axoloth

Please, oh, please save us all from %@#$! Adobe Lightroom and add cloud-based Digital Asset Management (DAM) to Affinity Photo (or as its own app).

I only posted it because a tech from Affinity asked me to do so.

Hello,
I have been working with Affinity Photo for quite a while and I love it.  B U T it is annoying to always export pictures i have worked on.  I'll explain. I often work on pictures and  and I have to select some of the worked on pictures for comparison, or because I need some pictures for a special purpus. Up to now, so far as I know, there are only two ways to select my photos.
1. each photo that i have worked on and have saved  must be opened in Affinity Photo which means, that this will take a lot of time and there is no possibility for comparison.
2. The other possibility is to export all these photos, save them as jpegs and then use a different Viewer or DMA to compare the selected pictures. This is really annoying, as it will fill my hard disk in no time, because  each photo will be on the drive in two versions. An unchanged one and a developed one.
It would save time and space if you develloped a database for  Affinity Photo, that shows all photos that are saved as ' aphoto '
As much as I love Affinity Photo, I will have to change to other software if there will not be such a database in future

Good evening,
I think all Affinity suite software needs a DAM, not just Affinity photo.
Indeed, professionals or advanced amateurs easily have thousands of documents to classify, index, tag, note...
And it is the native files that must be organized in this way (not the exports who have only occasionals use).
I hope to see one day a DAM in Affinity which allows to organize in the same way all the native files of Affinity and why not, any type of files.

Don't see any mention of an SDK for the format, anywhere,;but not sure why any developer would implement support for it when PSD is basically the lingua franca, these days.  IMO, it's "good enough" that the Affinity Apps share a common format.  That way I can do all work within them, and then just export the PSD or EPS file to use in e.g. Resolve or Fusion.
Even if they did make it easily available to implement for others, I'm not sure developers would relish at the chance to chase yet another file format.
The same way they pretty much ignore PaintShop Pro's native format and other "competitors" to PSD.
I think this will be a non-factor once Serif develops a DAM, which maybe "next."  I honestly hope it isn't a video editor, because software like Resolve [Studio] and iMovie/Final Cut Pro X pretty much cover that at low, perpetual pricing - on both major platforms.
I suppose support for it in i.e. batch converting applications can be useful...

I need a DAM which has similar features as LR and is CAPABLE OF IMPORTING MY LR CATALOGUE!
I understand this is a tall order, considering Adobe having worked at it for many years. However, I am still very hopeful.
Thanks,
Peter
 

Hi. 
Im a fan and i really enjoy using affinity products. Just wanted to share my wishlist for 1.x versions. I’d like to know if there is any current plans for these. Cheers. 

Sorry but i don't think so.
Files afphoto saved before the 1.7.1 version of Affinity Photo can be read by AcdSee (thumbnails and preview).
Files afphoto saved after the  1.7.1 version can't be read by AcdSee (no thumbnails, no preview)...
The phenomenon can be seen on AcdSee Studio 2018 which has not been updated since, and also with the latest version of AcdSee Pro 2019 ...

I think the coincidence is too big to be an AcdSee bug, especially without no update.

I will report that to acdsee but I really think they are not for nothing .
thanks

The DAM I need should look like LightRoom.
The ranking of RAW files must be at the same level as the proprietary files. the DAM must be able to handle RAW and Affinity files the same way.
The files must be able to be sorted quickly (stars or colors), to be classified in physical folders whose tree meets a set of criteria.
Virtual classifications must also be possible (LR dynamic collections) by keywords, dates, badges ...
I imagine this tool as a new persona able to manage the import of RAW files automatically in libraries (for example when inserting an SD card, like LightRoom).
We must be able to simply move photos without breaking their referencing / ranking in libraries.
In short, LightRoom is a reference in the field, if first version takes the big ideas of the DAM LightRoom, it would be great!

HI,
Effectively, windows' explorer show the thumbnails.

I have an answer from Acdsee team : "actually for the moment version 1.7 is not supported by ACDSee and I think that even in Photoshop it does not work. ".

I have to wait... if only Affinity had a DAM... we would not have to switch several software ... but this is another debate ...
 

I confirm...
Sorry, that's not a bug.

Honestly I always wonder what people here in the forum call Digital Asset Management (DAM) and think it to be. - Nowadays a real DAM solution goes much bejond what people here are suggesting, it's not just for local tagging/classifying/importing/exporting/catalog/browsing/searching/finding/sorting/sharing of images and videos. A real DAM additionally handles and has to deal instead with pretty much all sort of digital media data, it needs/uses enormous flexible metadata, offers collaborative team and huge flexible inquiry features.
 
In short, it is something which is more meant to be used by big agencies, newspapers, companies and the like. It's not something the common single user or casual single photographer uses, thus it goes feature and usability wise much bejond of that what common single user image catalog, browsing software or some RAW converters (things as Lightroom, Aperture etc.) do offer!
 
However, I don't know if Affinity plans to develop what I call a DAM software, or instead something like a single user image and video cataloging software (?).
 
@Travelling Man
 
I too wouldn't call Adobe Bridge to be a real DAM, instead the Adobe Experience Manager comes much closer to my personal understanding of a DAM system!

Bridge isn't really a DAM, though - it's just a file manager/browser. 
 
Faststone Image Viewer - or even Google Picasa - would do that job as well, not to mention being much easier to actually get hold of.

Bpilgrim93,
 
Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums :)
 
We do plan to add a DAM as explained here https://affinity.serif.com/about but as that page explains it is unlikely to appear soon.

If you guys could please release the Digital Asset Manager that I know you guys are working on so hard, I and I'm sure many other people would greatly appreciate! It would make the Affinity experience completely perfect I believe.  It is the one major thing lacking, and the only reason I would think about using something from Adobe now (especially with their rent-an-app model). I believe in you guys!
 

A DAM that does more than photos, but covers all the digital assets from all its packages would go way beyond Lightroom.  But it could also go as far as maintaining version control between asset files e.g. which version of an Affinity Photo edit is used with which version of a Designer doc or Publisher doc. 
By maintaining referential integrity, it could for example warn you that deleting a version will break one of the other documents. Any changes to that version could be automatically replicated in those documents or the user could be given the option of creating a new version, or new versions automatically created if the referencing document is locked.
As a photographer, I would appreciate being able to lock down different versions of photos and the DAM keeping track of where it has been posted e.g. to Facebook, IG, Flickr, Squarespace, etc assuming export plugins are developed for those sites.  Similarly, I’d like to track which versions were used with different publishers, again assuming plugins are created. These plugins could also allow the publisher to pre-set the file export settings so that publishing for print or web becomes seamless.
There are lots of useful features that could be developed along the line of version control to help teams/companies manage complexity.

Luminar has just announced that its latest version offers the functions of catalogs ...
When will the Affinity team understand that this tool is important?
I know a lot of photographers, amaters or pros, who stays at the competition unnaturally because of that ... and others, like me, who is thinking about coming back to Adobe or going to another competitor ...

Yes, it's also a big advantage.
In LightRoom, for example, you can choose to edit a photo (from RAW or an LR file) in Photoshop. Once the modifications are complete in Photoshop, the modified file appears in the DAM as a PSD (or TIF I do not remember).
This is the kind of feature that would like to see one day in Affinity, it would be even more powerful because we would stay in Affinity, we would not switch to another software ...

If Serif does that, they will become the big boss of the market!

Luminar has just announced that its latest version offers the functions of catalogs ...
When will the Affinity team understand that this tool is important?
I know a lot of photographers, amaters or pros, who stays at the competition unnaturally because of that ... and others, like me, who is thinking about coming back to Adobe or going to another competitor ...

The DAM I need should look like LightRoom.
The ranking of RAW files must be at the same level as the proprietary files. the DAM must be able to handle RAW and Affinity files the same way.
The files must be able to be sorted quickly (stars or colors), to be classified in physical folders whose tree meets a set of criteria.
Virtual classifications must also be possible (LR dynamic collections) by keywords, dates, badges ...
I imagine this tool as a new persona able to manage the import of RAW files automatically in libraries (for example when inserting an SD card, like LightRoom).
We must be able to simply move photos without breaking their referencing / ranking in libraries.
In short, LightRoom is a reference in the field, if first version takes the big ideas of the DAM LightRoom, it would be great!

The DAM I need should look like LightRoom.
The ranking of RAW files must be at the same level as the proprietary files. the DAM must be able to handle RAW and Affinity files the same way.
The files must be able to be sorted quickly (stars or colors), to be classified in physical folders whose tree meets a set of criteria.
Virtual classifications must also be possible (LR dynamic collections) by keywords, dates, badges ...
I imagine this tool as a new persona able to manage the import of RAW files automatically in libraries (for example when inserting an SD card, like LightRoom).
We must be able to simply move photos without breaking their referencing / ranking in libraries.
In short, LightRoom is a reference in the field, if first version takes the big ideas of the DAM LightRoom, it would be great!

They have been working on a DAM, and making promises, since I first started with the Beta version. Affinity have wasted resources on I Pad versions but not yet finished the main software product. I find this frustrating to say the least

Is the affinity team check the Internet to see what are saying about your softwares ?

Because if you conduct the investigation, you would see taht the most wanted feature is a DAM.
Everywhere in Facebook groups, forums ... it's THE thing that blocks systematically. This is understandable, amateur photographers as professionals use sensibly same workflow that begins with the classification and organization of their photos... it's impossible for a photographer to do without a DAM when he has thousands of photos.
Currently no DAM software seems to be able to read Affinity files ...

If you really want to explode the market, take out THE PROMISED DAM for years or make an agreement with other software like DarkTable ...
You will shadow Adobe only when you'll have a LightRoom equivalent (the dam part of course), in the meantime, photographers monitor, test but do not seriously consider using your software, many will also forget you...

I really think that's DAM should be a priority, what about you ?