Mysterious downsizing of AFP files

[Roc]

I worked up select files in AFP 2.1 and using "Save As" that created files of approx. 120MGs. When I went back to examine the files they were all less than 1MG. Prior to examining the files I had up graded to v. 2.1.1. Have never had this problem before. Any thoughts. Working in Windows 11 on a Microsoft Surface Pro.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Roc

[walt.farrell]

Do they still Open successfully?

What kind of data do you have in the files?

Can you share a sample, and/or provide screenshots including the Layers panel?

[Roc]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Do they still Open successfully? No

What kind of data do you have in the files? They are close ups of flowers

Can you share a sample, and/or provide screenshots including the Layers panel? See below

[Roc]

In Resource Manager it says file is missing and resizing doesn't work.

Thanks Walt!

[Roc]

[Roc]

When I select "Locate in Document" the above is what I get. In the preceeding post I meant "Relink" not Resize.

[thomaso]

According to the Resource Manager the missing image is stored on volume "E:\Sony …". – Make sure the volume is mounted to avoid the missing status. If you opened the image directly from your camera card it is recommended to copy the files first to a local disk before accessing the files via Affinity. If you copy them now you can update their parent folder paths in Affinity via "Relink".

[walt.farrell]

It looks like you may have Developed a RAW file to a Linked RAW layer, which is a new capability in V2. In that scenario, you get a much smaller .afphoto file, as it doesn't include the actual RAW data, but you need to have the original file available when you want to use the .afphoto file.

[Roc]

All RAW files are downloaded from card prior to opening Thomaso. As Walt sagely notes, I'm running V.2 so apparently what has happened is when I SAVED the post pro file it saved it as a much smaller file. Walt, the original file is in my  "E:\Sony …". drive and is mounted, but I still get the notice of the missing file as my screen shot above shows. How do I get the .afphoto file to see the RAW data in the original file?

Thanks Guys,

Roc

[R C-R]

21 minutes ago, Roc said:

How do I get the .afphoto file to see the RAW data in the original file?

Have you tried the "Relink" button when the E drive is mounted?

[Roc]

Yes. My E Drive is always mounted. When I choose Relink I'm directed to select the Folder the file is in. I do this but nothing happens. The way my folders are set up is my Selects Folder is nested within the rest of my RAW images from the same date. Is that a problem and preventing .afphoto from seeing the original RAW data?

[R C-R]

8 minutes ago, Roc said:

The way my folders are set up is my Selects Folder is nested within the rest of my RAW images from the same date.

Is this the same folder as shown in the Resource Manager; IOW in the Garden '23 folder of the 2023 folder?

Regardless, can you navigate to that  Garden '23 folder & open that file directly in AP?

[Roc]

Yes, I can open the original RAW file, but I can't open the same file that has been worked on in the Selects Folder, and that is the problem. For some reason AP isn't seeing the RAW data that Walt (above) refers to.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Roc said:

Yes, I can open the original RAW file, but I can't open the same file that has been worked on in the Selects Folder, and that is the problem. For some reason AP isn't seeing the RAW data that Walt (above) refers to.

I do not know what you mean by the "Select Folder" or where the original RAW file is located. Please explain in more detail what you mean, or better yet include a few screenshots.

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, Roc said:

When I choose Relink I'm directed to select the Folder the file is in. I do this but nothing happens. The way my folders are set up is my Selects Folder is nested within the rest of my RAW images from the same date. Is that a problem and preventing .afphoto from seeing the original RAW data?

it depends how/when/where from you want to relink.

• If you "Relink" a certain, selected image of an already opened Affinity document you have to point to the nested folder / to the child folder where this specific image is stored.

• If you choose "Yes" in the dialog window that appears while just opening an Affinity document then the path to their parent folder might be sufficient, for instance "Sony A7RIV" or "2023" …

[Roc]

Here is the way I have my folders set up. When I scroll over any of these select files it shows the size as 1MB, they should be about 700MB. When I try to open any of these files in AF v.2 I get the notice that the file is missing and would you like to locate it? When I check yes, it brings me to the Resource Manager which I have shown you in screen shots already posted. 

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Roc said:

Here is the way I have my folders set up.

Where is the file named DSC03410.ARW located? If you can find it, can you open it directly in AP -- IOW, not as a linked file in a different AP 2 file?

[thomaso]

9 hours ago, Roc said:

When I scroll over any of these select files it shows the size as 1MB, they should be about 700MB.

As Walt mentioned above, your RAW files are linked (different to V1 which did not have this feature). Linked image files reduce the size of an Affinity document.

9 hours ago, Roc said:

When I check yes, it brings me to the Resource Manager

The "Yes" option occurs when you open an Affinity document, next to the alternative option "Resource Manager". If you choose "Yes" a file browser window of your operating system appears and asks you to choose the folder of the first missing image: "Locate missing resource (…)". (sorry, my previous info about just a parent folder was wrong). – For instance in V1:

If you choose "Resource Manager" the manager window opens. Here you can select "Relink" for a selected image. The "Yes" method has the advantage that it auto-relinks all possibly missing images of a certain folder.

In both ways Affinity wants you to be guided to the folder of the linked and missing RAW / ARW  images (not to their .aphoto files).

EDIT: In case you have deleted an .ARW file after creating an .aphoto document you possibly can re-copy the .ARW from the camera drive into a folder of your choice + choose this folder for the relinking procedure via "Yes" or "Resource Manager".

Edited July 10, 2023 by thomaso

[Roc]

Thanks so much Tomaso and RC-R for going deep on this with me. My Missing Resources window does appear and when I click Yes it takes me to my folders where I select the Garden Selects '23 folder, but it just takes me back to the afp window and no file is loaded. I have never seen a _highres or _lowres option.

This morning without having changed anything, when I open an .aphoto file from my Garden Selects '23 folder it opens a pixilated image which after 10 seconds becomes a highres image but without any of the Layers used to create the .aphoto file.

More info.: I went back to the original .ARW files on a few of the Select images and reworked them to .aphoto files, saved them to the Garden Selects '23 folder and when I open that folder the newly worked files are there as 800MB files.

I'm not sure what is happening. Why were any of my .aphoto files saved as lowres to begin with? Is there a setting that I can change.

[thomaso]

18 minutes ago, Roc said:

I'm not sure what is happening. Why were any of my .aphoto files saved as lowres to begin with? Is there a setting that I can change.

From your description it seems some images got linked, others embedded (-> larger file size), your screenshot selections shows linked only.

If a linked image is missing than its preview is pixelated ("lowres"), not the linked image itself. Once you fixed the missing state the preview should change to highres (depending on the number and size of images which need their preview get updated it does not occur immediately for all resources.

It may depend on the way you create the file, for instance in V1: dragging or placing an images can result in linked (depending on the document settings) while opening usually embeds and, for e.g. JPGs, creates a pixel layer instead of an image layer. – The behaviour in V2 and RAW may differ in some steps but it should help if you generally look for linked vs embedded if you create, place or open a non-affinity file.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Roc said:

Thanks so much Tomaso and RC-R for going deep on this with me.

It REALLY would help if you could go back & reread the last 6-8 replies & try to answer the questions asked of you, like if you can find the original DSC03410.ARW file mentioned in the Resource Manager, & if so where (on what drive & in what folder) it is located. That file is the one you need to relink to.

[Roc]

DSC03410.ARW file is located in the E drive, Folder Garden '23 (1st screen shot). The .afphoto file is located in the Garden Selects '23 folder (2nd screen shot). The 3rd screen shot shows what happens when I try to open the .afphoto version of '23 03410 Garden.aphoto.  I'm directed to the 4th screen shot and when I click OPEN a Hires file opens in in Affinity Photo as you see in the 5th screen shot, but with no layers. This is an unworkable workflow! When I open an .afphoto file I want it to open as the Hires file and not have to go through this mumbo jumbo.

What do you suggest?

 

[Old Bruce]

7 minutes ago, Roc said:

when I click OPEN a Hires file opens in in Affinity Photo as you see in the 5th screen shot, but with no layers. This is an unworkable workflow!

Were there layers (other than the layer named after the .arw linked file) when you saved the file as a Photo file? What sort of layers were they?

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, Roc said:

What do you suggest?

At this point, the only thing I can think of to try is to copy the DSC03410.ARW file onto your boot drive & try relinking to it at that location. It may not work but if it does it might help us figure out what is causing this issue.

[Roc]

Yes Bruce, there were layers: Contrast and Brightness, Curves and Selective Colors.