Why won't Serif listen to customer needs and create a Lightroom alternative for us?

[KC Honie]

2 hours ago, ATP said:

I want to pop in here and ask, are people happy with how Affinity Photo handles RAW photos?

My old copy of Lightroom handles RAW pictures a lot better, so much so that I never use Affinity Photo for anything RAW.

Their RAW processing needs to become a lot better if they create a Lightroom competitor.

The short answer is no...  Serif uses LibRaw as the core raw handler then wraps its own develop algorithms around that.  

AP is certainly not as good as LR, C1P, or DxO...

[Max P]

A very interesting thread
Maybe see here

okay this is a standalone application, which seems to be able to collect data from

[loukash]

5 hours ago, Max P said:

Maybe see here

Actually it's Peakto which looks interesting for cataloging purposes, so thanks for sharing.
Currently it's only "photo photo photo" again, but there's a roadmap…
https://trello.com/b/yx5ePR2u/peakto-public-roadmap
… and Affinity compatibility is on the list of planned features:
https://trello.com/c/97yOuXMZ/48-better-integration-with-affinity-photo

This is the one DAM to keep an eye on!

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, loukash said:

Aktually it's Peakto which looks interesting for cataloging purposes, so thanks for sharing.

Too bad it's Apple-only.

[loukash]

Just now, walt.farrell said:

Too bad it's Apple-only.

Meh.  There are apparently enough Win-only DAMs you could choose from…
Besides, Affinity was Mac only for years, too. Things can change.

[Chills]

19 hours ago, loukash said:

Meh.  There are apparently enough Win-only DAMs you could choose from…
Besides, Affinity was Mac only for years, too. Things can change.

It really needs to be BOTH win and Mac.   That covers 98% of the desktop market.
Many companies have a mix of PC and Mac depending on use and departments.

[loukash]

1 hour ago, Chills said:

It really needs to be BOTH win and Mac.

Don't tell me. Tell the respective developers.

[loukash]

Speaking of Windows, I have actually managed to find a Windows installer of Expression Media on archive.org and make it run under Wine on MacOS Ventura. There are quite a few glitches but it is still somewhat usable as an *.ivc catalog viewer.

[DragonWhimsy]

In Serif's original roadmap for the Affinity suite a Lightroom alternative was listed as something they wanted to do as the fourth program of the suite. That roadmap also mentions both Publisher and the IPad apps which at the time didn't yet exist. You can see this in the forward to the Affinity Designer workbook. 

My theory is that when developing Publisher and the IPad apps that both Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo took real hits to their development of new features. It's likely Serif felt that those programs had lost a lot of momentum that they originally had as they just weren't being developed fast enough for its user's needs and so they decided to refocus on their main three products for the time being until they are more feature complete. 

I have no doubt a lightroom alternative is coming eventually. But it does seem to have been delayed for the moment. 

[Pšenda]

13 hours ago, DragonWhimsy said:

was listed as something they wanted to do as the fourth program of the suite.

Not only was it on the roadmap, but they were actually working on it.

 

[KC Honie]

On 12/7/2023 at 4:50 PM, DragonWhimsy said:

I have no doubt a lightroom alternative is coming eventually. But it does seem to have been delayed for the moment. 

At this point it is too little too late, switching raw developers is about as painful as switching camera platforms...

[Torstein]

On 11/26/2023 at 11:34 AM, Chills said:

None of which are anywhere near Lightroom for cataloguing. They are slowly improving that aspect but... 
For one thing none of them have the mapping section nor the web gallery generation AFAIK

Photo Supreme looks interesting. You are right that Photo won't replace Lightroom in the same way Photoshop and Bridge don't.

Get DigiKam for free...

[Chills]

2 hours ago, Torstein said:

Get DigiKam for free...

No thanks.

[eiketre]

Hi

 

I have noticed that a photo catalog feature for Affinity has been requested for some time. I am adding my request to that “list”.

I am still using lightroom and have been able to use that with Affinity photo (If installing with msi). However Lr does not support .afphoto files.

I found a nice photo organizer that can display thumbnails for Affinity photo files (Photo Supreme). It is not perfect so I will continue to Lr until I can find something else.

I hope Affinity comes with some sort of an organizer in the future.

Regards

Jan

 

[cliffetzelphoto]

Although I'm not a programmer, I briefly worked in the I.T sector in the early 2000's (Tech support for Symantec as well as web design in the early days of Wordpress).

Adobe acquired what is now Lightroom many moons ago and rebranded it (I use to use it's original iteration back in the day).  From what I can tell, Lightroom uses base core functionality of Photoshop.  Affinity already has AP developed and it would seem to me at least that integrating certain core features from AP2 and combining an SQL Lite engine for the cataloging aspect would seem fairly straight forward (But I could be completely wrong).  Again, I am no programmer but given all that I've seen in this field as a photographer for over 35 years now it seems that a committed group of coders could make a LR/C1 type app a viable reality. All it takes is enough financial resource and maybe that's the roadblock for Serif at this time. 

[Chills]

45 minutes ago, cliffetzelphoto said:

Although I'm not a programmer, I briefly worked in the I.T sector in the early 2000's (Tech support for Symantec as well as web design in the early days of Wordpress).

Adobe acquired what is now Lightroom many moons ago and rebranded it (I use to use it's original iteration back in the day).  From what I can tell, Lightroom uses base core functionality of Photoshop.  Affinity already has AP developed and it would seem to me at least that integrating certain core features from AP2 and combining an SQL Lite engine for the cataloging aspect would seem fairly straight forward (But I could be completely wrong).  Again, I am no programmer but given all that I've seen in this field as a photographer for over 35 years now it seems that a committed group of coders could make a LR/C1 type app a viable reality. All it takes is enough financial resource and maybe that's the roadblock for Serif at this time. 

The difference is Adobe has a very good RAW converter. Affinity doesn't (yet)
Then again for a catalogue program what you really need a good database system. (Unfortunately, SQLite isn't particularly good.)
However, in principle you are correct. Take modules from A Photo add a database and a UI....

With the interface to A-Publisher, it will be a winner for people like me who do magazines and books.
Where you have the "Stock" interface to Pexels and Pixbay just add C-Cat. A winner.

 

[KC Honie]

I am now all in with creative cloud.  I will check back on occasion to see what is going on but for now the Affinity apps are gone from my system.

Had there been a reasonable LR alternative I would have stayed but that is not going to happen...

[Pšenda]

20 minutes ago, Chills said:

(Unfortunately, SQLite isn't particularly good.)

I definitely have to disagree with you. Just its wide presence on all basic platforms and its numerous uses in many professional applications (as far as I know, for example in cataloging programs like Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Lightroom) indicate that it is more than capable and suitable for use in DAM-type tools. I myself have been using this database engine to my full satisfaction for many years, and the ease of use and its speed is first class.

[Chills]

18 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

I definitely have to disagree with you. Just its wide presence on all basic platforms and its numerous uses in many professional applications (as far as I know, for example in cataloging programs like Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Lightroom) indicate that it is more than capable and suitable for use in DAM-type tools. I myself have been using this database engine to my full satisfaction for many years, and the ease of use and its speed is first class.

Fair enough. However, I have also used high integrity real time databases and there is no comparison. Though I suppose for a DAM that is not real time nor that critical it is fine.

[KC Honie]

Pixelmator listened to their customers...

Pixelmator has released a significant update to Photomator, its award-winning photo editing app for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro. Photomator 3.3 includes a powerful new file browser built on native macOS functionality, promising a fast and convenient photo browsing and editing experience, no matter where photographers keep their files.

Plus it is non-destructive...

 

[Marshalleq]

Just registering my vote for this, actually I have a post from some time back asking for alternatives because I, like many, are on subscription overload.  The upshot of that was any alternatives to Lightroom either cost more or do not work properly or are not photo managers.  I was prepared to pay more for perpetual from one of the good ones, but it turned out their perpetual was only perpetual within the major version number, so not perpetual at all.  I have owned and used exposure for years and it's great but it doesn't have a catalog so its slow and doesn't work so well with large photo libraries.  So please Affinity, despite some strangely defeatist attitudes on here, the length of this thread and others proves you have a market for it.

 

Many thanks.

[KC Honie]

4 hours ago, j3rry said:

I have been waiting for (8!) years to see if Serif would develop a DAM and in this context also renew and improve the raw converter. But so far no sign of it so I've decided to renew my Adobe Abo. I will continue to monitor the Affinity Suite but will do my photo work with LR and PS.

 

That is where I am as well, the shocking part is how much better PS is than AP.  Camera Raw really is way ahead of AP's raw converter.  Capture One is still the best IMHO, but their switch to a very expensive de facto subscription model drove me back to Adobe and away from Affinity.

[Westerwälder]

Ich werde niemals noch einmal Adobe Geld in den Rachen werfen, Ich meine mich zu erinnern, dass die Grundlagen für Lightroom von einer Firma aus Dänemark gelegt wurden, In einer Zeit da Adobe alles was gut war auf dem Weltmarkt zusammen gekauft hat und vieles eingestellt hat, da hatte ich mich auch zu Lightroom überreden lassen, aber die Preispolitik von dieser Firma haben mich zu Affinity kommen lassen, ich bin mit Affinity zufrieden obwohl die RAW entwicklung nich optimal ist.

Ich höffe immer noch dass ein RAW Programm kommt.

Ach übrigens es kann sein dass ich micht bei der Entwicklung von Lightroom täusche aber mir fällt auf dass Adobe die Geschichte immer wieder versucht zu verfälschen.

Google Übersetzer

I will never throw money down Adobe's throat again. I seem to remember that the foundations for Lightroom were laid by a company from Denmark, at a time when Adobe was buying up everything that was good on the world market and discontinuing a lot of things , I was persuaded to go to Lightroom, but this company's pricing policy made me choose Affinity. I'm happy with Affinity even though the RAW development isn't optimal.

I'm still hoping that a RAW program will come along.

Oh, by the way, it could be that I'm wrong about the development of Lightroom, but I notice that Adobe keeps trying to falsify the story.
 

Westerwälder

 

[Chills]

4 minutes ago, Westerwälder said:

I seem to remember that the foundations for Lightroom were laid by a company from Denmark, at a time when Adobe was buying up everything that was good on the world market and discontinuing a lot of things ,

There is a lot of this sort of thing that goes on. Microsoft was legendary for doing it.  Apple were better when Jobs was at the helm but since then..... 😞
I am certain that MS Outlook was not a Microsoft development, Email, calendar, tasks and a contact database all in one.  My most used app over the last 30 years.

I nearly went to Apple Aperture but at the last minute didn't press the "buy" and went Lightroom.  I think it was because Aperture wasn't on PC Also I knew that the Intel Macs were on the way and updates would only be on the Intel macs not the PPC ones.  Indeed Apple did an OS upgrade that didn't support Aperture before stopping support  

Then again with Lightroom Adobe stopped support for the standalone V 6.14 Lightroom weeks before google changed the interface to the maps rendering the Maps section of the V6.14 inoperative. Adobe would have known the change was coming so they could update the CC version in time. I think this was in an effort to force people to the Creative Cloud Subscription system.  As the Adobe support page for this says "To continue using the Map service, it is recommended that you update to the latest Lightroom Classic version."    I didn't jump. 

However a decent DAM like Lightroom +Bridge from Serrif would be great. I would pay for it.
 

[KC Honie]

3 minutes ago, Chills said:

There is a lot of this sort of thing that goes on. Microsoft was legendary for doing it.  Apple were better when Jobs was at the helm but since then..... 😞
I am certain that MS Outlook was not a Microsoft development, Email, calendar, tasks and a contact database all in one.  My most used app over the last 30 years.

I nearly went to Apple Aperture but at the last minute didn't press the "buy" and went Lightroom.  I think it was because Aperture wasn't on PC Also I knew that the Intel Macs were on the way and updates would only be on the Intel macs not the PPC ones.  Indeed Apple did an OS upgrade that didn't support Aperture before stopping support  

Then again with Lightroom Adobe stopped support for the standalone V 6.14 Lightroom weeks before google changed the interface to the maps rendering the Maps section of the V6.14 inoperative. Adobe would have known the change was coming so they could update the CC version in time. I think this was in an effort to force people to the Creative Cloud Subscription system.  As the Adobe support page for this says "To continue using the Map service, it is recommended that you update to the latest Lightroom Classic version."    I didn't jump. 

However a decent DAM like Lightroom +Bridge from Serrif would be great. I would pay for it.
 

As photographers we are a small minority of Serif's customer base.  Aperture was by and far my favorite raw developer but alas...

As stated above I am back to LR and PS...