Editing and saving DNG edits…

[Lee.M]

Hello, I am new to Affinity and a bit confused to how to save DNG edits in Affinity Photo. My workflow when I was using Photoshop was to first convert my raw Nikon images in Adobe DNG Converter, open the dng file into Adobe Camera Raw to edit, then open into Photoshop. If I was to close that photoshop file without saving, I could re-open the dng file (back into Camera Raw and my previous edits would be saved.

So I have opened a dng file into Affinity Photo 2 on iMac, it opens up in develop persona and I make my edits. I then click develop (raw layer embedded) and if I close the file without saving, and re-open that dng file again, the edits aren't saved.

Is this normal behaviour?

Is there a way to save the dng edits without making an affinity save file?

Lee.

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

DNG is not an output format for Affinity Photo (or other Affinity applications). You need to Save your file as a .afphoto file after you Develop it, if you want to save your edits in a way that you can continue editing later. Your original RAW file remains unaltered,.

[Lee.M]

Thank you for your reply.  I guess I'll have to find a new workflow. It's a shame that edits made in the Develop Persona don't get saved within the dng file or even in a side car xmp file. I'd rather not make another new file save of the edits, especially when I edit lots of photos at one time.

[BigNickEnergy]

I'm definitely on Lee's side with this. For storage alone, this is awful. For example, my .DNG file is 46MB. I do my edits and save a .AFPHOTO with the edits and this file is 316MB. An XML sidecar file would be negligible in size. Is this on the roadmap at all and if not, how would one go about submitting a feature request for this? From a programming perspective, the amount of effort to implement something like this would be quite small for such a significant gain in workflow and space savings for those editing raw files.

[Ldina]

I’d suggest opening your DNG in the Develop Persona, make some conservative changes there, then open in AfPhoto using RAW Layer (Linked). You can work non-destructively in 16 bit and since you are linking to your DNG, your files sizes stay VERY small. You can also go back to the Develop Persona at any time, as often as you wish if you want to make any “develop” adjustments, and your previous settings are remembered. As long as you do not “rasterize” your imported DNG “Image Layer”, your files sizes stay small and you can re-develop at will. (Image Layers are similar to PS smart objects. Once rasterized, they are embedded, which will inflate file size and lose some of the RAW editing capabilities, e.g., white balance adjustments based on color temp.)

All your Develop settings are stored inside the AfPhoto file, so if you reopen the file at a later date, your settings are remembered, and like before, you can go back and forth between the two Personas as often as you wish. That link remains active. Open the saved AfPhoto file to continue working or tweaking your file. If you open the original DNG, you’re starting from scratch again. I love this workflow, plus it avoids huge file sizes. RAW Layer (embedded) works the same way, but the DNG is embedded rather than linked. I prefer “linked” due to the savings in file size. Give it a try. It’s just a different way of working.

[BigNickEnergy]

26 minutes ago, Ldina said:

I’d suggest opening your DNG in the Develop Persona, make some conservative changes there, then open in AfPhoto using RAW Layer (Linked). You can work non-destructively in 16 bit and since you are linking to your DNG, your files sizes stay VERY small. You can also go back to the Develop Persona at any time, as often as you wish if you want to make any “develop” adjustments, and your previous settings are remembered. As long as you do not “rasterize” your imported DNG “Image Layer”, your files sizes stay small and you can re-develop at will. (Image Layers are similar to PS smart objects. Once rasterized, they are embedded, which will inflate file size and lose some of the RAW editing capabilities, e.g., white balance adjustments based on color temp.)

All your Develop settings are stored inside the AfPhoto file, so if you reopen the file at a later date, your settings are remembered, and like before, you can go back and forth between the two Personas as often as you wish. That link remains active. Open the saved AfPhoto file to continue working or tweaking your file. If you open the original DNG, you’re starting from scratch again. I love this workflow, plus it avoids huge file sizes. RAW Layer (embedded) works the same way, but the DNG is embedded rather than linked. I prefer “linked” due to the savings in file size. Give it a try. It’s just a different way of working.

Thank you! This is definitely the response I was looking for. The file is now 1MB in comparison to the 300+MB. The 'RAW Layer (Linked)' option should definitely be the default in that dropdown, however, now that I'm aware of it, that's no longer an issue for me. Thanks again!