How do I compare two images side by side in Affinity Photo?

[Taz777]

I was wondering how I can do 'pixel-peeping' in Affinity Photo whereby I have two images loaded at the same time and can drag one around and the other drags correspondingly. I also would like to zoom in on both images simultaneously.

[Pšenda]

11 hours ago, Taz777 said:

I was wondering how I can do 'pixel-peeping' in Affinity Photo

Unfortunately not.

Affinity Photo is not a viewer, such as for example FastStone Viewer that provides this feature, but photo editor.

[Taz777]

10 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Unfortunately not.

Affinity Photo is not a viewer, such as for example FastStone Viewer that provides this feature, but photo editor.

Thanks for the response. I'm using a Mac so I'll check out whether FastStone Viewer is available for it. I also have Luminar 4, but this feature is not available in that either.

[Taz777]

I purchased Affinity Photo today, but was a little disappointed that this feature isn't available. It is available in the Photoshop Elements 2020 Organizer desktop app. I'm hoping that it will be available in Affinity Photo in due course. It's a pretty basic feature!

[v_kyr]

AFAI remember XNviewMP also offers a "Tools -> Compare..." option for from it's browser selected images, those will then zoom in sync etc.

[GarryP]

I don’t know what ‘pixel peeping’ is used for but you could place the two images over each other in Photo and set the top one to have a Blend Mode of “Difference”, maybe with a Live Invert Adjustment over both to make any difference easier to see.
Would that get you somewhere? Or is it nothing like what you want?

[Taz777]

19 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I don’t know what ‘pixel peeping’ is used for but you could place the two images over each other in Photo and set the top one to have a Blend Mode of “Difference”, maybe with a Live Invert Adjustment over both to make any difference easier to see.
Would that get you somewhere? Or is it nothing like what you want?

It's really to compare two images perhaps taken at different apertures, with a view to seeing how sharp a lens is at various apertures in the centre and corners of the image, for example. Or even to compare similar shots taken with different lenses.

[Taz777]

29 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

AFAI remember XNviewMP also offers a "Tools -> Compare..." option for from it's browser selected images, those will then zoom in sync etc.

This looks interesting, particularly as it's free for macOS (for home use).

[v_kyr]

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, Taz777 said:

It is available in the Photoshop Elements 2020 Organizer desktop app. I'm hoping that it will be available in Affinity Photo in due course. It's a pretty basic feature!

No, for image editing aplication isn't basic feature.
Photoshop Elements "Organizer" is especially a tool for "organizing" photos - that is DAM (like FastStone Viewer, XN View MP, Lightroom, etc), which allows you to edit photos.
If Serif/Affinity insert this function somewhere, then into the upcoming DAM, where it is really "basic feature".

[v_kyr]

For APh one would actually have to take detours and other workarounds, like running in seperated mode and arranging images side by side, though they won't zoom directly in sync here. Or placing two images side by side (or top and bottom) into an accordingly sized document etc.

[Pšenda]

8 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

For APh one would actually have to take detours and other workarounds

Affinity Photo does not have the desired image loading speed for comparison and evaluation. It is simply a tool for a completely different task.

[v_kyr]

16 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Affinity Photo does not have the desired image loading speed for comparison and evaluation. It is simply a tool for a completely different task.

Not sure what you are talking about, or if you mean something else here, but once an image is loaded inside APh performing some zoom-in and out of an image is pretty fast here. So it's overall more a matter of supporting a showup and syncronisation of two loaded images side by side than anything else. Further you usually do such internal comparisons with/on already loaded images.

Even the pretty old PSE version I have here does support this and I'm not talking about PSE Organizer specifics here ...

[Pšenda]

29 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Not sure what you are talking about

Never mind, you probably haven't viewed and sorted thousands of photos by loading into APh :-)
Of course I'm not talking about zooming, but the point is that if I need to view and decide - which photo is good (sharper, better exposed, properly color balanced), and others quickly skip / delete, so I need to "load" into the imaging application as quickly as possible. This discipline APh really does not master, because it is not its purpose - when loaded into APh is expected that this photo will also be edited. Not that it immediately moves on to the next, and the next.

[v_kyr]

31 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Never mind, you probably haven't viewed and sorted thousands of photos by loading into APh :-)
Of course I'm not talking about zooming, but the point is that if I need to view and decide - which photo is good (sharper, better exposed, properly color balanced), and others quickly skip / delete, so I need to "load" into the imaging application as quickly as possible. This discipline APh really does not master, because it is not its purpose - when loaded into APh is expected that this photo will also be edited. Not that it immediately moves on to the next, and the next.

Ah Ok I think I understand now what you specifically mean. - No APh isn't something I actually use or would in it's current state use for such purposes, since it doesn't offer such quick turn around image browser like photo preview/annotation/tagging features. That's more the domain of dedicated software for such purposes like image browsers, image- or photo management tools etc. Most photo cam vendors offer something initial like that, which then comes together with their cam related software and there are also common cam vendor independent software solutions for such tasks. However, some people might be erroneously assuming that APh might also offer something like the PSE bundled Organizer in functionality here, which it is lacking, even it carries the "...Photo" term in it's naming.

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

However, some people might be erroneously assuming that APh might also offer something like the PSE bundled Organizer in functionality here, which it is lacking, even it carries the "...Photo" term in it's naming.

Thanks for confirming what I wrote.

[redeyed]

Hello, It seem I managed comparition of 2 photos (for my cases).

1. Open 2 photos

2. Detach them and move side by side

See video: https://imgur.com/a/09GyUCi

[Pšenda]

However, this is a common view of two files side by side, but the OP requires a specific "pixel-peeping" function:

On 11/24/2019 at 11:22 AM, Taz777 said:

I was wondering how I can do 'pixel-peeping' in Affinity Photo whereby I have two images loaded at the same time and can drag one around and the other drags correspondingly. I also would like to zoom in on both images simultaneously.

As I have already mentioned, the FastStone Image Viewer, for example, offers such an adequate function, and certainly many others, and therefore only as an example.

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Pšenda

[v_kyr]

The WildBit Viewer for Win would be another one for such pixel peeping comparisons.

• http://www.wildbit-soft.fi/Features.html