Photo and external curves

[Richsul]

First, I want to introduce myself. I am Dick Sullivan of Bostick & Sullivan, we, since 1980, have been a major supplier of materials for antique photographic processes, I'd like to think we were seminal in introducing the platinum photograph to modern workers. I am also a Fellow and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.

Thus my point, or points if you will:

I am thrilled with the Affinity Suite.

My firm, Bostick & Sullivan, has a mailing list of over 25,000 customers. Most are dedicated workers in historic photographic processes, the platinum print being a major market. I needn't belabor the point that the Suite is powerful and economical and I would love to support and promote it through our mailing list/

Many of the early processes are contact photo processes, and up to this point, PhotoShop has been a major tool in making contact negatives from digital negatives. We provide some generic platinum curves on our website for downloading. These curves are necessary for contact printing in silver, palladium, platinum, albumen and many other early processes. Each variation of a process, either through its chemical formula or the effect desired usually requires a new curve. Making a curve is a time consuming process so there is a lot of sharing going on.

My research has shown that there is no way for us to share Affinity Photo curves, so PhotoShop, and its curves, will remain the standard.

I realize that a few thousand dedicated photographers is a small number for a major software company to support, but I am hoping a curves transport mechanism and/ or ability to open and use the curves we use now (PS) will soon be available.

I have read on the forum here that one can apply the curve to a jpg and transport it that was but it was a brief description, and I could not make it work. Perhaps more details will help.

I am willing to do what I can to help on this end.

Thanks.

 

--Dick SullivanHonFRPS

[Dan C]

Hi Dick Sullivan,

Welcome to the forums

I'm very glad to hear you're enjoying using the Affinity Suite!

Unfortunately, there's no way currently to directly export a Curves preset - however you can create a Macro which adds a Curves adjustment with the specific preset parameters required for each process.

With any image open in Affinity Photo, please navigate to View>Studio>Macros, here you can begin recording the Macro which we'll later save and export for other users.

Once you've started recording, create the Curves adjustment and then edit the parameters until you're happy with the results. Now, stop the Macro recording and select Add to Library.

Navigate once again to View>Studio and this time select Library. You should find the Studio opens in the same dialog as the Macro recorder, and here you can rename/duplicate/export this macro.

Once exported to an .afmacros file, this can be installed by any user (through the Library Studio) and they'll be able to run the required macro for the specific job they're doing.

If you'd like, you can create all your curves in Affinity Photo in separate macros, then export out the master category to one .afmacros file. This means your customers can install 1 file only and have all Curve Presets available to them - these can even be used in conjunction with Batch Processing to automatically apply the required Curves Adjustment to the image, then export it out to the file format of your choosing.

I've attached a quick screen recording showing this, as well as 2 links to our tutorials for Macros and Macros & Batch Processing below -

Macros - https://affinity.serif.com/tutorials/photo/desktop/video/309301203

Macros & Batch Processing - https://player.vimeo.com/video/202893201/

I hope this helps

[Richsul]

Dan,

That does help - I think!

I am new to the Affinity tools so I need to dig in and see what is here. 

I am hoping I can build some thing that will take a PhotoShop curve and load it into Af  Photo. There is a huge resource of negatives out there that have been produced for over 20 years and represent thousads of hours of work.  Mostly all for Epson printers. Each change in a formula, exposure unit, etc etc or an inkset will cause a curve change.  There are perfectionists who need a curve for even a minor change but many can use a "generic" curve that "sort" of fits their situation.

Here's the basic process:

Using a step wedge make a series of prints to determine the time of exposure for a maximum black

Copy the print, with scanner or camera and then mathematically even out the steps in the wedge  so each  of the 10 steps creates a 10% change in the density of the print. 

This curve is then applied to the digital image, inverted to a negative, and printed.

The curve is stored and passed around as a photoshop .acv curve. 

So a step from a wedge can be read as a number such as one would get from a densitometer and entered in the 0 steps to build a curve? This might be a problem because one is not reading an image eye and 
"correcting" it's far too subtle for that . It would like looking at a step and saying that a step is 10.2% too light and correcting that point in the curve by lightening it by 10.2%.

When a curve is applied the image looks really weird.

I will spend some time this week end working on this.

I am sure we can figure out something here.

--Dick Sullivan HonFRPS

 

[Dan C]

I'm glad to hear that Dick

One option for transfer could be loading the Curves adjustment into a Photoshop Document, then save this as a .PSD with the Curves layer. Open this .PSD in Affinity and the same Curves values should be retained. You can double click on the Curves adjustment in the layers panel to edit it, and save this as a preset. Now, open the Macros Studio and begin a recording, then add the Curves Preset from the Adjustment Studio and save the Macro.

I haven't tested this personally, but I'm 95% certain this should work for your files (although I do understand it's still a rather manual process!)