Round tripping between Lightroom and Affinity Photo

[Albert La Brador]

Apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere in the forum. I drew several blanks in my searches.

I'm not a naturally organised person so wonder if community members might share how they organise their files when round tripping between Lightroom and Affinity Photo.

I import all my images from card into Lightroom. These are saved on a separate hard drive with a back up on a second drive. Organised in Year, date structure. When it comes to editing, I may or may not do some edits in LR before transferring the image to AP for the real edits. Or sometimes, I will take the RAW file from the hard drive and import directly into AP. The edited image is then 'saved' in Affinity's format (to my desktop currently), and then 'exported' as a TIFF or JPEG (also onto the desktop) for printing if that is my end point.

Do others use the same workflow? If so, where are you storing the edited images? Do you link them back to your original LR catalog? If not, how do you keep track of where the edited images are stored?

Thanks for considering.

Albert

[Ldina]

@Albert La Brador Somewhat similar (when I used to use LightRoom, which I no longer do because the desktop version I have doesn't work on my Mac).

I almost always shoot RAW. When importing them to my computer, I convert to DNG and added the date at the beginning or the filename. For example, 20241126-IMG_1234.DNG. This way, all my files have a date (with year first for sorting).

Over many years, I created a folder structure that makes sense to me. Typically, I import my photos to a "new images" folder on my hard drive. I'd rate them 1-5 star and immediately delete the losers. Sometimes I keep the images in my new images folder until I have had a chance to process them (in LR, Affinity, etc). I keep my RAW DNG and AfPhoto files in the same folder, so they are always together, along with any exports (JPG, TIFF, PNG, etc). 

Once I am done with my processing, I move them their final folder. I have a file structure that is logical (at least to me) and makes it easy to find images quickly. For example, some of my categories include, Designs, People, Places, Trips, Holidays, Nature, etc. Each of those folders have subfolders, so Places and Trips might have folders for different countries, states, etc. So, a trip to California in January 2019 would fit into my Hierarchy as follows: My Images > Places and Trips > California > 2019 Jan - California. I can always navigate to my desired folder quickly and find what I'm looking for. When a folder gets too full and starts to get unwieldy, I may create subfolders with their own names to make it easier to navigate. 

Though it's a good system and a great idea, I've always been too lazy to add tags to all my images for sorting. (LR also offers Collections, which can come in handy). So, this method keeps me organized and works well for me. I can use it with Lightroom, Apple Finder, XnView or other such programs and it seems to work well for me. I like keeping the different file formats of an image in the same folder (RAW, AfPhoto, TIFF, JPG, etc, and if I have different sizes, I add sizes or suffixes to the filename. When developing RAW DNG images in Affinity, I almost always export to Photo using 16-bit RAW Layer (Linked), which reduces the size of my AfPhoto files significantly. Keeping my RAW and AfPhoto files together insures AfPhoto will find the RAW file when opening and linking. I have about 96,000 files organized this way (not 96,000 different images because I might have 2, 3 or 4 different file formats and sizes for many images).

When I did use LightRoom, I used this same approach. My LR Catalog was set up using the same exact folders and subfolders, naming conventions, storing all versions of an image together. (Sometimes, when working on a specific design project, I'd copy images into that design project folder to keep them together, or if using InDesign or Publisher, I'd package the files and fonts and save them into their own folder.) I'd probably still be using LR if my old desktop version worked with my current Mac OD, but it doesn't, and I don't want to pay for a subscription. So, I use Apple Finder and/or XnViewMP and I don't have to relearn a new system.

My system evolved over decades of photography, so I am comfortable and know how I categorize things, making it easy for me to find stuff (well, most of the time). Someone else might go crazy 😵‍💫 trying to find images in my system, but I'm the only one using it, so no problem. I'm sure my system isn't right for many people, and there are probably better ways to organize using a dedicated DAM, but I'm pretty happy with my approach. I can't type in the name of a person and find all of the images tagged with their name because I never wanted to spend the time to tag all my images, and the idea of going thru 96,000 images and tagging them isn't my idea of fun! Tagging files with multiple tags within a good DAM is probably a better approach for those willing to spend the time. Then again, if they stop using that DAM, they might lose all those metadata tags unless they can be transferred to a new system. 

Hope that was helpful, even if you decide my system is insane and not for you!! 

[Dave.Kelly]

I use On1photoraw as my main editor. When I need to use AP then I have my interchange file type as .psd. Unfortunately Affinity wont send images to other editors (like open with, or after export open with) so I get Affinity to overwrite the .psd file and then open with whatever I need to use next on the image. Its a bit clumsy but it works.

[thomaso]

12 hours ago, Albert La Brador said:

I import all my images from card into Lightroom. These are saved on a separate hard drive with a back up on a second drive. Organised in Year, date structure. When it comes to editing, […] import directly into AP. The edited image is then 'saved' in Affinity's format (to my desktop currently), […]

Do others use the same workflow? If so, where are you storing the edited images? Do you link them back to your original LR catalog? If not, how do you keep track of where the edited images are stored?

I keep original + edited images in the same folders. All are sorted by 1. subject or location and 2. by date. Most of them in a common parent folder with topic subfolders but certain topics in different locations on my volumes (those which are used for documentation only, together with text documents, letters for instance).

After copying images from a camera card I run a little app to automatically (batch) add the creation date of each image as file name prefix of each single image. ("ExifRenamer.app"). All LR exports are stored in other folders than the originals, some within a common parent folder, many in one or more extra folders, depending on subject and further use. If my photos get used for a graphic design project (e.g. a photo book) I do not copy or move images into this project folder but link them from their usual location in the layout document.

I never (re-)import exported images from LR into the LR catalogs. Instead, I use a separate DAM to keep track of exported images. (“MediaPro”, not an image editor).

All lightroom catalogs are stored in a macOS > user > LR catalogs folder whereas all images (like any custom document) are stored on separate volumes on an internal hard drive, outside of the macOS > user folder. Even if I'd need to store images on external drives I'd keep LR catalogs internally stored for a more direct access by LR.

Since you store your original images on a separate hard drive it appears you do not use the same, external volume for your edited .aphoto files. Your available/limited storage memory seems to require the use of different and partially external hardware and thus might differ from other users.

At least for macOS, decades ago it was recommended not to store much data in the Desktop folder because it is treated differently by the operating system than other storage locations and may require more permanent attention and "power" than any other storage location. (If it's till relevant nowadays, you might consider a different folder than Desktop)

In Lightroom, you might like an export plugin that creates a copy of the folder structure of the original image paths to another location on the available disks for export. This can ease your workflow when storing your .aphoto files separately. I used Jeffrey Friedl's version years ago with a perfect result for exports of a bunch of originals that were stored at quite different subfolders. An automatically identical, copied folder structure for exported images makes the orientation easier and also to find a certain original image if required.
https://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/tree-publisher
https://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/folder-publisher
or
https://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/lrtreeexporter.php?sec=main

[Albert La Brador]

Thank you @Ldina, @Dave.Kelly and @thomaso for your detailed and helpful responses. You've each given me a few options to explore and some things to consider. And you've confirmed there is no one approach ... and by the look of things, no simple method for round-tripping. I want to stick with Lightroom as my DAM for as long as I can access the program, or until Affinity come up with their own. And prompted by my posting and your replies I checked out a few other references - most usefully, Robin Whalley's little book on the library function in LR. He has also given me a few options based on synching AFP files back into the LR catalogue. Clearly, I have some work to do to design a workflow that suits me, just as each of your suggestions suits your working styles. Many thanks. Albert 

[LionelD]

At the moment I use Bridge as my main DAM, although I have moved one collection to LR.  I was slow to LR because when I first got access it did not handle .PSB files which I have to use for stitched images.

I always shoot RAW on my Z6, but I am now starting to accumulate images from my iPhone, and video from both.  iPhone images are usually Apple RAW in .dng containers, but the phone may decide to give you .HEIC (portraits and panos), or paired .jpg and .mov (for live shots), and I’m not confident I have a good way of managing this menagerie. There are times when the iPhone is the only way I can get a shot, either because I’m a passenger in a moving vehicle on a bumpy road (I’m amazed at what the phone can do), or the Z6 is inappropriate because of other circumstances.  I never change the name of my source images, except when I have to accept a .jpg as the only source I will ever get; I push copies of these into .dng named for the source image, and keep the source image - troublesome.

I have AP but do not use it.  I use ACR, and the fact that it can apply the same set of edits to tens of RAW images in a single pass is decisive, especially when I’m making .tiff for stitching.

Files that I’m not actively editing live on an external drive.  I move files onto my MBP internal drive for edits, then push them back out onto the external drive.  I’m not sure LR is going to approve of that.

My folder structure is date based; in most cases that means I have a folder per day together with some text to describe what/where the photos were taken, e.g., 2024-07-17 Prague.  Depending on what I photograph on a given day, I will create sub folders to keep related material together (so 2023-11-25 01 Buskers to keep things chronological and my head straight).  Each stitched image get its own subfolder with the range of RAW file names it includes (so 2024-02-15 DSC6058-6100 Prague Castle for RAWs DSC6058 through DSC6100).  I keep all useful RAWs with their derivatives, in the same sub folder.  I try to move source images into subfolder by day on the same day; doing that after the event can become a major pain.  Other than the text appended to a date, my folder structure does not provide for search criteria such as place, event or other information that might facilitate searches.  My keywords are mostly hierarchically structured, and include hierarchically structured place names and other descriptive keywords.  Searches and collections are mostly driven off keywords.  And in case you’re wondering, I have too many keywords, and many of them are not structured appropriately.

Bridge is a bit of a disaster area for me because of the way it applies small metadata updates - essentially one at a time; on a big file it can take hours to enter/update all the metadata (primarily keywords).  I’m considering migrating to LR because it allows me to accumulate many metadata changes in the catalog and apply all of them in one write operation to get the files themselves into synch.

At the moment my Designer files live in Bridge because that allows me to enter minimal metadata for search purposes, but it’s not really satisfactory because Bridge does not embed metadata in .afdesign files, and I haven’t found a way to persuade Bridge to create a sidecar file for each .afdesign.  My current work around is to export various thumbnails to carry the keywords I would normally have embedded or sidecar’ed for the .afdesign files, but that approach is not satisfactory.  I sometimes resort to creating a metadata template before I edit, but that’s also painful.  In LR, keywords for a particular file can persist across edits, but I may have to experiment to find a good way to handle the .png and .jpg files.

Round-tripping Designer and Bridge is problematic because edits usually kill keywords, so I have to re-enter them de-novo.

I’ll probably migrate my AD2 files to LR first, simply because there are far fewer of them.  Just discovered that LR does not even acknowledge the existence of .afdesign files, not sure how that will affect things….

Migrating my photographs to LR will be a big adventure -they take up more than 2TB.  I expect that many .psd files will become redundant, and I automatically create .jpg which LR seems to prefer to export on demand.

@Albert La Brador I hope you find this helpful and not too long.

Regards