New customer: RE Photographer needing help with the Stack Feature

[DeJeanB]

I've just converted from PS to Affinity Photo (hopefully, not prematurely), and am in need of guidance.  As a Real Estate photographer, I'd developed the efficient workflow of selecting images from LR, editing those images 'as layers' in PS, and then returning to LR with my composited image for refinements.  It seems clear that I'll no longer be able to do my job in this manner.  I'm aware of the 'New Stack' feature.  However, this would require me to convert each file to TIFF (or JPEG, if I wish to lose some details from my photo). So, is there a feature in the works to streamline this process through Affinity?  Do the people at Affinity have an effective workaround for this?  I truly hope this isn't falling upon deaf ears.

Thanks in advance.

[DWright]

Hi @DeJeanB,

Welcome to the forum

Which file format do you use as you can stack RAW files into a single image without the need to convert them.

[DeJeanB]

First of all, I truly am grateful that you reached out.

So, I’ve had to find a way to do tweaks to my raw(ARW) files (via Darktable), before having them populated into AP’s ‘New Stack’ feature. As you might already know, RAW files with any XMP data (referring to edits made outside of AP) cannot be populated into the ‘New Stack’. The new stack only brings in the RAW file, without adjustments. I know this may sound redundant. But, I just want to make sure that I am articulating this in a way that’s understandable. 

To continue, I was hoping to load into the stack files that contained a greater amount of information than a JPEG and much less than a TIFF. I tried importing images that were converted to JPEG 2000 files, via Darktable. We’ll, Affinity didn’t seem to like that, much. So, I opted to convert my raw files, with the  associated tweaks,  into the highest level quality JPEG (again, Darktable). Imported those JPEG‘s into Affinity, using the New Stack feature. And there you have it, my ‘work around’.

All that being said, it sure would be nice if Affinity Photo were able to come up with a new, MUCH more simple, means of doing this. Possibly their own photo management client? 

Just another passenger desperately fleeing the titanic (Adobe).

 

 

[Old Bruce]

If I understand correctly... You want to use the Stacks feature of Affinity Photo for your real estate photographs. Use Darktable to produce 16 bits TIFF files. Delete the TIFF files once you have produced the final image to sell the house. You will still have the XMP files from Darktable and therefore can reproduce the TIFFs whenever you want. 

The 16 Bit TIFFs are going to be huge, the Affinity Photo Stack document is going to be huge multiplied by the number of TIFFs. Once you have a good image via the Stacks method you can keep the good image and delete the other stuff keeping your ARW files with their XMP files. So if you need to redo this you can do so with a minimum of fuss and no wasted space on the hard drive storing TIFFs and Affinity Files.