DonatoF Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 Hi - Just purchased Affinity Photo yesterday, loving it so far. Using it on a 2008 Macbook Pro with only 4 GB of RAM running Yosemite. I was editing a 90 MB 16-bit tiff file, and after working on the file for a while, the saved version was around 650 MB. While Photo seemed to handle the large file pretty well, I was starting to notice the spinning beach ball after a while. I ended up flattening the image to cut down the file size, but was wondering if there was a better way. So, my question is how to best use layers, nested layers, snapshots, (and what does the "save history with file" option do?) etc. to both retain the capability to go back to my edits, and to maintain a reasonable file size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimGoshorn Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 The Save History To File option allows you to write the history of the steps you took into your image file. The next time you open the file, all those steps will be read back into AP so you can go backwards anytime you wish. Normally, when you close the file without this option, the history is not recorded. If you work with Photo and Designer you can save all the steps from each app in the file. Be aware that this option will increase your file size considerably. As far as size goes, if you wish to maintain editability, you could split files into multiple files. Work with the file until it slows down, save it, then duplicate it, flatten the duplicate and then continue adding layers. If you are going to create larger image files on a regular basis and the slowdowns become annoying, you might want to consider adding more RAM. You can use Activity Monitor in your Utilities folder to check the amount of memory you are using and the amount available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anon1 Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 I also noticed the slow down on a late 2012 dual Core i7 8GB MacBook Pro Retina. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimGoshorn Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 I read a message here from one of the developers that said that the app was designed to work with large files so 650mb shouldn't be much of a strain and they also said that when saving, the biggest hit takes place on the initial save and after that, the file only has the latest change data appended to it. According to the specs 2gb RAM is the minimum requirement so both of you are over that. Seems like something else might be going on. Hopefully the developers will see this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonatoF Posted July 11, 2015 Author Share Posted July 11, 2015 Thanks Jim, that makes sense to save along the way, any slowdown I was getting wasn't too bad, which is impressive with that large a file. I use Dr. Cleaner to keep an eye on the memory usage, and it was up at 99%. Closing other apps when editing large files helps, and I try to remember to do that. Unfortunately, the max RAM I can put in is 6 GB total, I'm considering that upgrade, at least it's 50% more memory. Would the snapshot be another way to accomplish this, or is the snapshot stored in the same file? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimGoshorn Posted July 12, 2015 Share Posted July 12, 2015 I just tested it and snapshots are stored with the file so they are available each time you open the file until you delete them and save the file. In my quick test, I created a new file, and took a snap after each of 2 brush strokes and the file went from 415k to 698k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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