Opened NIKON NEF file looks more pixelated compared to NX Studio

[SCL]

Hi all,

I am new to Affinity Photo. I tried developing an image in Nikon NX Studio - saving as TIFF and opening in AP2.

It was a cropped close-up of the moon with limited detail. I noticed in AP2 that the moon edge was more pixelated compared to NX studio.

I opened the same file in MS paint and it also looked pixelated. So I downloaded a sample nikon NEF file of the web & did not alter it but opened with both apps.

Attached is a snapshot of how it looks highly zoomed in with NX (left) and AP2 (right). You can see the pixelation & what looks like less detail in AP2.

Is this simply a difference in how the apps render the image?? In NX studio I cannot zoom to a point of seeing pixels so I'm wondering if it is doing some magic in the background!?! Any guessing which is a more accurate representation of the RAW file.

Can I adjust anything in AP2 for it to display similar to NX studio. My plan was to develop in NX before using AP2 - but the displayed RAW & TIF files are displayed so differently between the two apps I am not sure which is accurate?? NOTE my PC hardware is old & I am unable to enable OpenCL h/w acceleration.

Any suggestions on best practice for getting my NEF files developed and into AP2 :-)

[NotMyFault]

Affinity by default does not apply any filters or adjustments like noise reduction or sharpening.

And Affinity is unable to read „recipes“ or „picture profiles“ where Camera vendors store what sharpening settings were used at Capture.

If you add a little highness filter and unsharp mask, the image starts to look similar to other apps.

the dotted blue line shows the edge, below unaltered, above with such changes.