Is it possible to get Affinity thumbnails in Adobe Bridge?

[joebot]

I just started using Affinity Photo and noticed that files produced in Affinity (.afphoto) just show the Affinity icon when viewed in Adobe Bridge. I am able to see thumbs/previews in the Finder on my Mac, just not within Bridge. I am currently using Adobe Bridge CS5.1, so perhaps someone can let me know if this is possible in later versions of Bridge or if there is a way to add the ability to generate previews for Affinity files in Bridge.

[Lee D]

Hi joebot,

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

Bridge would need to have access to our file format to be able to generate previews, our developers don't have any plans to make our format public. We also have plans for release our own Digital Asset Manager app sometime in the future which will work with our file format.

 

Regards

 

L

[Fixx]

Bridge should access normal file preview, not try to generate it's own. Weird that DAMs are crippled in this regard.

[rsi.studio]

The afphoto native file format is a container for several parts .... one is a small embedded .png preview which the MacOS uses for it's Quickview etc. The XNview MP app can access this & I use it for my asset management, give it a search. It takes a while to get used to all the cutomization in preferences but hey, it's free and excellent.. As for Bridge, if the updated versions don't read them then get onto the website & request they add the format.

 

The .afphoto preview is small & constrained so you cannot relay the actual size of the image, however you can see your previous changes. One day we will have full size previews, or perhaps not, as that would take a whole lot of 'native file format' rewriting. As for forum comments, don't believe everything you read  B)

[Ben]

We will never have full size previews embedded in Affinity files.  For vector documents with high DPI, the preview would be way too large.  There is a possibility we might add some preview resolution options later on, but for now all previews will max at 512 pixels.

 

We may also look into using other compression or format to PNG.

 

As for Adobe Bridge - we bundle a QuickLook preview generator that Finder uses.  Perhaps Bridge should be falling back to using that if they have an unknown file format.

[DavidMac]

The afphoto native file format is a container for several parts .... one is a small embedded .png preview which the MacOS uses for it's Quickview etc. The XNview MP app can access this & I use it for my asset management, give it a search. It takes a while to get used to all the cutomization in preferences but hey, it's free and excellent.. As for Bridge, if the updated versions don't read them then get onto the website & request they add the format.

 

The .afphoto preview is small & constrained so you cannot relay the actual size of the image, however you can see your previous changes. One day we will have full size previews, or perhaps not, as that would take a whole lot of 'native file format' rewriting. As for forum comments, don't believe everything you read  B)

Have I misunderstood you? I just went and downloaded XNViewMP on the strength of this.

 

Sadly it doesn't appear to thumbnail Affinity files - it only shows the icon. Looking under their list of supported file types Affinity is not listed. Is there some trick to getting this to work that I am missing? 

 

I am still rather baffled that your own built in browser doesn't preview your own files. In fact it doesn't even show an icon - it ignores them completely. Is this on your to do list for any time soon? It would be so good to have something better than Finder for previewing files. :)

[joebot]

I think even having the ability to see that 512 pixel thumbnail in Bridge would be helpful. I can see that other apps do make use of that 512 pixel thumbnail -- I just checked Panic's Transmit and that uses the 512 pixel thumbnail. The "Open.." dialog box in Photoshop even shows the Affinity thumbnails (so that just must the what the Mac uses).

 

So that would be something Adobe would have to do in order for it to work in Bridge? There is probably no way they would ever do that -- especially for non-CC users like me (I'm still using Bridge CS5.1).  I downloaded Bridge CC to check that, and it didn't seem to show the preview either. I can't seem to find or (even think up) a way to get Bridge to revert to a Quicklook thumbnail if it doesn't support the app--you can't add new file type associations for opening new things in preferences. They do seem to add support for new Raw formats as they come along. I wonder if it would just require creating some sort of plug-in? There is a plug-ins folder for Bridge, and it has plug-ins for things like PCX and JPEG2000 in mine. I'm not a developer and I'm not really sure if those are just for output, but maybe those could be tweaked in some way if they help work with other file formats.

[Travelling Man]

The Affinity DAM is a prerequisite in my books but it seems to have slipped well down the list, no doubt due to you now porting the main apps to Windows. The Dam should have come first - I bought into Affinity because it was an app with Mac focus only. Guess I will be with Adobe for a long while yet.

[R C-R]

@Travelling Man,

 

The developers have stated numerous times that development for one platform has not affected development for the other. There is one team developing for Macs & another separate one for Windows. 

[Travelling Man]

With respect, the developers can say what they want but the fact remains that the DAM has disappeared into the distance when we were told 2016. In such circumstances conclusions will be drawn.

[rsi.studio]

Have I misunderstood you? I just went and downloaded XNViewMP on the strength of this.

Sadly it doesn't appear to thumbnail Affinity files - it only shows the icon. Looking under their list of supported file types Affinity is not listed. Is there some trick to getting this to work that I am missing? 

I have version 0.83 on a mac, works fine with aphoto 1.4.2 created files. Previous Xnview versions may not have been updated.

 

edit: you can see it here on their changelog page http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=82&t=33853

item 925 under ver 0.82.

Make sure you have XnviewMP and not the older Xnview (http://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/#downloads)

& also I've no idea if it supports AF designer file type.

[R C-R]

With respect, the developers can say what they want but the fact remains that the DAM has disappeared into the distance when we were told 2016. In such circumstances conclusions will be drawn.

Where did you see the developers promise that Affinity would release a DAM app in 2016? They may have said at some point that they were targeting 2016 for a beta of Affinity Publisher, but that isn't a DAM.

[DavidMac]

I have version 0.83 on a mac, works fine with aphoto 1.4.2 created files. Previous Xnview versions may not have been updated.

 

edit: you can see it here on their changelog page http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=82&t=33853

item 925 under ver 0.82.

Make sure you have XnviewMP and not the older Xnview (http://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/#downloads)

& also I've no idea if it supports AF designer file type.

Thanks for responding. Yes I do have XNViewMP and it is V0.83. It is running under fully updated El Capitan. It is not thumbnailing Affinity files (neither Designer nor Photo) nor, when selected, do they show in the preview pane. This is with files from all releases back to June 2015. I have looked through all the settings and preferences and I am unable to see anything that might cause or cure this. I am mystified. 

[Ben]

With respect, the developers can say what they want but the fact remains that the DAM has disappeared into the distance when we were told 2016. In such circumstances conclusions will be drawn.

 

Any conclusions you are making are not based on anything we have said.

 

We have put considerable effort into supporting other third party DAMs with PSD and TIFF interchange.  This is obviously because many people already have a DAM of their choice, and secondly because we have not yet released our own.

 

As stated, the OSX team have not been working on the Windows port - we have a whole other team doing the port - the original OSX team have been hard at work on the OSX versions. I would have hoped the number of Beta updates we have pushed for Designer and Photo would be an indication of how much we have done in the last release cycle.  There have been some quite large new features in this release, not to mention all the hidden fixes and improvements.

 

Fortunately, we had some foresight in developing our core libraries in a platform agnostic way, so many of the improvements we are making for OSX will benefit Windows also (subject to the addition of Windows specific UI developed by the other team).

[anon1]

Any conclusions you are making are not based on anything we have said.

 

We have put considerable effort into supporting other third party DAMs with PSD and TIFF interchange.  This is obviously because many people already have a DAM of their choice, and secondly because we have not yet released our own.

 

As stated, the OSX team have not been working on the Windows port - we have a whole other team doing the port - the original OSX team have been hard at work on the OSX versions. I would have hoped the number of Beta updates we have pushed for Designer and Photo would be an indication of how much we have done in the last release cycle.  There have been some quite large new features in this release, not to mention all the hidden fixes and improvements.

 

Fortunately, we had some foresight in developing our core libraries in a platform agnostic way, so many of the improvements we are making for OSX will benefit Windows also (subject to the addition of Windows specific UI developed by the other team).

you only said news about the DAM can be expected in 2016

"- stay tuned in 2016 for more information"

 

I was not lucky enough to try the TIFF with embedded afphoto data yet but I´d agree that this was/ is a good decision!

[R C-R]

@MBd,

 

Travelling Man was right about one thing: no matter what the developers say, conclusions will be drawn.  :(

[anon1]

@MBd,

 

Travelling Man was right about one thing: no matter what the developers say, conclusions will be drawn. :(

and that´s not a bad thing

it´s to be expected that a company is expected to meet their announcements, it´s just not fair to misquote them intentionally

 

if you want to manage photos seriously as I see it you have the option for LR and C1 and if you go for LR you might as well go for the PS bundle and if you don't have a Sony or Phase One, C1 is not very cheap so I can understand why many expect news about a professional DAM from Affinity.

 

AP alone is not much help for a photography workflow

[joebot]

Well, as one who just discovered Affinity Photo a few weeks ago (and the initiator of this thread), I had no idea Affinity was already working on a similar program. So, that is exciting news for me, and I didn't realize that everyone was aware and anxiously awaiting its release (or frustrated with the wait).

 

 

 

I started using Affinity Photo as my version of the Adobe Suite was growing a bit long in the tooth and I just happened to see it featured in the Mac App Store. However, I wasn't even aware of the term "Digital Asset Manager" until I saw that here, though I was aware of programs like Lightroom, Aperture, Picasa, iPhoto. Bridge has always filled a role beyond just working with photos for me. I use it to work with all sorts of files, not just for photography. Since I have files that sprawl a pretty labyrinthine folder structure, Bridge is great for working with favorite folders, sending and moving files to folders in a different way from Finder (right click and send/move to recent or favorite folders), sorting and labeling, previewing, and even batch processing/renaming things. I'm not sure if those are things expected of all D.A.M.s, and I have tried to do similar things with all sorts of programs: Finder, Transmit, Commander One, etc. Picasa came the closest, but Bridge was far more useful since it could work with many more file types beyond images. Having grown to rely on those features, I was just hoping for a simple way to get affinity thumbnails to show up until a better solution came along.

 

I do hope that whatever Affinity produces plays well with others. For example, I do a lot of 3D modeling in Rhino -- I have grown to love that program so much because I can open just about any file format, as well as export to them as well. It would be great if the Affinity D.A.M. is extensible in such a way -- I think the more versatile it is (in terms of working with all sorts of file types), the wider audience it will appeal to and then draw them into the Affinity eco-system once they grow to love the program.

[joebot]

I just downloaded XNView MP to test and it won't display afphoto thumbnails for me either. I am using "XnViewMP Version 0.83 x64 (Oct 3 2016)", which appears to be the most recent version on their website and afphoto files don't have thumbnails and don't appear in the About > Formats list in the application. It shows 186 "formats in reading" and 53 "formats in writing", but Affinity doesn't appear to be one of them.

 

@rsi.studio:  Are you perhaps using the Windows or Linux version? Maybe the Mac version hasn't been updated as quickly?

[joebot]

After fiddling around in XNView MP a bit more, I found a setting that helps. In Preferences > General > General : you have to check the box for "show all graphic formats". It will then prompt you to restart XNView MP. After doing that, I get a small thumbnail, and it shows the 512 pixel preview. Oddly, the thumbnails never seem to change size while thumbs for other formats do as I move the thumbnail size slider -- I would think you would be able to enlarge them up to 512, but it seems like the only go up to the 192 pixel wide size in the main browser while the preview can show up to 512.

[DavidMac]

After fiddling around in XNView MP a bit more, I found a setting that helps. In Preferences > General > General : you have to check the box for "show all graphic formats". It will then prompt you to restart XNView MP. After doing that, I get a small thumbnail, and it shows the 512 pixel preview. Oddly, the thumbnails never seem to change size while thumbs for other formats do as I move the thumbnail size slider -- I would think you would be able to enlarge them up to 512, but it seems like the only go up to the 192 pixel wide size in the main browser while the preview can show up to 512.

Bingo! I really thought I had checked everything and find I missed the very first preference of them all!!  :( 

 

Thank you Joebot!

[DavidMac]

BTW works for Photo but not Designer. But Photo is my prime need.

[rsi.studio]

Bingo! I really thought I had checked everything and find I missed the very first preference of them all

Glad you got it going, I'd flown through the preferences without taking many notes but will try remember that one. btw, did you discover Shift C to view multiple files, I asked everywhere for it and it was right there under the Tools menu.

Sadly, afphoto previews are limited to that small 512 png embed and are not scaled accordingly, still nice to be able to browse images in something other than the mac OS quickview. If afdesigner files show up in Quickview then the staff at Xnview may be able to help. (I don't have designer yet but will definitely make a request if I get going on it)

[rsi.studio]

BTW works for Photo but not Designer. But Photo is my prime need.

Just to let you know that afdesign previews will be available in version 0.84 of XnviewMP. Although not yet released as of today, it will be soon I'm sure. See request 1004 here for the details <http://www.xnview.com/mantisbt/changelog_page.php>.Hopefully the custom file type colour issue will be fully functional again too.  ;)

[DavidMac]

Just to let you know that afdesign previews will be available in version 0.84 of XnviewMP. Although not yet released as of today, it will be soon I'm sure. See request 1004 here for the details <http://www.xnview.com/mantisbt/changelog_page.php>.Hopefully the custom file type colour issue will be fully functional again too.  ;)

Good to know. Thanks.