[Specify selection size]

On 10/16/2018 at 12:46 AM, anon2 said:

Well, I didn't use the wording "counter intuitive" and I don't expect that all programs should work the way I'm used to. I'm perfectly happy to learn new ways, but once I have, I should be allowed to comment on how well it suits my work flow. When you do a repetitive task, such as cutting out a rectangle of a certain size from a large number of images, it saves a lot of key strokes and reduces the risk of mistakes if I can first define the cutout size and then just click away, rather than having to redefine the selection size in each case.

I would indeed have preferred to stick to Photoshop & Illustrator, but since this is my work and my employer have decided to switch to Affinity I just have to suck it up. That said, I'm generally happy with the Affinity programs and apart from the occasional missing feature they work fine.

 

[Specify selection size]

Have to agree with HaDAk. This is something I do ALL THE TIME in Photoshop, define a size in pixels and then cut out a recatngle with that size from a bunch of photos. Or sometimes define a ratio (H:W) rather than exact size. My employer have recently forced me to switch to Affinity because of Adobe's prices, but I would very much appreciate to be able to predefine the marquee size as with Adobe programs.

[Work flow and file storage]

41 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi svinto,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Affinity Photo wasn't designed to manage libraries the same way as Lightroom or another DAM software does. It doesn't use databases neither XMP sidecar files to store edits, not is able to apply the same settings to a bunch of images from the same photoshoot. It's mostly a RAW converter/developer and photo editing app that offer a similar workflow to Adobe Camera RAW + Photoshop where you typically open a couple RAW's to develop (recover shadows, general tone adjustments etc) then move to Photoshop for further localised editing. In Affinity that would mean open the RAW (which is displayed in Develop Persona) for global adjustments/development (as in Adobe Camera RAW) then pressing Develop to move it to Photo Persona for localised edits (which would be the equivalent to moving to Photoshop for further editing).

Hi MEB,

Thanks for clarifying. I get that, and I always used Bridge + Camera RAW + Photoshop before I had LR. The difference is that when I have gone through that process with Camera RAW I still have the same RAW file (which I can open in any other program) + a puny xmp file of a few kb that allows me to go back and tweak the developing at any time, continuing right where I left off. I just assumed that Affinity worked along the same principle and was very surprised to find that in order to save my edits in a form that allows me to go back and continue to work on the photo where I left off, I have to save in a format that is an order of magnitude larger than the original RAW. Seems like a very odd solution to me, and I'm afraid it will disqualify an otherwise very nice program as my first choice.

[Work flow and file storage]

8 hours ago, Lee D said:

Hi svinto,

Welcome to the forums.

Affinity's workflow to similar to that of LR but its native file sizes are bigger when saved due to how they have been designed. This is typically because developed raw images are processed to 16-bit - it offers more precision but increases file size exponentially. There are a couple of options to check which may reduce the sizes of saved .afphoto files, try the following.

• Go to Document>Colour Format>RGB (8 bit) to convert the image to 8-bit and save file space.
• Go to View>Studio>Snapshots to bring up the snapshots panel. You should see an initial "Background" snapshot. Delete this as it's essentially a backup copy of your image that takes up file size space.

Other users may have different workflows, I tend stick to the basics and have a large external drive to copy everything to. Then occasionally have a good sort through the files, deleting any I don't want anymore.

 

Thank you Lee for these suggestions, but I don't think it would solve my problem. Saving as 8-bit I would throw out most of the information and miss the advantage of working with RAW. The file can only be opened with Affinity, so to retain the flexibility to be able to work on the images in other programs I would still have to save the original RAW file. This significantly increases the amount of storage space and also complicates the organization, having to keep track of two (or three if I want a final JPEG as well) versions of each photo. I may still use Affinity occasionally – it seems to have a number of nice features – but can't see how I could use it for my everyday workflow.

[Work flow and file storage]

Just started to check out Affinity as a possible replacement to Lightroom and have a very basic question. I'm used to save all my RAW files, import them into LR, make adjustments and then export selected photos as JPEGs. My RAWs stays untouched if I want to go back and make new adjustments. Whatever I do in LR is stored separately in a tiny file, so that I don't need to duplicate the actual photo. Thus I have the original RAW and the modified image when I look at the RAW in LR and it takes very little extra space compared to saving just the RAWs. When I have tried Affinity and want to save what I have done it creates a monstrous .afphoto file (a 113 MB file from a 15 MB RAW original). This won't work as a standard way to save my photos. If I work on the RAW and export as JPEG when I'm done I could save the original RAW and the JPEG, but that would mean that I would have to do all developing and adjustments over again if I want to make a slight modification of the photo. I must be missing something here. What is a normal work flow when shooting RAW and building a photo library gradually over time?