XMP sidecar in Photo Beta 1.8.0.163 (split)

[NicolasG]

As a Lightroom CC user, the only way I can fully migrate everything from LRCC to Affinity Photo is through XMP profiles so I do not lose nor bake all my previous edits.

I am glad you are considering integrating XMP support in the next release. Although I am not able to make it work in the current beta. I have an exported, original CR2 file with its sidecar XMP with the same filename but the settings are not applied. Dragging the XMP resulted in the same error as the 1.7.X version saying it is not a compatible file. I did not find any option to import an XMP profile either. Can someone enlighten me?

Thank you!

[fde101]

Hi @NicolasG, welcome to the forums!

Affinity Photo is more comparable to Photoshop than to Lightroom; they are two completely different types of products and I would not expect that this will ever work.

You would probably be better off exporting PSD (Photoshop) files from Lightroom to import into Affinity Photo.  In Affinity Photo, after the images are developed in the Develop persona of Photo there is no benefit to using the RAW file again anyway for that photo, so you aren't really losing anything for already-processed photos to be in PSD format rather than working off the RAW image.  If you need to re-develop the photo you would start over with the RAW file in a new Affinity Photo document.

While there has been much discussion about the possibility of Serif releasing a separate DAM application (which might be more comparable to Lightroom) into the Affinity range, this has not happened yet, and we don't know what it will be capable of if it does happen.

Also, XMP is mainly for the transport of metadata (keywords/tags/ratings) between programs, not of adjustments or edits.  When programs do non-standard things to include adjustments and edits into XMP files, this is not likely to be compatible with any other programs than the one that wrote them, so I would not expect this to be a suitable way to transport data from Lightroom into another product.

 

In the meantime, DAM-like products I am aware of which offer functionality for importing a Lightroom catalog include On1 Photo RAW (which I believe requires Lightroom to be available during the import) and Capture One (which might not require Lightroom to be installed?).  Note that there are limits on how effective these imports are: in particular, as adjustments are done using different algorithms and different features are available in the different products, the adjustments made in Lightroom can at best be approximated by the other products, so they are unlikely to come out looking exactly the same in these other programs as they would have looked in Lightroom and may require some tweaking after the fact.  The same would obviously be true for PSD files being imported into Affinity Photo.

[NicolasG]

@fde101 Thank you for these precious bits of information. I was not aware integrating visual modifications was a non-standard practice as metadata are already embedded in my RAW files anyway.

I understand the comparison to Photoshop more than Lightroom and never thought of it as an identical copy. I do not want to denature this thread but I always thought Affinity Photo was a Photoshop/Lightroom merge and Designer was a Illustrator/Photoshop merge. That being said, I was ready to ditch the collection and library management features of Lightroom, for a per-file edits inside well classified file structure. Saving my edits through some kind of sidecar file would've been amazing and also crucial for this to happen.

Keeping my edits settings intact AND my RAW file as originals is a must. Not gonna lie, I am a little bit disappointed to learn Photo is not heading in that direction haha; I mean, no way to manage a collection nor to save any of the settings I spent a lot of time adjusting? It's a no go for my workflow. Will have to stick to Affinity Designer and Adobe Lightroom or switch to Luminar for the time being.

Thank you for your suggestions!

[fde101]

5 minutes ago, NicolasG said:

Keeping my edits settings intact AND my RAW file as originals is a must.

You can do this by exporting them from Lightroom as separate files: the original RAW files, and PSDs with the edits/adjustments alongside of them.

 

6 minutes ago, NicolasG said:

Affinity Photo was a Photoshop/Lightroom merge and Designer was a Illustrator/Photoshop merge

Neither one of these is the case.  Designer does have some limited raster manipulation features via its Pixel persona, but they pale compared to what Photo has to offer and are really meant as a way to work with original artwork created within Designer itself, not as a means by which to manipulate photos.

Affinity Photo is a significantly stronger offering for photo editing, but again it is an editor, not a DAM tool/organizer.

[NicolasG]

2 hours ago, fde101 said:

You can do this by exporting them from Lightroom as separate files: the original RAW files, and PSDs with the edits/adjustments alongside of them.

I guess this can only be done in the Lightroom Classic because I cannot export PSDs from Lightroom CC. I can definitely edit it in Photoshop, then save a PSD from there, but the Lightroom settings are already baked plus it would take forever to do this manually for 6000 pictures.

Thank you again for the additional description/definition of the softwares. I guess I was confused by the personas.

[Daimyou]

I am not using LR, but I do use PS camera raw and it saves an XMP file with changes.  I would like Photo to read the camera raw XMP files.  I also would like Photo develop to save sidecar files too.  Preferably saving in XMP file with open standards.  I develop raw file and export as jpg, I do not save native Photo format.  Then if I need to make a change, I have to do it again because no side car file was created like PS does.  Please add develop side car reading and writing.

Bridge also shows the xmp changes in preview making it very helpful.  And people on this forum have recommended using Bridge as Serif won't make their own.

XMP side car support seems critically important!

[fde101]

17 hours ago, Daimyou said:

camera raw and it saves an XMP file with changes

Adobe's camera raw is not really part of Photoshop, but is a separate tool that happens to integrate with it.  The ability to work with metadata/"sidecar" files is thus a function of camera raw rather than of photoshop.  If you actually pulled the developed images into Photoshop they would become PSDs, without the metadata files.

Affinity Photo's develop module is part of Affinity Photo itself and produces layers within the native Affinity document; it is not separated the way that photo raw is.  The functionality you are asking for would not be appropriate for this type of application, but should be a separate tool.  The Affinity team may potentially release such a solution at some point in the future, which would indeed be a separate application from Affinity Photo - this has been discussed at length on other threads, repeatedly, because people seem to post new threads for this several times a month.

Until then, what you are looking for is not an editor (as Affinity Photo is) but a dedicated RAW developer / DAM-type tool, such as On1 Photo RAW, Capture One, DxO Photolab, etc.

You are unlikely to find something that can read the adjustments from camera raw's sidecars (XMPs) as that is a completely nonstandard use for those files, but most of these other products can work in a similar manner, just with their own sidecar formats.  Capture One supports metadata from XMPs but I don't believe it will handle adjustments from them.

[m.vlad]

On 2/14/2020 at 4:12 PM, fde101 said:

Adobe's camera raw is not really part of Photoshop, but is a separate tool that happens to integrate with it. The ability to work with metadata/"sidecar" files is thus a function of camera raw rather than of photoshop. If you actually pulled the developed images into Photoshop they would become PSDs, without the metadata files.

That is true nowadays, however Camera Raw used to be bundled in with Photoshop until around CS4 when the split, so for all intents and purposes it was part of photoshop but Adobe decided to split it away. It doesn't change the current state of things, and they must've had a good reason, but many people still use Camera Raw in Photoshop for when they don't need Lightroom.

On 2/14/2020 at 4:12 PM, fde101 said:

Affinity Photo's develop module is part of Affinity Photo itself and produces layers within the native Affinity document; it is not separated the way that photo raw is. The functionality you are asking for would not be appropriate for this type of application, but should be a separate tool. The Affinity team may potentially release such a solution at some point in the future, which would indeed be a separate application from Affinity Photo - this has been discussed at length on other threads, repeatedly, because people seem to post new threads for this several times a month.

So a non-destructive improvement to a photo editing workflow would not be appropriate for an app that is literally called Photo? I disagree. The fact that the current Develop persona is so ingrained in the app as opposed to Camera Raw's plugin-like experience means it can be more developed to accommodate for true photo editing. The tools are already there, serif just needs to find a way to export/import those settings instead of forcing you to "Develop" the photo. The change would be minimal at best, since all the other stuff is already there.

On 2/14/2020 at 4:12 PM, fde101 said:

Until then, what you are looking for is not an editor (as Affinity Photo is) but a dedicated RAW developer / DAM-type tool, such as On1 Photo RAW, Capture One, DxO Photolab, etc.

People keep bundling DAM software and RAW developing apps together. Rightfully so since all the current RAW developing apps provide both, but they don't have to both be developed, at least at this stage, considering RAW Developing is already mostly done whereas a DAM solution isn't even mentioned anywhere in the apps at this point and it's only in the planning phase, as far as we know. Naming them together makes the development of the non-destructive RAW editing a bigger hurdle than it is. Also, I'm personally more than fine with using my own folder structure and using Affinity Photo on a per-photo basis, a DAM isn't a priority right now, being able to save the photo adjustments in an app called Affinity Photo which already lets me edit them is a bigger priority imo.

 

[fde101]

18 hours ago, m.vlad said:

non-destructive improvement to a photo editing workflow

Improvements toward being more non-destructive are fine, to a point.  The entire application will never be a fully non-destructive tool.  People looking for that don't really understand what Photo is, but there are certainly a number of ways to make it more non-destructive than it currently is, and I have no objection to that whatsoever, as long as they don't bastardize the application into something which it was not really meant to be.

I think that the Develop persona should be modified to work on image layers rather than pixel layers, and to store its settings as part of the image layer.  As long as users leave it as an image layer, they could always switch back to the Develop persona to adjust those settings.  Live filters, adjustment layers, etc. could be added over top of that non-destructively, and the crop tool is already non-destructive.  When someone needs to perform destructive edits, or tries to merge those layers down to the "background" layer, it would need to be converted to a pixel layer (as it is now), and the edits would become destructive.

Masks can also work on image layers without converting them to pixel layers, and compositing between layers is also non-destructive within the layers panel, so there is already quite a bit that can be done non-destructively from an engine perspective, it is mostly the fact that RAW development happens on pixel rather than image layers that seems to be the bottleneck here.

 

18 hours ago, m.vlad said:

an app that is literally called Photo

Photoshop has "Photo" in its name as well and that is hardly non-destructive.

 

It is trying to turn Affinity Photo into an organizational tool by bringing in multiple images in a browser sort of fashion or trying to make these non-destructive edits happen without first bringing the image into a native Affinity Photo document format that are out of place and don't really fit with the overall design and purpose of the application.

 

18 hours ago, m.vlad said:

People keep bundling DAM software and RAW developing apps together. Rightfully so since all the current RAW developing apps provide both,

Correct.  These are technically distinct, but what I think most (not all) of the people requesting this are looking for is something to replace Aperture/Lightroom-type functionality.  I would prefer to classify them as photography workflow applications but in essence they combine DAM-like functionality with RAW development.

Getting RAW development to happen on image layers would actually be a step toward this also, as the underlying engine can already handle image layers being external to the Affinity document file (this can be done with Publisher).  If the future workflow application sets up the images this way in the Affinity document file, it would allow that document file to essentially act somewhat like the sidecar files used by many of competing products.

[m.vlad]

1 minute ago, fde101 said:

think that the Develop persona should be modified to work on image layers rather than pixel layers, and to store its settings as part of the image layer. As long as users leave it as an image layer, they could always switch back to the Develop persona to adjust those settings. Live filters, adjustment layers, etc. could be added over top of that non-destructively, and the crop tool is already non-destructive. When someone needs to perform destructive edits, or tries to merge those layers down to the "background" layer, it would need to be converted to a pixel layer (as it is now), and the edits would become destructive.

Masks can also work on image layers without converting them to pixel layers, and compositing between layers is also non-destructive within the layers panel, so there is already quite a bit that can be done non-destructively from an engine perspective, it is mostly the fact that RAW development happens on pixel rather than image layers that seems to be the bottleneck here.

I agree with that. In my opinion the ideal affinity file structure would bet o open raw photos as .afphoto files and work on the photo in an embed document fashion, where you can open the photo to edit the develop settings and you can do stuff that you can normally do with that embedded document outside of it (similar to what you just said). That is perfectly fine imo. Because the settings are never rasterized you don't even need a sidecar file either, since they can all be contained into a single document.

 

2 minutes ago, fde101 said:

Photoshop has "Photo" in its name as well and that is hardly non-destructive.

well, that's because of the way RAW processing is handled, via a plugin-like feature, instead of being handled in-app, like Affinity can, which raises the bar on what can be achieved. Considering the plugin-like experience of CameraRaw, it's not unexpected to have to apply the settings to the photo and can't be edited further, but because the develop persona is a persona, I'd expect the changes to be still there when i change between personas, instead of being forced to apply them. As it is now, it feels like an external application bundled into the app in a way that seems native but doesn't work like that.

 

8 minutes ago, fde101 said:

It is trying to turn Affinity Photo into an organizational tool by bringing in multiple images in a browser sort of fashion or trying to make these non-destructive edits happen without first bringing the image into a native Affinity Photo document format that are out of place and don't really fit with the overall design and purpose of the application.

Yeah I can see why that's an issue, having a DAM built into affinity photo would just feel like bloat imo (it already feels like bloat in Lightroom tbh, i just want a powerful editor, i don't need nor desire to use a DAM, and even if I do, i want to be in control of the decision of using such a feature, instead of having it bundled into an app that has, to me, a different purpose. Ofc these are just my thoughts and opinions.