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Affinity Photo Save/Export Behavior.


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Why can't I save a photo in the same format as the file I originally opened.  For example, If I opened a TIFF file, why isn't it saved/saved as a TIFF file with the same characteristics?  Why am I forced to save as an Affinity Photo file format?  Also, when I export a file, why aren't the default export characteristics specific to the file content/type.  For example, I open a TIFF file and clean up the image.  The Save option is grayed out and Save as converts the file to an afphoto file.  If I export the file to a TIFF file the Preset is blank even though there is a default Preset for every other export format.  Also, I have to choose between Nearest Neighbor, Bilinear, Bicubic, Lanczos 3 (separable) or Lanczos 3 (non-separable) resampling even though I typically choose a TIFF file because I don't want compression.  Is resampling relevant for an uncompressed file?  Even though there is adequate space on the export pop-up, I have to click on the More button to see that I have compression choices for a TIFF export and the default is ZIP.  I would expect the compression default for TIFF to be None.  When I change the compression to None a resampling choice is still required.  This dialog doesn't make sense to me and leaves me concerned about what I will be getting as an export file.  Does this dialog make sense to anyone.  Perhaps you can explain it to me.

Thanks.

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4 hours ago, Alan Rashid said:

For example, If I opened a TIFF file, why isn't it saved/saved as a TIFF file with the same characteristics?  Why am I forced to save as an Affinity Photo file format?

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

You're not forced to Save as a .afphoto file. If you Open a TIFF, you can Save the file in that format, but you need to have a single layer file, with a pixel layer, or you need to allow the file to be Flattened during the Save operation. saved with Affinity Layers during the Save operation. (Edit: This is special handling for TIFF files; for a JPG or PNG Affinity would ask to Flatten the file, instead.)

Also, some disadvantages:

  • You must overwrite the original; you cannot change the name.
  • You have no control over the other options that the More button gives you in the Export dialog.

For those reasons, you should use Export.

Why is it like that? Because that's the way that the designers decided to make it work. It makes sense to me, but I'm not sure I can explain why, so I'm not going to try right now.

4 hours ago, Alan Rashid said:

If I export the file to a TIFF file the Preset is blank even though there is a default Preset for every other export format.

You'll have a Preset selected unless you've changed some option. Once you've changed an option, you're no longer using that Preset (which is a named configuration of options), and so the Preset name is removed. But here's how it starts out for TIFF, which shows a Preset selected:

image.png.d1ce8dace906fd95d098b181e6d1e984.png

4 hours ago, Alan Rashid said:

Also, I have to choose between Nearest Neighbor, Bilinear, Bicubic, Lanczos 3 (separable) or Lanczos 3 (non-separable) resampling even though I typically choose a TIFF file because I don't want compression.  Is resampling relevant for an uncompressed file?  

Resampling and compression are two separate and unrelated functions. Resampling comes into play when your source document is a different size (pixel dimension) than your output file. That can happen for either compressed or uncompressed files.relevant as far as I know.

4 hours ago, Alan Rashid said:

I would expect the compression default for TIFF to be None.

Why? I expect it to be set so I have smaller files.(*) And since it is lossless compression (no quality degradation) there's no harm in compressing, unless I'm going to be feeding the output file into some other application that doesn't understand compressed TIFFs.

(*) Though I also know that depending on the compression algorithm and the color bit-depth of the image, a compressed file can actually end up larger. So I wouldn't compress in those cases.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Hi and welcome to the forums @Alan Rashid,

You should be able to. So long as you haven't added any adjustment layers, effect layers or filter layers. And even if you have you should be able to go to Document > Flatten to reduce the TIFF back to a single layer and just save it.

Are you perhaps placing a TIFF file into a preset sized document versus opening one using File > Open?

Regarding the lack of Presets TIFF exports I don't know what to say, they are always available to me. Perhaps you made a change to one and that is why you are seeing a blank in the Presets list. Just choose the appropriate one for you and then it should show up the next time you go to export something in TIFF format.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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I'm not the one who posted the original question but I'm confused by both Walt's and Old Bruce's answers.

When I open a 16 bit TIF in photo and edit it adding one ore more layers including adjustment layers, I have no problem saving my edits, layers and all, to the original tif with its original name.  Or I can SAVE AS to save it with all layers included but with a different file name.

I've been doing this ever since I started using Affinity Photo over 2 years ago and I've never had a problem.

Obviously I'm missing something because I don't see a problem doing what the OP wants to do or why it doesn't work for him the way it works for me.

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1 hour ago, JohnZeman said:

When I open a 16 bit TIF in photo and edit it adding one ore more layers including adjustment layers, I have no problem saving my edits, layers and all, to the original tif with its original name. Or I can SAVE AS to save it with all layers included but with a different file name.

When you do File > Save in that situation you should get a popup giving you the option of Flattening the file before saving, or of doing a Save As. If you choose Flatten it will save over the original TIFF file, but with all the layers flattened. If you choose Save As, you retain the layers but you get a .afphoto file, not a TIFF.

Edit: As John points out below, TIFF has some special handling in this situation, and does allow Saving with Affinity Layers.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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1 hour ago, JohnZeman said:

Obviously I'm missing something because I don't see a problem ...

Maybe I am the one missing something.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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34 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

When you do File > Save in that situation you should get a popup giving you the option of Flattening the file before saving, or of doing a Save As. If you choose Flatten it will save over the original TIFF file, but with all the layers flattened. If you choose Save As, you retain the layers but you get a .afphoto file, not a TIFF.

Thanks Walt.  When I open a 16 bit TIF in Affinity Photo, do some editing, adding layers and such, when I go to File > Save I am prompted.  But not to flatten the image, I'm prompted as to whether I want to save the TIF with layers or not.  I always choose yes and the tif is saved with layers.

And like you said if instead I go to File > Save as, then I can only save the tif as an afphoto file.  But I never do that with my current workflow so that's never been an issue.  If I need to do a file save as in that situation I'd do a file export as TIF command then give it any name I want.

I guess I'm still confused why the OP isn't able to do this.

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13 minutes ago, JohnZeman said:

When I open a 16 bit TIF in Affinity Photo, do some editing, adding layers and such, when I go to File > Save I am prompted.  But not to flatten the image, I'm prompted as to whether I want to save the TIF with layers or not.  I always choose yes and the tif is saved with layers.

Thank you! I guess I've never tried that scenario with a TIFF, and you're right, the prompt is different in that case:

image.png.594ff64eda5e694c2e8910468c47e602.png

It's probably different because there is special support in Affinity for Exporting TIFF files with Affinity layers, and so (unlike with JPG or PNG) the file does not need to be Flattened before Saving.

13 minutes ago, JohnZeman said:

I guess I'm still confused why the OP isn't able to do this.

With my new discovery based on your post, I'm puzzled by @Alan Rashid's description, too.

@Alan Rashid: You said originally that you were opening a TIFF. Did you really do File > Open and select your TIFF file, or did you get it into Photo in some other way, as @Old Bruce suggested.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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