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timlt

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Everything posted by timlt

  1. +1. Batch tool in AP + macros, pretty powerful. It's certainly true you can't do as much as Adobe "actions" plus scripting options, so if you're expecting that, need to reset your expectations a bit. But you can definitely do a lot more than you may realize at first glance.
  2. I have Paintshop Pro 2020. It's a standalone app not a plugin, but it INCLUDES a few plugins, two of which I've already confirmed worked nicely with Affinity Photo. They are: * Pic-to-Painting (you download this one after installing PSP 2020). I found the plugin file and was able to point to that in Affinity and get it working. * Particleshop. This like a 'dynamic brush engine' that includes really fancy brushes. This one works in many apps: Photoshop, PSP 2020, and Affinity.
  3. Thanks @Patrick Connor, that actually helps. Because if I have metadata created/tagged in other apps (for example, I use Daminion home server now for tagging, searching, etc. all my file assets including images with metadata), at least I can be sure that if I open/edit/save those images in Affinity, the metadata will be persisted not overwritten. For me that's the main thing. The ability to WRITE metadata to all the IPTC extension fields is a 'nice to have', for me personally, I can get by ok without that since I manage my assets in other tools outside of Affinity. Thanks again.
  4. Thanks Patrick. Is it possible at this time to say that Affinity (version Xyz) fully supports all "IPTC core" and "IPTC extension" metadata fields (both specifications are here)? If the team could do that, I think personally, it would put to rest this issue for me and other users who use metadata. Obviously we'd still test, but would be helpful to know if in a current beta release and the intent of the team, all those fields are present and accounted for.
  5. Yep, says it right on their web page. But it crashed in 1.7x, crashes in 1.8x. Calls to their support and issues submitted via their webform go unanswered. Cool app. Terrible customer service.
  6. For those trying to use plugins with 1.8, here's my experience to date with plugins that were designed for Photoshop: Luminar 4.1: works with minor glitches that I'm not sure have any impact on the data. I use even on final quality photos, but with caution, paying attention to the output. Note that Luminar does not promise that this plugin is Affinity compatible. GRFX Studio Pro: Does not work at all...crashes the plugin and Affinity. Advertises that it DOES work with Affinity. AutoFX did not respond to 6 attempts at reaching out through phone calls and their online form for support. GRFX Studio is actually a great plugin, but it only currently works in Photoshop and Corel Paintshop Pro. PictoPainting: Works Corel Particleshop: Works. This is great, means you can add those fancy Corel 'dynamic' brushes to Affinity.
  7. Posted by @tiffany111 Posted Wednesday at 03:38 AM About plug-in support: Is Luminar 4 a supported plug in ?? I use Luminar 4.1 and the plugin is recognized in Affinity 1.8. I can send photos from Affinity into Luminar, edit, and round-trip back into Affinity. There is some odd behavior suggesting to me that the support is not complete or 100%. For example, some of the editing menus in Luminar that display metadata about the photo (most notable, the filename itself) are garbled. Which suggests that possibly, not all data is being exchanged reliably between the two apps. But when I make ordinary edits on a photo in Luminar and send it back to Affinity, it appears all the changes are retained. I would say that support appears to be promising, but not complete. As is always the case with plugins, it's not clear whether the lack of compatibility issues lie with Affinity or the company that makes the plugin, and it's ALSO not clear if either company is working on the issue or prioritizing it. Luminar is clearly prioritizing becoming a standalone application, and they really only promote full compatibility with the Adobe apps. From one user to another, I'd say use Luminar as an Affinity plugin with caution, and definitely test thoroughly before using with any production quality photos.
  8. Too late for me--been burned twice on this issue and that's enough. I'm not gonna take any more chances with metadata being lost on my old files.
  9. In case anyone is curious about what fields are in the IPTC Core schema (which I think, IS supported by Affinity), and the Extension schema (which is not), here is the current standards doc at the IPTC site that lists and explains all the metadata fields that are in each schema: https://www.iptc.org/std/photometadata/specification/IPTC-PhotoMetadata-2019.1.html
  10. Agree with the above comments. As I've started a big organizing project with old family photos--over 5000 of them, many of them tagged with various IPTC attributes--I will not be able to let Affinity photo touch those files. That is so disappointing, I wanted to like and use Affinity! So after all the testing of various apps I've done recently, I thought we'd reached a point where I could use Affinity as the photo editor piece, but now I find I still can't trust it with my old files as it may overwrite, omit, or 'lose' some of the metadata. What I'm back to as the fallback plan: I will continue my 10/month Adobe subscription with Photoshop and Lightroom. Photoshop will not overwrite or 'lose' my metadata values on my old files. Recently purchased Daminion home server edition for cataloging and managing all my files. As was said above, Daminion seems to be fully compliant with IPTC/XMP metadata. A similar app I tested before buying Daminion--which is also fully compliant with IPTC/XMP--is Imatch Anywhere. But I liked Daminion slightly better. Another nice thing I found with Daminion is that it plays very nicely with Lightroom as far as metadata tagging, both apps are standards compliant and so far that I've seen, both will recognize and respect the metadata tags set by the other. I will still keep my copy of Affinity around and hoping it reaches a point where I can use it again. Maybe by 2.0? Of course then, I'd have to buy a new copy though. Right now for me, it's gonna have to go on a back shelf.
  11. Me too--I tested XMP support and thought it all looked good. Didn't realize that IPTC attributes would be lost (I haven't been using those). Hope this support will be added for full compatibility with other photo editors and management apps. Sadly....this means I'm back to using Photoshop with my Adobe subscription until this is fixed. I was about to start editing and organizing thousands of old family photos, a good number of those have IPTC attributes set on them. I hate to, as I prefer Affinity UI to Photoshop. But I cannot afford to be saving my family photos in non-standard file formats. And the current released non-beta version of AP is a long way from providing standard metadata support.
  12. Agree. That should NOT be happening with the latest AP beta, I did some testing, it was carrying through all common metadata field properties on a file. ETA: OK I see in other thread this is talking about certain IPTC properties, I was testing XMP. That is not good--hopefully next beta gets this added.
  13. And we're there. I just stumbled across this thread, but it's worth updating to note that the CR3 support is in and working in the 1.8 Beta. And loving it!
  14. Ah...now THAT makes sense. The thumbnail support for the proprietary file types.....not something I use, but I get why you'd want that. Also I could never figure why so many on this forum in other threads mentioned they used Xnview, this must be "the reason" in most cases, that it supports Affinity filetype thumbnails. Mystery solved! 😎
  15. Interesting--so you think it's a Mac-OS-specific thing? Have you heard that from other Mac users too? FWIW, my machines that it runs well on are all Windows. So I guess that aligns with your experience there.
  16. Can you reproduce the exact same behavior on a second computer configured with similar hardware and operating system? If not, I suspect it's a computer-specific issue. Doesn't make it any less frustrating for you, of course. But may not be a universal issue for all Bridge users. I currently have it installed on 2 PC's at home, 1 at work, not seeing any of those issues. But free admit I haven't tested it with hundreds of thousands of photos or anything at a huge scale, so I don't know how its performance (or the performance of ANY graphics app I use) would perform under those conditions.
  17. Just wondering but....if you have Adobe Bridge for free to use with the Affinity apps, what's the appeal of using XnviewMP at all? I've tried Xnview, I realize it is free anyway, and it has some added functionality that Bridge doesn't have (however, note that Bridge's implementation of IPTC/XMP metadata is more cross-platform standards-compliant than Xnview's is, for those who care). But given that the Affinity products like Photo can handle RAW files, and have a batch processor for things like converting many files at once, I'm not really seeing what Xnview gives you that's useful compared to the combined features of Bridge plus Aff Photo or Designer. With Bridge you can: import files directly from your camera, export to JPGs, create collections, bulk metadata tag many files (manually or using a common template you create for values that are always the same on your files), have a customizable file viewer for almost any type of supported graphic format including most RAW formats, and more. If you have an Adobe subscription Bridge is even more useful, you get direct integration with Adobe Camera RAW, which now lets you bulk RAW images, and save snapshots of your settings. You can even write custom scripts to extend Bridge's functionality. I've found a few of those on the Adobe Exchange site. After trying both it and Xnview and a few other graphics asset manager apps both paid and free, I uninstalled Xnview and stuck with Bridge.
  18. Agree with you both. Serif are doing outstanding work in offering us a viable solution to the behemoth--Adobe. They've started with the traditional buy-and-own-forever business model for software, which seems like it's still in demand and I think 100% of the people I know, including software developers where I work, prefer that traditional purchasing model to Adobe' 100% rent-forever subscription model. On top of that, Serif's pricing for their apps is very competitive, you get a lot of value for each of those $50 apps. Besides the pricing model, they've built up the three great apps: Photo, Designer, Publisher, to compete straight-up against Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. I still agree with the general impulse behind the OP, and this thread: even though Serif are doing an awesome job with their standalone 3 apps, to TRULY compete and offer an end-to-end solution that's an alternative to the Adobe software ecosystem, it's helpful if Serif could eventually offer some type of integrated DAM solution as well. An app that helps us to manage our graphics assets, and that smoothly integrated with the 3 standalone apps we have today. This is going to help Serif ultimately, because many many users out there would then view Serif as a complete 100% replacement to Adobe. I know for myself, if Serif comes up with a respectable DAM offering--I won't need Adobe apps anymore at all. But as @Ulysses said, we can get by today. There are various DAM apps which will integrate adequately with the Serif apps to the extent you can get by. What I'm doing now to get that functionality is that I use a combo of Adobe Lightroom, and Adobe Bridge, together with Affinity Photo and Designer. Lightroom lets me set Aff Photo as my photo manager, and then I can right-click a photo in LR and it'll launch Photo to edit any file in Lightroom's catalog. And with Bridge--which is free to download for all users by the way--I can do metadata tagging, create collection, etc, for any type of graphics asset (not just photos, but vector formats too), other media file types (video, audio), and even PDF files. It's the ultimate file viewer, file manager, metadata bulk tagger, and organizer (collections, etc.) for these file types. And you don't even need a subscription to use it!
  19. The title says it all: I wondered if non-destructive RAW edits that can be SAVED (in a database, in XMP sidecar files, etc., as well as having the history/steps be captured in the history panel as with current normal photo editing) is on the roadmap for Affinity Photo? Either in the app itself, or in a companion RAW processor or DAM application that will handle RAW edits and provide smooth inter-op with Affinity Photo.
  20. Just me--I've tried the Canon DPP as recently as 2 weeks ago, it is a no-go. Not only is the UI clunky and hard to use, the collection and file management features are virtually useless, etc. But on top of that, DPP does not produce as good results with RAW files as I can get with other RAW processors that handle CR3 (including or especially: Adobe camera raw/Lightroom, Skylum Luminar 4, and now, Affinity Photo). And worst of all, DPP is mind-numbingly SLOOOOWWWWWW. Try this experiment: take a batch of 20 good-sized RAW CR3 photos of 20mb each, or more. Convert to 16-bit tif. Time how long it takes. Now perform this same test in ACR/Lightroom (if you have it), or in Affinity Photo beta. It's not even close! conversion times ranged between 10x and 15x longer in DPP, every time I tested. Anyway, can you tell that I'm not a DPP fan? 🙂 Anyway good news for this thread and back on topic: with the latest Afffinity beta update, CR3 works great and my RAW handling problems in the beta are fixed! Hopefully @kobu you are now up and running as well.
  21. Wow what a breakthrough. Just installed the Affinity Photo latest beta 1.8.0.555, available here. For the first time since I got my new Canon camera (which uses .CR3 RAW file format), I can use it with Affinity's raw processor. I've not had a chance yet to test it extensively, to see the quality of the output, and questions like can Affinity handle the compressed ("C-RAW") CR3 format. That's worth checking, as many apps out there which say they work with CR3, will choke on the CR3 compressed C-RAW files and produce bad output (Luminar 4, I'm looking at you). My quick preliminary check seems to show that Affinity handles the compressed C-RAW files just fine. But either way, it's great to see this progress with the Affinity beta. I'd add to that the ever-improving support for IPTC/XMP metadata handling, there are more of the standard XMP metadata fields supported now and enough that Affinity should be a viable alternative to anybody who extensively tags their files with metadata. I've tested the compatibility of the metadata support. Affinity has implemented this 'right' as far as I can tell, by which I mean they've followed the standards and if you tag a given XMP attribute in Affinity, the value will show up correctly if you open the same file in other IPTC/XMP standards-based metadata tools, such as Adobe Bridge or Lightroom. That is a big win because it means you have better inter-op between Affinity and other photo or file management tools. For example, you could use Lightroom classic as your photo management/tagging app, and specify Affinity as your photo editor, and all the metadata values will be compatible between the apps. For me this makes Affinity once again a live option and a strong competitor to Photoshop. Thank you and keep up the great work guys!
  22. The Unsplash stock photo service--which Affinity Photo makes accessible in the Stock plugin--just acquired major new photo assets which will be publicly accessible. https://www.dpreview.com/news/3125341391/unsplash-partners-with-major-institutions-to-add-modern-and-historical-images-to-its-library
  23. No. The OPTION to use one's OWN cloud storage provider, alongside local storage. Specifically NOT an Affinity managed cloud solution, the lack of flexibility of that approach, and the rigid pricing structure, is already evident with Adobe's current Lightroom "cloudy" subscription, it's turning a lot of people off and away from Adobe. Any DAM solution should be a modern "cloud friendly" solution, meaning you can select your cloud storage provide (dropbox/onedrive/gdrive/other) and use that if desired, with good performance and no 'file corruption' due to the syncing process. But that should be alongside local storage, since some users will want to be entirely local (for example, hosting their entire collection on a local NAS server), while other like me, will use a hybrid solution that includes cloud storage AND a local external drive or NAS. By doing this, they are simply making the solution useful for a wider range of users, and there is less lock-in which is a big turn-off, as Adobe is finding.
  24. With Affinity's strong track record on the individual editor apps and publisher, if they produce an integrated DAM with solid metadata support, syncing files in a cloud-based world and not tied to one PC like the badly outdated Lightroom Classic (with its SQLite database that wants to live on a single computer), I would buy it tomorrow--sight unseen. Seriously. They produce a nicely integrated DAM, then they'd have a killer end-to-end integrated graphics development system that would be hard to beat.
  25. Ah, cool. That's something I haven't tried. How do you first select the eyes so that it will apply color change just to those areas? ETA: never mind, I figured it out. Used the elliptical section tool to select eyes, then the recolor adjustment layer as you said.
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