LK23 Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 What is the best image browser that recognizes Affinity Photo images? I am finding that ApolloOne and other image browsers do not recognize the AF image format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Mudditt Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 On 1/9/2022 at 3:53 AM, LK23 said: What is the best image browser that recognizes Affinity Photo images? I am finding that ApolloOne and other image browsers do not recognize the AF image format. Are you using a PC, since on a Mac or iPad the Finder and Files apps provide the usual thumbnails for .afphoto files to browse through them. You should probably ask this question in the appropriate support forumhttps://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/50-affinity-support-questions/ Quote My dad always told me, a bad workman always blames their tools…. Just waiting for Ronny Pickering….. Affinity Photo, Designer, Publisher 1.10 and 2.4 on macOS Sonoma 14 on M1 Mac Mini 16GB 1TB Affinity Photo, Designer, Publisher 1.10 and 2.4 on Windows 10 Pro. Deceased Affinity Photo, Designer, Publisher 2.4 on M1 iPad Pro 11” on iPadOS 17.4 https://www.facebook.com/groups/AffinityForiPad https://www.facebook.com/groups/AffinityPhoto/ The hardest link to find https://affinity.help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulEC Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 31 minutes ago, Paul Mudditt said: Are you using a PC, since on a Mac or iPad the Finder and Files apps provide the usual thumbnails to browse through them. So does Windows File Explorer on a PC! Quote Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz : 32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catshill Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 10 minutes ago, PaulEC said: So does Windows File Explorer on a PC! If only Windows 10 was able to reliably display a preview for every folder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulEC Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 5 minutes ago, Catshill said: If only Windows 10 was able to reliably display a preview for every folder. What's unreliable about it? (Do you mean for every folder, or for every file type?) Quote Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz : 32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 41 minutes ago, PaulEC said: What's unreliable about it? (Do you mean for every folder, or for every file type?) My experience with Windows 10 explorer and „exotic“ file formats like heic, heif, and af* are less than stellar. I have a cloud service syncing images from smartphone into one folder on PC. Several thousands. Installed all the official (and none non-official) apps to enable camera RAW, cr3, heic/heif, …. And latest Windows updates and patches. Added a column to show capture time, „program“ or other metadata to allow sorting / filtering. Never the less: Explorer always hangs and finally crashes every time. It first shows a preview without thumbnails , then a blank screen, than one line (file) per 10 seconds until it stops doing anything. The main issue is access to metadata (exif) is so slow that it freezes every time. PC itself is quite beefy and powerful. Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulEC Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 15 minutes ago, NotMyFault said: My experience with Windows 10 explorer and „exotic“ file formats like heic, heif, and af* are less than stellar. You're probably right that Catshill was talking about file types rather than folders. I couldn't see why it would matter what folder the files are in! I don't really use any "exotic" file types myself, so don't have any problems. I used to use Sagethumbs to view a few that aren't supported natively by Windows, but discovered it caused a problem with some batch jobs in APh. I usually use XnView MP to view file types that I can't view in Explorer (hdr/exr), but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work with Affinity files. (Although I thought I had seen somewhere that it does!) Quote Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz : 32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanPickup Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 I have started using Eagle following a recommendation from someone in the forum. It is reasonably priced and displays all affinity file types as well as jpg, png, cr2 heic etc. It also syncs across One Drive so I can access the files on my laptop & PC. The only problem is that it creates it's own copy of the file in folder / directory but as storage is not a problem for me I have no worries. You can apply tags for searching and set auto tag for drag & drop. I currently have around 10k of files stored and it is quite responsive. The files can be opened directly in the default app. https://eagle.cool/ Quote Alan Pickup Windows 11 Home all Affinity suite of Apps PC and Gigabyte Laptop 16gb Ram and Nvidia GTX1660 Super on each. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanSG Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 8 hours ago, LK23 said: What is the best image browser that recognizes Affinity Photo images? I am finding that ApolloOne and other image browsers do not recognize the AF image format. I don't think there's a viewer that can display the Affinity format. Have a look at XnViewMP - it can display the embedded jpeg, so it's better than most. Quote AP, AD & APub user, running Win10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 Best? - Well that's always a matter of personal/individual taste and opinions, meaning everyone prefers slightly different tools here. However, also take a look at the following threads which dealt with that theme before ... Comprehensive image viewer program? Photo Viewer that will open Affinity Photo files Photo: Can any DAM read .afphoto files? Image Browser for Affinty Photo (dpreview) Using Affinity Photo with Adobe Bridge ... and so on, do a Google & forum search after that topic ... Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 2 hours ago, PaulEC said: You're probably right that Catshill was talking about file types rather than folders. I couldn't see why it would matter what folder the files are in! Sometimes the folder can matter, though. There have been a number of reports, for example, that in a folder managed by OneDrive you won't see the Affinity file thumbnail images. PaulEC 1 Quote -- 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LK23 Posted January 9, 2022 Author Share Posted January 9, 2022 Thanks for all the posts. As the original poster I should have provided more information. I am using Mac OS. I am seeking a photo browser/image viewer that will show a thumbnail of my images with a sidebar of image information. I like the format of ApolloOne but found it will not display an AF photo thumbnail in its image viewer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LK23 Posted January 9, 2022 Author Share Posted January 9, 2022 On edit, XnView MP looks pretty good but AF files show a blank image box instead of a thumbnail. Anyone know of a way to correct this in Preferences? I looked but could not find anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulEC Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 20 minutes ago, LK23 said: On edit, XnView MP looks pretty good but AF files show a blank image box instead of a thumbnail. Anyone know of a way to correct this in Preferences? I looked but could not find anything. I think I've sussed the thing with XnView MP, you have to enable "Show all graphic formats" under Tools - Settings - General. (This is in the latest version.) Sitaara 1 Quote Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz : 32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LK23 Posted January 9, 2022 Author Share Posted January 9, 2022 Thank you!! That worked. It's under Preferences, General, "Show All Graphic Formats." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomaso Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 1 hour ago, LK23 said: I am using Mac OS. I am seeking a photo browser/image viewer that will show a thumbnail of my images with a sidebar of image information. In the macOS Finder the Column and the Gallery views display file previews + information aside. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201732https://www.macworld.com/article/231525/article-604.html In case you want a cataloging app (DAM) there is, besides the already mentioned, for instance NeoFinder: https://www.cdfinder.de/en/en/screenshots.html Quote macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 16 Best Photo Viewers For Mac 2022 And then there is of course GC, which offers much more than just image browsing! Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catshill Posted January 10, 2022 Share Posted January 10, 2022 22 hours ago, PaulEC said: What's unreliable about it? (Do you mean for every folder, or for every file type?) No it’s not a file type issue. Some folders fail to show the image preview despite the option being set. Resetting folder options will sometimes work but it’s been an issue for a number of years. I think it is related to the number of folders on your system and there was a registry hack to increase the number of folders that Windows could remember. E.g https://www.guidingtech.com/fix-preview-pane-not-working-in-windows-10/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henryg Posted January 10, 2022 Share Posted January 10, 2022 19 hours ago, PaulEC said: I think I've sussed the thing with XnView MP, you have to enable "Show all graphic formats" under Tools - Settings - General. (This is in the latest version.) 😎 XnView is my browser of choice, so this is a great find! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulEC Posted January 10, 2022 Share Posted January 10, 2022 5 hours ago, Catshill said: No it’s not a file type issue. Some folders fail to show the image preview despite the option being set. Resetting folder options will sometimes work but it’s been an issue for a number of years. I think it is related to the number of folders on your system and there was a registry hack to increase the number of folders that Windows could remember. E.g https://www.guidingtech.com/fix-preview-pane-not-working-in-windows-10/ That's interesting. I've never had the problem myself, I didn't realise that there is a limit to the number of folders you could have. The only, similar, problem I've come across is having too many levels of sub-folders within each other so that the file path becomes too long. Quote Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz : 32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightchaser-nyc Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 There's not many DAM apps that support Affinity files on Mac, but https://www.pixlpath.com can show the previews of .afphoto files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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