Pros & Cons of Tiff files compared to .afphoto

[Grumpy Hec]

In my continuing evaluating of AP2 with a view to moving from LS/PS the old question of the lack of a fully compatible DAM is a perennial problem. In particular the fact that, so far, I have not identified a DAM which can fully view a .afphoto file and zoom right in and fully interact is a similar way that you can with .psd in LR. On way round this is to use .tiff as the format and export rather than just save the .afphoto file. Whilst this is not as convenient it does seem to work reasonably well in that layers are preserved.

One question that arises is, "what is the full list of differences between .afphoto and .tiff"? This may have been answered elsewhere but I have not managed to find a concise and definitive answer so far. It boils down to asking if I would be missing some advantage of .afphoto by using .tiff?

 

cheers

 

Martin

 

 

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, Grumpy Hec said:

On way round this is to use .tiff as the format and export rather than just save the .afphoto file. Whilst this is not as convenient it does seem to work reasonably well in that layers are preserved.

Just to make sure you're aware: those "layers" are actually a .afphoto document, embedded within the TIFF. While your DAM may be able to zoom into the document, it is looking only at a raster image of the actual document. It cannot see the layers as layers, and only the Affinity applications can really use the layer data in the file. This is much the same as having Photoshop create a TIFF file with layers, only there you get a TIFF file with a PSD file inside it.

[v_kyr]

3 hours ago, Grumpy Hec said:

One question that arises is, "what is the full list of differences between .afphoto and .tiff"?

APhoto is a complete proprietary file format, beside the Affinity apps no other third party software can realy interpret that file format. So any third party DAM can only showup at best the inside an Anfinity file embedded PNG preview image here. - In contrast to that, TIFF is a well specified format and thus better suited for exchange between third party apps which do handle it.

[walt.farrell]

21 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

In contrast to that, TIFF is a well specified format and thus better suited for exchange between third party apps which do handle it.

TIFF, though, doesn't have Layers, Adjustments, etc. unless they're embedded in a proprietary data format such as Affinity or Photoshop can do. As far as the DAM will know, it's just an image, unless you have a DAM that understands the embedded proprietary data. (And as you mention, they won't really understand the data that Affinity apps will embed.)

[Grumpy Hec]

Many thanks for the responses. I was aware that .afphoto is a closed format and as such I'm searching for a way of using AP2 with a DAM ( e.g. ACDSee, Photosupreme) ) in a similar way, as far as is possible at least, to the LR/PS relationship. Whilst some 3rd party DAMs can see a thumbnail of .afphoto none, as far as I know, can provide a viewable full screen view or even an enlarged view. 

The two most obvious options are a) to use .afphoto but always partner with a JPG which would provide the viewable format for the DAM, albeit with a bit of an annoying need to do a seperate export each time you save a new version of the .afphoto or b) to use .tiff which , as you say, provides a viewable format via the embedded .afphoto. As far as my tests show the tiff file has no obvious disadvantages/shortcomings over the afphoto as all layers/adjustments are available to continue processing when the file is reopened.

This is the point at which my question came in as I wondered if anybody knew of the various differences/advantages of the two formats in this context to confirm that I have not missed anything.

 

Needless to say if Serif had a DAM in their portfolio this would not be an issue and I would certainly have switched to using AP by now.  As it is my decision is still uncertain.

 

Thanks guys

[walt.farrell]

38 minutes ago, Grumpy Hec said:

or b) to use .tiff which , as you say, provides a viewable format via the embedded .afphoto.

Technically, it's because a TIFF includes the raster image. The embedded .afphoto is still not viewable by the DAM.

38 minutes ago, Grumpy Hec said:

This is point that my question came in as I wondered if anybody knew of the various differences/advantages of the two formats in this context to confirm that I have not missed anything.

Well, in one simple test (open TIFF, Export and select Save Affinity Layers) the file with the layers was larger:

I have no idea about the size differences in general, as I haven't done much testing and I don't generally use TIFF files with Affinity Layers. But given that the file must have the rasterized version of the image, as well as all the .afphoto data, I would expect it to at least double.

Edit:  Thinking further (after pressing Submit ) i realized that the real comparison should probably be between a straight TIFF (no Affinity Layers) and a .afphoto. A quick test showed the .afphoto file sizes roughly comparable to the TIFF with Affinity Layers, but I would need much more testing to give a general comparison. Sorry.

[Grumpy Hec]

Thanks Walt.

Interesting and logical. I'll do some more tests including comparing to afphoto as a matter of interest. In terms of a way to use a DAM to manage my 100K plus images with AP2, going down the tiff route is looking increasingly like the best option.

Assuming that is the case the next step, of finding a DAM which I can convert to from LR, is the real challenge. Lots of collections, smart collections and keywords to export/import which has proven to be a challenge. In many ways the DAM issue is the real deal breaker in adopting AP2 after LR/PS if you have a large portfolio. Rumour has it that if you stop your Adobe subscription you can still use LR as a DAM only (Library module)without all the other modules. If that is still the case that may well be the answer whilst using AP2 with tiff files. 

 

All good fun.

 

Thanks again for your input.

 

cheers

Martin

 

 

[mikerofoto]

tiff file are about 180mb while .afphoto are a whopping 960mb for the same picture. sure .afphoto keep layers while tiff doesn’t. it really goes down to how much work you do on it and if you want to save everything, or if you’re pretty good to redo the work with close to same results saved as tiff.

[manfred9]

As far as I understand the original post, there was the question included what is lost if you save your edits in .tiff instead of .afphoto. I know that history information is only included in .afphoto.

On 3/9/2023 at 1:11 AM, Grumpy Hec said:

"what is the full list of differences between .afphoto and .tiff"

Is there any other processing information which is stored in one format but not the other. I am interested in this difference, not so much about what can be viewed from another software.

Thanks for your input.