Ludgateman

Does anyone know of a good file viewer/organiser program that would suit me? I need to be able to see thumbnails of afphoto, orf (Olympus raw), jpg and tiff files.
    * Olympus Viewer 3 can show thumbnails for all except afphoto (and doesn't even show a default icon for them)
    * Windows Explorer can show thumbnails for all except orf
    * XnViewerMP can show thumbnails for all except afphoto (it detects the presence of an afphoto file but doesn't show a thumbnail)
 
 

Hi Affinity team.

During the last days I tested the Windows version of Affinity Photo 1.5.1 and checked out those parts most important to me: RAW processing, HDR/Tone mapping and stitching Panoramas. (The video tutorials are great for newbies concerning your software.) I am happy to see all these features under a common hood and working reasonably well (although there are issues like the wrong histogram displayed in Develop persona which will refrain me from using Photo as default RAW software for now.)

What I want to achieve:
For years now I'm accustomed to create HDR images from a single RAW file instead a series of JPG or RAW files. The benefit is that there are no problems with motion (and thus ghosting) in the image, and no softness as a potential side-effect of the automatic alignment of handheld shots. Today's DSLR cameras create RAW images which can easily compensate 3 EV steps.
(Depending on sensor size and ISO, the downside can be higher noise in dark areas, but that's acceptable for me.)

My conventional approach is to develop 3-5 differently exposed JPG images (usually with different noise reduction settings) and then creating the HDR from these. This approach is very cumbersome with Affinity Photo, which does not even remember the RAW conversion settings I last used by default. Once a RAW file is developed, the Develop persona is closed and I have to start over for the next exposure. (In contrast to a dedicated raw converter like Canon's DPP or Nikon's NX-D where this is a no-brainer and easily done.)

But maybe Affinity has a better approach?

What if you could develop the raw file and apply a tone mapping without JPGs inbetween? Lets see, Photo Persona works in 32 bit, and RAW files can be developed to 32 bit HDR. Sounds promising.
 
1. I import the RAW file, disable applying the tone curve and leave the exposure-related settings untouched.
2. Then I put the developed 32 bit image into the Tone mapping persona -> Voilá, a developed HDR image.
 
And what if I have a panorama of single RAW images which needs HDR processing?
 
1. You can start a "New batch job", select the RAW files to process and choose EXR as output format.
2. Then you can continue creating the panorama with "New panorama" and select the EXR files as shown in the HDR panorama video tutorial.
3. After the panorama has been stitched, it can be tone mapped in the Tone Mapping persona.
 
Cool - this is a real time saver and more flexible regarding adjustments compared to my previous workflows which would mean first tone mapping every HDR image and then stitching the (hopefully equally exposed) JPGs together.
 
Matthias.

15 years ago, on honeymoon I took a set of photos (no, not THAT sort of photo, behave yourselves!) as handheld shots of the sunset, with the thought that one day I'd turn them into a panorama shot. Now, all this time later, with AP's brilliant Panorama mode and Tone Mapping / HDR abilities, I've finally got the shot I imagined! Thanks Affinity
Warwick Fiji Panorama HDR.tiff

15 years ago, on honeymoon I took a set of photos (no, not THAT sort of photo, behave yourselves!) as handheld shots of the sunset, with the thought that one day I'd turn them into a panorama shot. Now, all this time later, with AP's brilliant Panorama mode and Tone Mapping / HDR abilities, I've finally got the shot I imagined! Thanks Affinity
Warwick Fiji Panorama HDR.tiff

15 years ago, on honeymoon I took a set of photos (no, not THAT sort of photo, behave yourselves!) as handheld shots of the sunset, with the thought that one day I'd turn them into a panorama shot. Now, all this time later, with AP's brilliant Panorama mode and Tone Mapping / HDR abilities, I've finally got the shot I imagined! Thanks Affinity
Warwick Fiji Panorama HDR.tiff

15 years ago, on honeymoon I took a set of photos (no, not THAT sort of photo, behave yourselves!) as handheld shots of the sunset, with the thought that one day I'd turn them into a panorama shot. Now, all this time later, with AP's brilliant Panorama mode and Tone Mapping / HDR abilities, I've finally got the shot I imagined! Thanks Affinity
Warwick Fiji Panorama HDR.tiff

Wowee! The miles of beauty you caught in that panorama. And one, lone female beach comber about to be attacked by something rising out of the surf. Hmmm.  :P
 
If that panorama doesn't bring back 15-yr old pleasant memories, nothing will! Wonderful work, wonderful colors, intense cloud formations!

15 years ago, on honeymoon I took a set of photos (no, not THAT sort of photo, behave yourselves!) as handheld shots of the sunset, with the thought that one day I'd turn them into a panorama shot. Now, all this time later, with AP's brilliant Panorama mode and Tone Mapping / HDR abilities, I've finally got the shot I imagined! Thanks Affinity
Warwick Fiji Panorama HDR.tiff

Hi Ludgateman
That's an amazing place. Seems one of those paradisiac islands in south pacific or similar. Where is this?
Great work :)

"Warwick Fiji" in the filename is probably a bit of a clue! ^_^ It's a luxury holiday resort in Korolevu, on the Coral Coast in Fiji.
 
@Ludgateman: Great pano, BTW.

15 years ago, on honeymoon I took a set of photos (no, not THAT sort of photo, behave yourselves!) as handheld shots of the sunset, with the thought that one day I'd turn them into a panorama shot. Now, all this time later, with AP's brilliant Panorama mode and Tone Mapping / HDR abilities, I've finally got the shot I imagined! Thanks Affinity
Warwick Fiji Panorama HDR.tiff

15 years ago, on honeymoon I took a set of photos (no, not THAT sort of photo, behave yourselves!) as handheld shots of the sunset, with the thought that one day I'd turn them into a panorama shot. Now, all this time later, with AP's brilliant Panorama mode and Tone Mapping / HDR abilities, I've finally got the shot I imagined! Thanks Affinity
Warwick Fiji Panorama HDR.tiff

15 years ago, on honeymoon I took a set of photos (no, not THAT sort of photo, behave yourselves!) as handheld shots of the sunset, with the thought that one day I'd turn them into a panorama shot. Now, all this time later, with AP's brilliant Panorama mode and Tone Mapping / HDR abilities, I've finally got the shot I imagined! Thanks Affinity
Warwick Fiji Panorama HDR.tiff

I have PhotoZoom Pro 6 and I'm favourably impressed with it. I've attached the result of enlarging your avatar to 400% of its original size using the 'Photo - Regular' preset in PhotoZoom; I can't see how to achieve a comparable result in Affinity Photo.

I've just quickly tested this and all appears okay.  I was able to load an image, apply some of the effects and they got passed back to Affinity Photo.  I haven't tested every feature of the plugin but hopefully someone else will comment who has.  
 
Please note, the AutoFX we sell does only work on Windows.

Personally I would prefer a quality printed book / manual to a PDF. PDF is fine as an accompaniment, but not as a sole source of info.

Looking at all the requests I get the impression that no one is satisfied. I think it's a very good program, although there are some glitches, but why ask for premium if you don't want to pay for premium (PS).
 

I hope it comes with a RAW processor and the option to hand over image to other apps in a non destructive way to the original files.