Replace initial Background picture

[Fourdogslong]

Hi, 

I'm new to the forum but have been using Affinity Photo for several years, but I'm not an expert at all.

I`ve always wondered, but never got to figure it out, if it's possible to swap the Background layer for another picture.

For example, let's say I developped a RAW photo, I then exported it to a Tiff file and opened that Tiff in Affinity Photo, then did a bunch of edits to in, inpainting, color adjustments, frequency seperation, stuff like that.

Then after I'm done with my edits in Affinity Photo I realize that I should've been less agressive with my Noise Reduction (just an example) with my RAW converter.

Is there a way I can go back to my RAW converter, re-export a new Tiff and then point Affinity Photo to that new Tiff so that all my work is applied to that new Tiff instead of the original one?

Thanks in advance!

[MikeTO]

Hi @Fourdogslong and welcome to the forum. If all of the edits you applied to the TIFF image are non-destructive, i.e., adjustment and live filter layers and any painting you did was on a pixel layer above the background, then you can replace the background layer they're modifying. Of course if you painted to a pixel layer and you don't align the replacement image the same way, the painting you did will be to the wrong part of the photo. So your mileage may vary and you may need to make some tweaks.

Cheers

[Fourdogslong]

Thanks Mike!

Could you guide me on what I would need to do to replace it?

Also, if there has been inpainting on the first "background" layer, this will be lost, right? Or is there a way to prevent that?

Have a good one.

[Komatös]

Hi, @Fourdogslong

If you edit a tiff file, i.e. add adjustment layers and/or effects and save this file not in .afphoto format but again as tiff or in another format, then all layers will be rendered and the whole file will be rasterized. Undoing overdriven adjustments or effects is no longer easily possible.

If you were to use Affinity Photo for RAW development, you would even have the ability to change settings and adjustments after the fact or undo them altogether.

[firstdefence]

Which RAW editor did you use, a lot of them have sidecar files with the edits you did, so, you can reopen the RAW file and tweak any changes you made then export again as a TIFF

[MikeTO]

8 hours ago, Fourdogslong said:

Could you guide me on what I would need to do to replace it?

Also, if there has been inpainting on the first "background" layer, this will be lost, right? Or is there a way to prevent that?

Assuming the original photo is the background layer of the afphoto file, simply create the new photo as a separate document, copy it to the clipboard, select the background in the first document, and paste - the replacement photo will be pasted above the first one. You could delete the first one if you wanted or leave it for reference.

Any painting you did directly to the background layer is part of that layer. It's usually better to paint onto a new pixel layer. Also, all those adjustments you made directly to that layer will be lost if they weren't separate layers. Photo editors like Affinity are so much better than the tools we had decades ago. We can do so much work without permanently changing the source image so that changes can be rolled back. We just have to remember to use them. 🙂 Good luck.

Cheers

[Fourdogslong]

5 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Which RAW editor did you use, a lot of them have sidecar files with the edits you did, so, you can reopen the RAW file and tweak any changes you made then export again as a TIFF

I use Photo Ninja and Capture One. I can effectively reopen the RAW with the original settings I had.

[Fourdogslong]

9 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Any painting you did directly to the background layer is part of that layer. It's usually better to paint onto a new pixel layer. Also, all those adjustments you made directly to that layer will be lost if they weren't separate layers. Photo editors like Affinity are so much better than the tools we had decades ago. We can do so much work without permanently changing the source image so that changes can be rolled back. We just have to remember to use them. 🙂 Good luck.

Cheers

I have not been in the habit of creating a pixel layer to do my inpainting, I will investigate this for sure.

Thanks a lot everyone.