NotYourMami Posted December 15, 2022 Share Posted December 15, 2022 Hii everyone, I'm fairly new to Affinity Photo and I was wondering if someone could explain what the output means in Affinity Photo 2? When opening a photo I want to edit, I can choose between the following three options before developing: pixel layer, RAW layer (embedded) and RAW layer (linked). What's the difference between these three and which option do I choose when I want to edit my RAW photos? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted December 15, 2022 Share Posted December 15, 2022 Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums. Please see the Help: https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/Raw/raw.html Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2, 16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.7, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotYourMami Posted December 15, 2022 Author Share Posted December 15, 2022 7 minutes ago, walt.farrell said: Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums. Please see the Help: https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/Raw/raw.html Thank you so much for your quick reply! Since English isn't my first language and I'm not familiar with all these terms, could you perhaps confirm if choosing the pixel layer means that I'm not able to use the original photo I took again? Is the pixel layer of lower quality in comparison to the RAW options? Or does this mean that if I choose one of the RAW options, I can still go back to the original RAW photo within editing and it has nothing to do with my original file? I'm sorry if these questions come across as dense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bruce Posted December 15, 2022 Share Posted December 15, 2022 1 hour ago, NotYourMami said: Thank you so much for your quick reply! Since English isn't my first language and I'm not familiar with all these terms, could you perhaps confirm if choosing the pixel layer means that I'm not able to use the original photo I took again? It means the original file remains untouched and is waiting to be used again. I just means that the layer in the Photo Persona once you develop it is a pixel layer. Just like in version one if you ever used that. You can open the original at anytime but that will make a new document. The Link and Embedded means you can go back and apply different development settings to the Affinity Photo document. Let us say you are happy with the exposure adjustments and colour adjustments you made but are now unhappy with the contrast. You can then go back in the Develop persona and all the settings you had are still there and active, you can adjust the contrast without having to reapply the Exposure and Colour adjustments. If you used the pixel option, then you would have to reopen the raw file and reapply all of the adjustments. Plus, this would be in a new document. Embedded makes a much larger file but loads quicker when you reopen the file later on in the day/week/month. Linked is a much smaller file but it means that Photo must read the original raw file and apply everything before you see the image. Can take quite a while with linked. Myself I use linked because I have all my raw files stored in my own filing system and they will never be moved, this is on a separate hard drive which means I will often have time to go get a coffee and have a smoke when I reopen a bunch of files. Yolanda 1 Quote Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.6 Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear. I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotYourMami Posted December 15, 2022 Author Share Posted December 15, 2022 50 minutes ago, Old Bruce said: It means the original file remains untouched and is waiting to be used again. I just means that the layer in the Photo Persona once you develop it is a pixel layer. Just like in version one if you ever used that. You can open the original at anytime but that will make a new document. The Link and Embedded means you can go back and apply different development settings to the Affinity Photo document. Let us say you are happy with the exposure adjustments and colour adjustments you made but are now unhappy with the contrast. You can then go back in the Develop persona and all the settings you had are still there and active, you can adjust the contrast without having to reapply the Exposure and Colour adjustments. If you used the pixel option, then you would have to reopen the raw file and reapply all of the adjustments. Plus, this would be in a new document. Embedded makes a much larger file but loads quicker when you reopen the file later on in the day/week/month. Linked is a much smaller file but it means that Photo must read the original raw file and apply everything before you see the image. Can take quite a while with linked. Myself I use linked because I have all my raw files stored in my own filing system and they will never be moved, this is on a separate hard drive which means I will often have time to go get a coffee and have a smoke when I reopen a bunch of files. That makes a lot of sense, thank you so much for explaining!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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