Search the Community

makes the "linked" option go away and one has to restart?

First of all, thanks for these updates, excited to try out the tools! I do have some issues that I've found after an hour of trying to use this as an alternative to other photo editors that I'd hope to see addressed: 1. A way to save raw edits as XMP instead of requiring the saving of an .afphoto file, the idea of closing down in an ecosystem, particularly with the lack of a DAM, doesn't sound appealing. It sounds like that's kind of what the Embedded and Linked options do, however the Linked option did not actually add any files to my system (I kept watch on any files with the same file name as the photo), so I'm unsure what the difference between the two is. 2. Global presets for RAW edits, instead of one per page. It's a bit confusing as is. Also a way to edit existing presets and save it as such, instead of deleting a preset, remaking it from scratch and saving that. Also this is likely a bug, but when opening a new raw file to edit, the settings are set to Default, but the "selected" preset is the last used one, requiring switching to Default and back to the saved preset to actually change things, sometimes even doing it multiple times, the feature seems quite buggy. Also, ideally a Preset Manager would also be present, to be able to see exactly what each preset does, and potentially tweak from there. 3. Non-destructive cropping is a must. Honestly just something similar to the artboards, so if you crop an image you can adjust the crop later. I could just open the file in ADesigner, but that's an extra step that could be avoided. 3.1. Keep a strict ratio for cropping, but allow to rotate the crop based on mouse position when dragging the crop selection around (see how cropping operates in other apps like Lightroom and Capture One). 4. Split view of photo without edits, or just being able to toggle the raw edits on and off for preview purposes. 5. It's not clear enough that a photo is a RAW file, a button similar to the FX one would work wonders and make it much clearer what it does. 6. There's something about the Overlays panel that feels incomplete, I think it should be closer in look and feel to the Layers panel but then again, how is this better than just duplicating the layer, making the adjustments in that raw layer, and applying a mask to that? Even more powerful then because you can use images and the like. I might add more to the list once I spend more time on this, but so far I'm somewhat disappointed. Non destructive raw editing was a highlight of the announcement, so I thought it's finally a good standalone photo editor. It is clear however that the app development is still walking in the shadow of CameraRaw and while there have been some improvements and additions that are much welcome, I'm sad to say that I'll likely be sticking with Capture One, despite my wishes for that to not be the case, not because of the lack of a DAM (just making that clear), but because of the lack of a good, non destructive, open photo editing flow.

Hi All, There is a significant difference in how the RAW file looks when imported into AP if you use the Serif engine or the Apple engine. That is no news I guess. Apple RAW engine has some default settings that makes the opened RAW file a lot more in the direction of the end result that I like it to be. It is a tat warmer, a bit more pre sharpened and it looks a little more crisp, probably because of some black point and applied curves. I fiddled a bit with these settings to get the look I want, but it is just not getting there. My question is, whether someone else tried this and came up with some settings Apple applies to the RAW file by default. I want to use the Serif engine because it gives me the opportunity to have non destructive RAW processing. I use Canon 80D with CR2 files, but I have the same effect with my faithful Nikon CP P7100 and NRW files. Grtz. H.

My example above is an exaggerated example, you don't need to go this far. As explained, the RAW file contains this information in the way it presents, and will need to be corrected post develop due to it's extreme nature. As we have non destructive RAW editing, and you can bring out your image with the full dynamic range, this should not be an issue. It's not a workaround, it's working around the deficiencies in an image. Lee

I'm on a medium spec PC (Ryzen 5 5600X, RTX2060, 32G Ram) and have no issues opening a 1.05G PSD file (launched from Bridge 2023 into AP2). Personally I'm not having any issues with AP2 at all so far ... unlike AP1 which I stopped using 2.5 years ago (mainly due to (a) Destructive RAW developing and (b) the outstanding Tony Kuyper PS Plugin (TK8). AP2's new masking features now give me (us!) all the core masking of TK8 plus we now have non destructive Raw editing (not possible to open a smart object from PS back into Camera Raw with Adjustments as per AP2's new feature).

In an ideal world it would be great having a centralised file viewer that could save all xmp files holding changes made to RAW files from various products I.e. Affinity, DXOlab, NX Studio. Well this is what I would like but the best tools I can use for viewing are Adobe Bridge or XNVIEW MP. The latter is what I use now as it's fast and free for personal use. Plus it will display affinity files. Without paying a fortune for photo viewer XNVIEW MP is by far the best. All others including paid software will not view affinity files and are extremely slow unless you want to edit in them. Adobe bridge you can download and install as long as you register an account. What I don't like is that Adobe Creative Cloud is installed and bridge is managed and maintained through this service. Bridge requires you to be logged into your account to use the app which I don't like as it means I cannot use Bridge offline. In most cases I view my library in xnview mp and then edit via external editor through xnview depending on which raw editor I need. Dxolabs does not support some of my cheaper nikon lenses so I will use nikon nx studio. These two are best raw editors for NEF files, well for me that is. Affinity is also good but prefer dxolab and nx studio as my first but with Affinity 2.0 the non destructive raw editing is slowly moving up. A bit long but I hope my use of these apps will help you choose the right tools for your work flow.

If you use Apple Photos as your DAM since Affinity has now announced on Twitter replies they are no longer currently working on their own DAM as they had been according to their previous tweets and notes on their website, want to know if non destructive raw edits are preserved. So in Apple Photos when I choose to edit a raw Photo in Affinity and save the changes back to Apple Photos, does it work like Lightroom etc, where is the original raw is still there, and I can reedit later? Meaning the changes are made to the raw and non destructive? This applies to Desktop and iPad. Asked on Twitter, but was told to ask here so assuming the answer is not yes, but rather either will be in a future update, or works partially but not fully. Can someone clarify? Thank you!

Non destructive RAW development is the biggest improvement for V2 - so if you shoot RAW I think it is worth it.

Hi, thanks for the response. Yeah, I found where the propcol files are stored, but the file sizes are so much larger for the V2 versions, so I think I might just start again with V2.. In the attached screenshot the V1 is on the left and V2 on the right with adjustments highlighted. I think it may be a bad idea to copy the V1 files over. Oh well, just a few hours work to mimic some presets and re-save I guess to be safe. Mostly for me it's some film stock specific colour adjustments I have created for processing film scans that I will have to recreate - as they were a lot of work to get right! Everything else seems fine as I said before, assets, styles, macros, LUTs, brushes all moved over - so just the studio & any adjustments and develop presets for people to manually sort out. V2 seems to have some great improvements, and I am very happy with it so far, in Photo I find the export panel much better - it seems much faster, and obviously non destructive RAW is a massive improvement. Designer V2 has some great upgrades too, the shape builder and knife tool are a huge deal. Thanks again!

The are useful shape builder, vector warp and new knife & scissor tools in Designer but in Photo not much innovation yet. Alt least there is some non destructive raw development now.

Hi I feel the same way I bought Photo and designer at the end of May for £47.98 if i update now it will cost another £71.98 this does sting for someone whose been using it less than 6 months*. As some one who is an occasional user of the software I had waited until it was on offer as a result I cannot justify paying the extra for it, this is despite some great features such as non destructive RAW editing. DFX/DWG editing in a drawing package is something I’ve wanted for some time rather than trying to struggle in QGIS, or some unfathomable CAD software. I expected to have to pay for an update eventual but not so soon or so much as a result I will probably wait for V3. *Purchased on 27 May, 5 month 13 days ago or 166 days

Fantastic. Affinity Photo 2 installed and working. No problems. The updates are well worth the money. Especially the non destructive raw files and the new hue/luminosity masks. I'm sure the other added features will come in useful too once I explore them. Well done and thank you to the team.

I share your request, but doubt that this will happen anytime soon. it has been requested before. It would increase your chances to be realized if you simply add your vote to the existing threads, https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&q=non destructive RAW&quick=1 Another advise: Limit editing in Develop Persona to the absolute minimum (basic exposure / highlight / shadow, lens correction, CA). Then switch to Photo Persona, almost everything can be done there non-destructive.

I love afphoto and use it now daily for a lot of think as a freelance, but for me the Raw development module ise too far from what i need, yes the sidecard files is a usefull feature, but, simply having a full good interpreting of format is far more important to my taste. I dont use adobe product anymore but for raw i still go to any of the open source / free (rawtherapy / darktable) software, at this date they are far superior to afPhoto for raw dev. with the same raw photo in any of the three software listed here (rawtherapy, darktable, affinity photo) try to get information from dark and light part of an image back, the affinity photo result are a lackluster... I want it to be good so i can do everything in one software, but at this date it's not the case. Working on the raw engine and raw interpretation for affinity photo is more important than having sidecar file / non destructive raw editing for me.

I also am coming from years in PS and Lightroom (since they began). Aside from the need to save non destructive RAW files, with their respective adjustments intact (which IMO is a critical feature), there is also a desperate need to be able to "browse" a folder of raw files. LR accomplished that with an import button/feature set. Then you can skip through the RAW files using a thumbnail view across the bottom or side of your screen... relatively quickly. Till these things are introduced, I am afraid this program will have to be shelved... Maybe DXO will do what I need. Thanks for listening...

I think that the Affinity team approach was the right one. They relatively quickly built a suite of powerful, professional grade, applications that cover most of the creative uses. Until now nobody has ever been able to manage that and be considered as an interesting alternative to Adobe. The fact that the three applications cost less than 3 month of Adobe Creative Cloud or 100 times less than the defunct Adobe Design Standard Creative Suite is really appealing for freelances and makes it interesting for non professionals also. Now that the current applications cover the basis, I think the team can focus on improving those applications and/or develop more specialized ones. Right now, I’m primarily using Affinity Designer for interface design work, before I was using Photoshop mostly with vector shapes. There are things that would ease my workflow a lot, but it is already nice enough that I cancelled my Adobe subscription without any regret. I’m not sure if optional personas is the way to go but building on the Affinity StudioLink I could imagine a new application focus on interface design with Sketch like features that could instantly switch to Affinity Designer or Affinity Photo tools. A successor to Apple Aperture with non destructive Raw process and instant access to Affinity Photo tools if needed would also be really nice

Hi. Sorry for the basic questions. I am new to RAW photography having only just got a Canon EOS 70D. 1. Is the Develop Persona meant to be the equivalent to Adobe Bridge i.e., non destructive RAW editing before going into Photoshop? 2. The work flow discussion above interests me. Is the idea that eventually AP will handle to whole process from initial development right through to photo manipulation wizardry and then export to finished requirements? If so, what would a good workflow be for RAW images if AP can be used as an all in one package? 3. My Canon camera came with DPP3 - Digital Photo Professional v3. This is the Canon supplied RAW development software. So this would be the equivalent of what some of the above posters were using when they said they converted their RAW images in other software before using AP? 4. Are there any Canon shooters here? If so, do you use Canon's DPP3 software or something else? Can I do better than Canon's own software for non destructive RAW development? Cheers and thanks for your time.

Hello ! I have been told that "develop persona" cannot be considered a fully non destructive Raw treatment. If so, would it be wiser to start "develop persona" with a copy of the raw file ? Best regards, Gpzt.

For me, an editor like PS or AP will always be the last 10% of 95% of my photos. After a shooting I´ve got 150 pictures and I need a proper software to do the basic adjustments, pic my favorites and transfer them between my MB and iMac (which I do via C1 sessions) So even with a non destructive RAW module and more adjustments (like all these color sliders in LR) AP would not be my go to RAW editor. AP is great for retouching and composing and thats where it already is pretty good. I´m already pretty pleased with C1, only more flexible merging and extraction of catalogs/ sessions/ low res smart sessions (Affinity DAM?!) would enhance this software even more. Tethered shooting is amazing, speed is absolutely reasonable, CPU usage is nice and low (great for battery life), support is reasonable (although not as great as affinity). When AP 1.5 brings layered TIFFs with afphoto layers embedded you can even catalog your affinity files in it. Editing wise the skin tone uniformity is amazing and the RGB + Luma curve is great as well besides the shadows and highlights controls. Exposure evaluation is really helpful and the transparent export module makes it really easy to distribute all the files! Selective masks/ layers open up great options in a non destructive RAW development environment. I think Affinity can clearly build on top of that but till this date C1 trumps AP for 90% editing tasks because thats what a DAM is supposed to do. The best feature of On1 browse for me was "show subfolders" which lets you browse one folder and all it´s sub folders at once One example for professionals would be an option to drop an image into the DAM and let the DAM figure the original picture in your library. This is helpful when a client sends you an old cropped/ renamed file and want´s certain new adjustments made to it and one has to figure which exact picture was the source of that particular image.

+1 for non destructive raw workflow

​Hello Kodiak, did I miss something? Last time I checked the develop persona was destructive. So if you once hit "develop" then the pixel layer is finally transferred to the afphoto file. After that you can't change the previously modifications made in the develop persona. Of course you can open the develop persona again to make any new modifications. But I hope AP 1.6 will bring non destructive RAW development and more powerful development tools.

If the develop module covers your needs, you don't needed it. My needs are not covered, because I need non destructive raw processing with sidecar files integrated into a photo management software where the developed changes can be previewed. The tool must support body and lense profiles and auto correct photos according to these.

Dear Developers (pun intended), 1) The export process is very cumbersone in general. Here several issues: In the export persona, why can I only export slices? This is confusing. By the way, it took me several minutes to find the "export" button since it is not always visible and somehow hidden on a tab (ther is no button on the layers tab). When I select accidentally a preset in "Exportvorgabe" [German Version] from the slices tab, this setting overrules my setting that I have chosen above. I cannot unselect it any more and have to leave the export persona and re-enter. That's Annoying. Furthermore, my procedure of developing/exporting pics from a photography session is to first adapt the selected pics to my needs (color, brightness etc.) and then export them all. This means I have more than one file opened. And here comes the issue: when I switch to the export persona with several files opened, I have to do this for every single opened file! This is cumbersone. You could at least introduce a button "export all opened files". Thats why I currently prefer exporting from the photo persona using the menu (file/export...). The problem here as well as in the export persona is that I have always to choose my own settings again, Affinity does not remember my settings from the last export. This should be urgently changed and was already mentioned elswhere here in the forum. 2) In the develop persona, I would like to have a bit sronger effects of some sliders. The Shadows and Lights slider has almost no effect in some pictures. 3) When using the overlay brush ("Overlay malen" in German version) in the develop persona, the "Klarheit" and the details/noise sliders are greyed out. Would love to have them active, too. 4) Non destructive RAW development would be very nice. Whenever I switch from develop persona to photo persona and back to develop persona, the slider settings are reset and I do not exactly know which settings I changed before. 5) Add a Catalog Persona where the user can rate, catalogue, set meta-tags etc. Finally, let me congratulate to this software! Affinity Photo is on its way to be the best software on the market. I stopped using Photoshop completely and I use Lightoom only occasionally. I also got the very impressive iPad version and Affinity Designer, the latter one replaces my good old Corel Draw. Keep up the excellent and customer-friendly way of software development. Regards Jens

Hi TomS, Welcome to the forums. Glad you're enjoying the software, non destructive RAW editing is something our developers want to add and is on our development roadmap.

I think I read that the devs plan to make non destructive RAW development possible in the future... Or was it just that the RAW adjustment on any pixel layer will behave as a live filter some day.... I don´t know it exactly anymore.