How do you guys manage your photos ?

[Antonio Correia]

I use LR and CS

 

When I open the files in Affinity it is saved under a proprietary format which LR doesn't read or "see".

 

I have to export from Affinity under tiff so I can see it in LR.

 

Even then, I have to go to LR and synchronize the folder to see it !

 

It doesn't make any sense. 

 

What am I missing here ?

 

Thank you !

[Travelling Man]

You are not really missing anything. The missing ingredient is AP having a digital asset manager (DAM) to work with. In this respect they are planning to create their own but there is not much more info than that. 

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you Travelling Man ! :)

 

Hope they get that thing done soon !

[Travelling Man]

You are most welcome and likewise :-)

[KateBrennan]

If I want to open a file from Lightroom to edit in Affinity and appear back in Lightroom, I just open the file via Lightroom Edit In -> Edit in Affinity -> Edit a Copy.  I have Lightroom set up so that my external editor is Affinity, and it saves as PSDs.   I do whatever edits I need done in Affinity, then Export as PSD, overwriting the one Lightroom had just created.  When I'm back in Lightroom, the edit is there, with no need to synchronize the folder.

 

I generally save as PSD just so that I can still have access to the adjustments I made on each layer later on.  It also saves to the same file format as Lightroom, while with tiff, Lightroom saves as .tif and Affinity as .tiff so it doesn't overwrite the file that Lightroom creates.  To automatically appear in Lightroom without synchronizing, it has to overwrite the file that Lightroom created.

[Antonio Correia]

I have to time now for more but Kate you gave a good solution.

Meanwhile,

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you Hate.

I have never used PSD files because they are Adobe proprietary and one day - we will never know - Adobe decides to stop working with that type of file and do something to prevent us from using them.

So, the big conclusion here is that to work with Affinity and manage files - something we can't separate - we need to have both apps: Lightroom and Affinity.

Adobe is asking 12,29 € a month so we can use the program ! A shame indeed !

Affinity should implement files management in the program. Affinity as it is not a great product.

Perhaps this is the reason why it is not expensive...

Perhaps we have to wait for the next version or upgrade... sit and relax !

 

 

[Madame]

Antonio, what a great photo! 

 

You can buy a stand alone version of Lightroom. It's just hard to find (of course)

You can also export as TIFF and jpg of course. But you know that already.

 

If you  do "Edit in" you don't have to export, and the file keeps it's original suffix.

 

Affintiy is brand new, -and developing. When the DAM app (and Publisher) is coming, it will be more than great IMHO.

[Travelling Man]

Thank you Hate.

I have never used PSD files because they are Adobe proprietary and one day - we will never know - Adobe decides to stop working with that type of file and do something to prevent us from using them.

 

 

 

That is so unlikely. If we all worried about that then there would be no point is using any software that did not use a open file format. Also the Adobe subscription model includes Photoshop so it is not bad value really. It is just a matter of personal taste as to whether you go for subscription or not. My view is that more and more software houses will move to a subscription model or a variant thereof. On1 is a case in point.

 

LR works well enough with Raw, DNG, JPG and Tiff. In fact I believe some prefer Tiff to DNG (which I believe is open format). And as Madame says, you can buy a stand alone copy of LR. PSD is a Photoshop format. 

[barninga]

it is unlikely that adobe stops developing around its proprietary file format. however, affinity phot use s a proprietary format too, so imho there's no point in switching from photoshop to affinity due to adobe's file format.

there is only one solution to this issue, and it would be that all countries in the world issued laws that oblige software vendors to publish complete specifications of their data formats for free. this way, anyone can write new software that reads and write those formats.

however, in the long run, the only way to guarantee a truly long life to our photographs, is to print them (but i would not print them to paper). even open or well documented and "standard" formats, like tiff or jpeg or png, can (i said "can", not "will") become a vintage thing over time, when new image coding standard make them obsolete due to new features that new formats will implement and support.

[conrad2k]

I use LR 6 (the non-subscription version) with AP.  This is my workflow when I want pass an image from LR to AP and back again.

• When I have done all the adjustments that I want to do in LR, I right-click on the image and "Edit in..." to edit a copy in AP.  This sends a rendered TIFF over to AP with the LR adjustments;  
• When I am done in AP, I select the "document" menu and "Flatten";  
• Then I save the image; 
• At this point, when I go back over to LR, the flattened TIFF, with AP adjustments, shows up right next to the original RAW file.

If I am done with the image in AP and never want to go back re-work the the layers and adjustments that I have made, I just close the image in AP after the "Document->Flatten" and "Save".  If I think that I might want to readjust things, then I "Undo" the "Document->Flatten" in AP, which restores all the layers and adjustments and then I save them in an AP document separately.  

 

Hope this is useful so someone out there!  :-)

 

Roger

[barninga]

i store my afphoto files together with their raw counterparts. when i end my editing process i export them to jpg and store the jpegs in a dedicated tree on my filesystem (basically, i have a folder for each year and, within that, a date-named folder for each event i shot. then i import the last folder in apple's iphoto, where i add only faces metadata.

[evtonic3]

Affinity as it is not a great product.

Perhaps this is the reason why it is not expensive...

 

 

It's great at what is already does, just doesn't do what you want it to yet.

[Antonio Correia]

OK guys. Thank you for your replies.

 

I use LR for keywording and they are all stored in folders by date. Quite simple I think.

 

However, I save in tif so I can make other adjustments besides the ones available in LR like those in AFF for example.

 

I export in jpg for the web and for my site.

 

I print through LR with color profile and all that available stuff.

 

If AFF had keywording so I could organize my files it would be my favorite and only program ! For now I have to jump between 2 programs and I do not like it.

 

[anon1]

I´m not to offend someone using date-based archiving but IMO a strong argument against it is that dates can easily be accessed by any DAM software so you´d be better of using folders to sort by activity, picture style, location, model or something like that.

[barninga]

MBd, you're right, but it's not simple name the folders from multiple categories. for example, i append to the date the name of place where the shots were taken. a filesystem based archiving strategy has to be simple, since a more complex categorization should be done in a dam. the point is, at least for me, that dams are proprietary software and i don't like to be locked in.