Huge File Size?

[Aaron2]

I have the same question.  I use DXo Photolab as my primary photo editing software.  They create a small sidecar file that contains the edits to the RAW file, both of which are read when opening the image file.  I was expecting to see a similar process with Affinity.  Instead it seems to create a new file with the extension .afphoto which is huge compared to the original raw file (a 28 MB RAW file turns into a 206 MB .afphoto file).  It then seems not to require or read the original image file when subsequently viewing or editing the image.  I made no substantive edits to the file (i.e. adjusted the white balance and contrast but no layers or noise reduction).

When exporting the image to a JPEG, the exported file is is 9 MB, which is about what I expected.

Is there a reason for this?  I've only been testing out a trial version of the software as I'm looking for a secondary photo editing application to work with photos from a couple of cameras which produce raw files that DXo doesn't read.  As such I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if this the way affinity is supposed to work.  Overall I like the affinity application but I'm not sure it is a good solution if it is going to require that much disk space for every photo.

[Pšenda]

9 hours ago, Aaron2 said:

When exporting the image to a JPEG, the exported file is is 9 MB, which is about what I expected.

Is there a reason for this?

The exported JPG file uses lossy compression, so the data size will be reduced at the cost of irreversible loss of image information. While the affinity file stores data in full quality (lossless), ie in a significantly larger file.

[Aaron2]

I get why the jpeg is smaller, I’m wondering why the .afphoto file is so large and if there is a way to manage the size of the file 

[Callum]

Hi Aaron,

Welcome to the forums

If you go into the File menu do you have Save With History enabled?

Thanks

C

[Aaron2]

Thanks,

And I do not have "Save With File History" enabled.

[carl123]

Please upload the 28 MB RAW file and the resulting 206 MB .afphoto file to the forum. (if not private)

[Aaron2]

The photo I referenced above had people in it, so instead I've attached a test shot of an empty park bench.  All I did was open the photo, switch from the develop persona to the photo persona and save it.  The original RAW file (.DNG) is 23.6 MB.  After Affinity saved the .afphoto file, it was 109.6 MB.

S1000100_(Affiinty_Photo_Test).afphoto S1000100_(Affiinty_Photo_Test).DNG

[carl123]

After developing your document, it is in RGB/16 and is 111MB for me.

If I delete the default snapshot file that is always created (Grrrr) and change the document format to RGB/8 the saved file size is now 33MB.

Which is a bit more reasonable for a 24MB Raw file

I would suggest converting the document to RGB/8 to get the much-reduced file size (unless you specifically need it in RGB/16)

 

PS If you don't delete the initial snapshot and just convert the document to RGB/8 the file size actually rises to 122MB - go figure!

[Aaron2]

Roger, thanks.

It's good to know there are ways to manage the file size.