Can't export Raw NEF

[Nikon Girl]

I purchased the full version of affinity and am currently unable to export an edited Raw Nef. Can someone please advise on this. Thank you.

[walt.farrell]

That is correct. You can Export TIFF or JPG or PNG images, or you can Save .afphoto files. RAW files are for input only.

[Nikon Girl]

Thank you for your quick response. I'm not particularly tech savvy. I have uploaded and edited a Raw NEF, how do I convert it or manipulate it in order to save my changes?

[walt.farrell]

When you Opened it, you ended up in the Develop Persona. When you're done doing any edits you want there, you click the Develop button in the Context Toolbar and you end up in the Photo Persona where you can do more editing. When you're done there, you can use File > Export to create  JPG, TIFF, or PNG file that other applications can use, and/or you can use File > Save to create a native .afphoto file that Affinity Photo can use in the future.

[Nikon Girl]

Thanks. Can you clarify if this manipulates the original photo? I would still like for the original Raw file to live on and for this to be a duplicate edit. Not sure how to separate the original Raw from edited version. Thank you again.-N

[Fixx]

Original RAW (in this case, NEF) is not altered and also it CANNOT be altered (save some apps can alter its metadata but not image content – and AP cannot do even that).

Your saved or exported image is totally separate file with no links to original RAW. Original RAW stays just like it was.

[v_kyr]

Think about it like this, you treat and handle a digital RAW file (a Nikon NEF in your case) like you would do with an analog photo negative in a darkroom. The NEF is your unchanged original (negative) here, from which you perform a develop (the way you want) in order to get a positive photo out of that. The NEFs (negatives) themselve aren't altered/changed and are kept the way they initially are, as your originals.

A RAW converter software (like Nikon Capture/Studio, Adobe Lightroom, PhaseOne CaptureOne, ... etc.) doesn't alter the original RAW files, instead it creates a seperate own  for the individual RAW file associated "sidecar file" (mostly in some vendor specific XML key/value properties format), which holds sort of a history and thus contains the manipulation steps taken to alter the original RAW file into the positive photo.

Affinity Photo works in a similar fashion here when developing a RAW file, but it doesn't create a seperate associated sidecar file for a developed RAW file. With Affinity Photo you also develop an unchangable original RAW file (negative) and will finally get out of that a positive photo which you export into some other file format (jpg, png, tiff, Affinity's own file format, ... etc.).

AFAI remember I've seen past times only one software, which was able to alter/manipulate even an original NEF file directly (meaning, which was able to write out a new NEF file itself from another worked on or manipulated original NEF file) and that was Nikon's own scanner software "Nikon Scan", which is long time abandoned.

[Nikon Girl]

Thanks everyone on your guidance with this, very helpful and think I'm getting the hang of it.

[Nikon Girl]

I have developed some of my raw photos and then conducted further edits and exported as jpegs, however, I am unable to find the original raw photos after this process. Confused about where the original raw is located. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

[walt.farrell]

53 minutes ago, Nikon Girl said:

I have developed some of my raw photos and then conducted further edits and exported as jpegs, however, I am unable to find the original raw photos after this process. Confused about where the original raw is located. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

It's exactly where it was when you started the process. Affinity Photo does not modify the RAW file in any way. 

[David in Яuislip]

57 minutes ago, Nikon Girl said:

Confused about where the original raw is located

If the file is still in the Recent list, open it again, Develop and use the File menu

 

[Nikon Girl]

Ok thanks, I knew it was somewhere. As I'm doing this, realizing I'm also unable to find the "selective color" icon when in raw. Can you advise when you have a chance. Thank you.

[Old Bruce]

27 minutes ago, Nikon Girl said:

Ok thanks, I knew it was somewhere. As I'm doing this, realizing I'm also unable to find the "selective color" icon when in raw. Can you advise when you have a chance. Thank you.

When you develop a raw file you are automatically put into the Devolp persona and that does not have as many tools as the regular Photo personages. Raw files have a file extension that is set by the camera manufactors, Canon's is CR1, CR2 and now CR3, Nikon is NEF and so on.