WeiPhotoArts

Been dabbling in the Affinity Photo Beta. I’ve been somewhat stymied by the philosophy of the workflow of personas. I’m used to Lightroom (LR), its plugins, and Photoshop. Looking forward to transferring to Affinity. However, how have some Beta users created workflows straight from RAW? Or do you work from LR processing and create Tifs to be processed in Affinity Photo Beta? Here’s where I can best be elucidated: The Affinity and Develop Personas seem to offer similar processes; but they are different—what’s the philosophy behind both? Is there some documentation (with more detail than the videos) that create a crude map of what some workflows can accomplish? Thanks in advance, Wei Chong

Talking about far exceeding expectations in a Beta! I just bought a Nikon D7200 (available just Mar 20), and of course, no one except Nikon had support for NEFs (RAW files). Not Adobe in LR5 nor Photoshop. So I thought just for the hell of it I would just try Affinity Photo Beta to read D7200 NEFs. WoW! The Beta read in the files, and I’ve been able to use the Develop Persona to process the NEFs into Affinity files and Tiffs (I’m sure the other file types will work, with the changes incorporated into the files). I was able to import LR5 the Affinity-processed TIFF file into Adobe LR5. Can you imagine what Affinity can do, being so far ahead of Adobe…in Affinity’s Beta? Affinity’s quick, nimble and more than satisfying our high expectations. FWIW, you need to know that the D7200 NEFs start their process at near RAW (no Nikon coloring); I guess that would be their FLAT mode. But that’s how I want my RAW files to be, with most information packed into file, for later processing. And this finding applies to the Beta I just uploaded, 1.1.2.24216. In another post I will have some ideas for consideration in providing “filters” for the NEF RAW files (as well as Canon’s RAW files) that would incorporate Picture Control (Nikon—or Canon/Sony’s—similar coloring) options. Thanks again, Affinity team.

I also found it difficult to find the "Picker button," even though it was right in front of me. However, I recommend "highlighting it" (maybe with a much lighter gray) when it is selected, and then reverting to its original gray color once the user clicks on the photo to set the white point. Or perhaps a more advanced option to continually select points, until the user feels their white point is really "right." (Of course, you'd have to somehow figure out how to select that really "right" white point, perhaps by clicking the Picker button, again. There must be a better way...

Good: I enjoyed going through a 5-10 min review of Help. I benefited from the Introduction & Personas (being new to Affinity products). While Help was oriented to people familiar to Photoshop, that was fine with me, as I'm in that category. Help was well-written and fairly helpful, although it didn't go into difficult problems (fine with me). I'm hoping that the videos and perhaps an example section will address another way of learning Affinity Photo. Bad: Load time of Help was longer than I expected. Thought the program crashed, without an indication of it loading, but eventually everything worked out. Ugly: Nothing, really.

Andy, Thank you kindly for reading and responding so quickly to your plan for the custom crop aspect and X key. And once us guys across the pond realized you didn't mean (like in hamburgers) as an icon to seek, I found the "Wheel." Am a happy camper. HSL in that way is a winner!

What I like: The Tool bar items are such a great improvement over PS5 and LR5. The basic function remains about the same, but your implementation is so “cool.” Everything works much faster with more precision. I like the healing brush improvements from what I use in PS5 & LR5. I can see what’s being changed easily and quickly--and the healing is spot on. The crop tool is nice, but could use more constraints, including a user-specified one. However, the use of Rotate, rather than the keyboard “X” to change the crop orientation from portrait to landscape is clunky. When the crop goes to portrait, sometimes the crop extends beyond the image, which doesn’t make it the right “constraint.” I like the implementation of the gradient. Seems natural and pleasant. Can the Tool Bar be movable? Photoshop has it initially on the left side, but I find moving it to the right, with the rest of the tools more convenient. Burn/Dodge is great, especially with the “protect hue” button pressed. Implanting is really amazing. Thought your video of the elephant and other examples were just lucky selections. But I tried mine, and OMG, it works... Change your Selection of colors sliders (RGB, RGB-Hex, HSL, etc.). NO NEED to continue the consistency of sliders, which I find so “Photoshopie” (Yeah, that’s a word, but maybe across the Pond you say “Photoshopy.” Why don’t you just borrow your absolutely terrific HSL graphic from Affinity Designer? That’s the best graphic to select colors. However, when I tried to select a yellow from Affinity Photo Beta's RGB, I just was frustrated; yes, I used the color patch, but what yellow was a usual “Photoshopy” By-Guess-and-By-Golly. No need to continue with the past on this one. Oh yes, RGB and RGB-Hex should have the same size (both width-length) color spectrum. But I think that oversight is just Beta. This last point is a “nit”.

When I open RAW (DNG files created from Nikon NEF originals), Affinity Photo seems to render them quite bright and contrasty, as compared to the standard rendering from Lightroom 5. Has anyone else noticed that the reds/oranges are played up, as well as blues/aqua? Very bright and contrasty. Depending upon the image, it is either sorta welcome or just not what I expected (wondering if I actually took the picture, the rendering was so different than LR). Is this what Affinity desired? Or is it just part of the evolving Beta? Just curious.