, and it would be that all countries in the world issued laws that oblige software vendors to publish complete specifications of their data formats for free. this way, anyone can write new software that reads and write those formats.
however, in the long run, the only way to guarantee a truly long life to our photographs, is to print them (but i would not print them to paper). even open or well documented and "standard" formats, like tiff or jpeg or png, can (i said "can", not "will") become a vintage thing over time, when new image coding standard make them obsolete due to new features that new formats will implement and support.

You are not really missing anything. The missing ingredient is AP having a digital asset manager (DAM) to work with. In this respect they are planning to create their own but there is not much more info than that. 

Considering doing a multiuser DAM would involve writing both client and server software (along with all the complexities that leads to) and dealing with the amount of data that has to be sent back and forth between the client and server, it could be a while (if ever) before there will be a DAM of that type on the market.

Yes. I heard this previously, Callum. :D  
 
I think it's been almost a year now (heard at the intro to your Affinity Photo). Just wondering about time line b/c there's been lots of new product development at Affinity, just not this segment (Digital Asset Management is what I assume you mean by DAM). Is it not  enough of a WB (whiz-bang) product for you?
 
Whizzy or not, it's what would make the product(s) useful for me and tie it together so I can make the break from your competitors' finicky, outdated and frankly, overly-expensive software. If you are going to have a go-to product line, this is, IMO what you need to make it so. Thinking that I'm not alone in this request.
 
Hope it's soon!  :wub:

We’re almost halfway into 2016 and still no news of a release - or even a beta.   What with this and other promised features and bug fixes, I do wonder if all Mac development has stopped in favour of Windows.  Both AP and AD are littered with idiosyncrasies and missing features.  So, along with many others, I’m feeling less enthusiastic than I was a year ago.

Since development for windows has been launched, we can see any updates for mac users. Don't let us down. I hope mac version will always in advance with windows version.

After having read the latest comments I think something is missing. Should Affinity developers come out with a DAM capable of rivaling with Lightroom, that software should also be capable of accepting all the LR edits to the raw files that are saved on the Sidecar files attached to the original raw files.
I think that a large majority of LR users have opted for the raw file + sidecar combination. And of course importing an entire Lightroom library should maintain the file structure and all the keywords and labels (stars, flags, colour markings, geotags etc.). Quite a development task with huge risks. There would be no problems for those starting from a clean table but for the rest of us and for serious photographers the change from LR would be perilous. So, let's hope AP developers wil improve the integration between AP and LR.

The entire  AP relationship with plugins and LR needs attention really. I can't see me dropping PS until that is sorted - as you say there is too much hassle involve.
 
Its ok making the software feature rich but the basic functionality is important also.

TIFF layer support will be in version 1.5 of Photo and Designer.
 
Loading of TIFF layers created by Photoshop will be supported (but not saving).  We have also added support for saving Affinity layer data back to TIFF files, for better supporting DAMs via TIFF.

It is never easy to switch. Some try but are really looking for reasons not to. It perhaps helps justify costs/subscriptions etc.

BTW: Your excellent videos really sell these products more than anything else. I'll watch them and go, "wow, I didn't know it could do that... and so easily." Then, I'll tell a friend about your apps, suggest they just check out a couple videos, and then every single person I've pointed to the videos have ended up buying the software too. 
 
Great stuff. Thanks!

I have several photos where I wish to cut our a selection from each and then bring those selections together as a single image. Is this possible within AP?
 
Many thanks
 
Sorry....... should have searched the forum first. Have found some info on this now :-)

I have similar problems when I hand off images from LightRoom to be edited in AP.  It creates a .TIFF in the Lightroom catalog but when I save, the photo is saved as with .afphot extension.  The only way to get it back into LR seamlessly as a .TIFF is to select "Document->Flatten" first.  Then the changes show up in LR right away.  I appreciate having the .afphot file to allow further edits later, but it would  make a more convenient workflow if Save option in AP offered the opportunity to save a Flattened .TIFF for LR and the .afphot for future editing.  Just a little more LR awareness, please.  At least until Affinity comes out with it's own Digital Asset Management program to replace LR.  

There are many similarities and I would recommend you download the free trial and test it out. You will not be disappointed. In my view it is the best alternative to PS out there and it is still early in the version cycle. It has all the functionality you mention.

The subscription/purchase discussion has been a hot subject since Adobe announced their CC version. Personally I prefer the purchase option for a couple of reasons - I already had the base products and the upgrade cost was not that much when compared to someone who would have to buy the initial product at a much higher price and I was not sure that I wanted to continue to upgrade yearly. That is, I thought that at some point I would stop upgrading and be able to keep and use the (purchased) apps that I already had. I could not do that with the subscription.
 
However, having said that, the truth is that deciding to keep your purchased products and continue using them also implies that you intend to keep your OS and other products and not upgrade them since an OS upgrade could easily cause your purchased products to stop working. Thus, in a sense, stopping and keeping an existing product like Photoshop implies the freezing of your entire system. If not now, then sometime in the future.
 
The subject is a bit complex and, I think, people are more driven by their fears (Adobe is going to raise the monthly fee to something I can not pay and then I will have to buy the product or find an alternative) than by a simple analysis of their options. While I think that my decision to not move to the subscription model was right in that I now have replaced PS with Affinity Photo and I have a purchased copy of Lightroom. Since I use LR very little I think my decision was right for me, but I sometimes think that others who decide to stay on the purchase model may not be thinking of the consequences down the road.

What would be really nice is the development of a DAM that behaves in much the same way as LR in that it is also a RAW editor. That said, I would be happy if an Adobe Bridge type of DAM was developed with the RAW processing functionality within Photo being enhanced a little. As you say, sometimes we only need to tweak the raw file.