FR: save and save as allows for other file formats, not only affinity files

[Joergen Geerds]

use case: I am editing 16 bit tiff files. open, edit, export as tif, close
i do not need, nor do i have the intention for those to ever save the affinity file

as a user, i need to go to export, select tif, click and select to overwrite the orig source tif, confirm overwrite, close the window, and confirm again that i don't want to save the affinity file. these are a lot of extra steps if you are working with 10s or 100s of tif that need to be worked on.

in comparison, i can open a tif in photoshop, edit, save and close, with far less clicks and interactions with the app.

feature request: abandon the save/save as for only affinity files, and bring parts of the export functionality into the save/save as UX

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

If you really want to overwrite the original, Affinity Photo will let you do that.

1. Open the TIFF file.
2. Make your edits.
3. File > Save
4. Agree to Flatten the image, if you have added any layers.

[Joergen Geerds]

Dear Walt,

 

thanks for the clarification. It seems like only the "save as" doesn't allow any other format.

it would be great to see this workflow option a bit better laid out in the user experience

[Joergen Geerds]

There is definitely a bug in the 1.9x (win10) version:

I can use ctrl-s, then ctrl-w, and it would still prompt me that the doc isn't saved.

i can go to the menu, select "save", then select "close doc" and it would prompt me that the doc is unsaved.

i can hit ctrl-s several times, and eventually it will recognize that it is saved and allow me to close it.
(the files are only 6x3k 16bit and tiny)

Edited August 31, 2021 by Joergen Geerds

[walt.farrell]

20 minutes ago, Joergen Geerds said:

There is definitely a bug in the 1.09 version:

Please clarify the release number. It would probably be 1.9.2 (if Windows) or 1.9.3 (if Mac) or 1.10.0 or 1.10.1.

20 minutes ago, Joergen Geerds said:

I can use ctrl-s, then ctrl-w, and it would still prompt me that the doc isn't saved.

Is this still starting with a TIFF file?

When you do the Ctrl+S, do you get any prompts about flattening the image? If not (or if you agree to flatten) do you see the progress bar for the Save operation?

Do you have the same problem if you do File > Save?

[Joergen Geerds]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Is this still starting with a TIFF file?

When you do the Ctrl+S, do you get any prompts about flattening the image? If not (or if you agree to flatten) do you see the progress bar for the Save operation?

Do you have the same problem if you do File > Save?

Yes, still starting with flat tif files.

no dialog box about flattening the file, since there are no layers etc in the file.

same problem when I do File > Save, as mentioned.

[Joergen Geerds]

I just counted it:

it takes 3 (three) times pressing ctrl-s to get the [modified] tag in the file name header in the window bar removed.

even if the [modified] tag is gone, closing the file still prompts the "the file is modified, are you sure you want to close it" dialog box.

it would be nice if the devs could look at this and fix it.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Joergen Geerds

[walt.farrell]

58 minutes ago, Joergen Geerds said:

I just counted it:

it takes 3 (three) times pressing ctrl-s to get the [modified] tag in the file name header in the window bar removed.

even if the [modified] tag is gone, closing the file still prompts the "the file is modified, are you sure you want to close it" dialog box.

it would be nice if the devs could look at this and fix it.

I suggest you create a new topic in the appropriate Photo Bugs forum for that.

[Joergen Geerds]

small update:
affinity saves tiff files with zip compression, without giving the user a choice to turn off compression. tiff zip compression is incredible slow and basically inefficient, and i rather worked in uncompressed tiffs.

any way to change this default behaviour?

[NotMyFault]

12 minutes ago, Joergen Geerds said:

small update:
affinity saves tiff files with zip compression, without giving the user a choice to turn off compression. tiff zip compression is incredible slow and basically inefficient, and i rather worked in uncompressed tiffs.

any way to change this default behaviour?

You can change this in the "more" dialog of export.

 

[NotMyFault]

On 9/1/2021 at 5:33 PM, Joergen Geerds said:

I just counted it:

it takes 3 (three) times pressing ctrl-s to get the [modified] tag in the file name header in the window bar removed.

even if the [modified] tag is gone, closing the file still prompts the "the file is modified, are you sure you want to close it" dialog box.

it would be nice if the devs could look at this and fix it.

I cannot reproduce the original issue and the update you gave.

 

Affinity 1.10 allows to save a TIFF file by File>Save, but only if you have opened an existing TIFF file.

If you want to save a new document as TIFF, you need to use Export>TIFF.

For me it seems all the functionality you are requesting is already available.

When using Export, you can use the "more" dialog to select "none" for compression.

Can you please check if there is anything still left open, or you are satisfied with the answers given by multiple forum members?

[Joergen Geerds]

how to reproduce:

1. open uncompressed tiff in affinity photo

2. do some work (no layers, just flat background

3. hit control-s

4. wait for the file to finish saving. can take a while.

5. check the tiff compression in photoshop: confirmed that the file is now saved with zip compression

extra bonus bug:

don't try to close the file while it is saving. affinity has no knowledge that it is saving the file right now, and will ask you if you want to close or save the file, despite that it is busy saving it.

I can not imagine how much wasted time this creates when trying so save larger files as tiffs

[Joergen Geerds]

I am sorry, but going through the export menu is utterly impractical if you are working with 100s of tiffs for clean plates.

why is it so hard to simply save the file with the same settings it was opened?

[Old Bruce]

28 minutes ago, Joergen Geerds said:

why is it so hard to simply save the file with the same settings it was opened?

Some file formats simply cannot be saved as opened, for an extreme example; PSD files with editable text can be opened, the text changed and then cannot be saved or exported by Affinity as having editable text. TIFF files on the other hand can be saved with or without compression so Affinity should honour that.

On opening a TIFF file Affinity Photo should read the compression flags / values and subsequently when doing a File > Save use the same settings regarding compression. This should be doable, I don't know if it is an easy thing but it should be doable.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Joergen Geerds said:

why is it so hard to simply save the file with the same settings it was opened?

I agree with @Old Bruce that for TIFF it seems feasible to determine the compression type during Open and use it when Saving. 

For JPG I believe it would not be possible, as the actual quality level is not recorded. Some applications try to infer the level, but I think it's partly guesswork.

But I'm curious: how many TIFFs is "hundreds" and how long does it take you to work on each one individually, not including the saving?

[Joergen Geerds]

between 10sec and 5min per file... mostly in batches of 20 files at a time

[walt.farrell]

16 minutes ago, Joergen Geerds said:

between 10sec and 5min per file... mostly in batches of 20 files at a time

Interesting. Further curiosity: what kind of things do you do in just 10 sec?

Also, isn't it somewhat risky doing destructive editing that way? 

[Joergen Geerds]

clean plates for (360) video... "destructive editing" is the name of the game... since i've been doing photoshop work since 1992, i kinda know what i am doing, and not afraid to commit to changing pixels for those tasks right now. it is the kind of work where you need to be fast and efficient to get of things quickly in the file

 

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, Joergen Geerds said:

clean plates for (360) video...

Thanks. You mentioned that before, but it means nothing to me. Sorry.