Very large file size starting with RAW files

[coulthst]

In Affinity Photo, when I open a RAW file, make some basic edits like cropping and adjusting shadows & highlights, then Develop and save, the afphoto file sizes are over 200 Mb.  When I do the same starting with the matching JPG, the afphoto files sizes are 5 or 6 Mb!

 

I purchased AF so I could edit RAW files, but the huge file sizes are very annoying.  Is there a way to avoid them?

 

[Lee D]

Hi coulthst,

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

Without seeing your file it's hard to determine why it's creating a large file on save, however if you take a look at this post, it may explain the why the size is large.

 

You can always PM me a link to your file and I can take a look.

 

Regards

 

L

[James Ritson]

There are a couple of things you can definitely address to reduce filesize:

 

Raw files are developed to 16-bit documents, which will increase filesize quite significantly (JPEGs are 8-bit). If you don't need the extra precision, you can convert it to 8-bit. Try this in conjunction with the next step...

 

Photo stores a Snapshot of your image in its initial state so that you can always restore it later. In 16-bit this can add 50-70MB to the filesize. If you bring up the snapshots panel (View>Studio>Snapshots) you can delete it.

 

There is also a filesize bloat issue that seems to affect images developed straight from raw to 16-bit and then having additional work done on them - converting colour format does little to reduce filesize at this stage. I believe this is being looked into.

 

Finally, the reason documents saved with JPEG images are so small is because Photo will store the compressed image - as long as you don't do anything to it. If you did some destructive work (filters, brushes etc) then saved to a document you would see the filesize increase dramatically (as it's no longer storing a compressed image format). Hope that helps a little!

[coulthst]

thanks for the suggestions James.  Tried them both, then saved, file size was the same - 217 Mb.  Then I did Save As, and it changed to 270 Mb.  I also reopened the RAW file for the photo, did nothing to it, just Developed and Saved, and got 197 Mb.  Then converted to 8 bit and got the same file size.  There is no snapshot as part of this file.

[James Ritson]

Hey, in that case you're experiencing the same issue as myself, and it's being looked into by the developers. Do you do much additional pixel work on new layers at all? (I do a lot of colour painting with blend modes on pixel layers - these are stored as bitmap fills and do increase filesize).

 

You mentioned you had no snapshot at all though - are you sure this is the case when developing a new raw file? Photo should always create an initial snapshot from the develop process.

 

Thanks for your help!

[djkessler]

Add me to the list of surprised users. I shoot RAW with a Panasonic FZ1000 which produces a 23+Mb file. I did a few basic edits to a picture and was surprised that the file size mushroomed. Then, I:

>>> loaded a new file

>>> did NOTHING but click "develop" (which I had to do to be able to save the file)

>>> saved the file

 

The file size had ballooned from 23,060Mb to 135,759Mb, an increase of 5.9 times.

 

By contrast, I performed the same experiment with Photoshop CS6 (version 13.0.1) and the size of the PSD file grew by 2.5 times to 58,513Mb. Still too big, but not totally absurd.

 

Is there any chance of significant improvement on this issue? It's been 4 months since the last post on this thread.

 

This cannot possibly be acceptable behavior.

[Fixx]

What is the bit depth of you image?

[Irvin]

Add me to the list of surprised users. I shoot RAW with a Panasonic FZ1000 which produces a 23+Mb file. I did a few basic edits to a picture and was surprised that the file size mushroomed. Then, I:

>>> loaded a new file

>>> did NOTHING but click "develop" (which I had to do to be able to save the file)

>>> saved the file

 

The file size had ballooned from 23,060Mb to 135,759Mb, an increase of 5.9 times.

 

By contrast, I performed the same experiment with Photoshop CS6 (version 13.0.1) and the size of the PSD file grew by 2.5 times to 58,513Mb. Still too big, but not totally absurd.

 

Is there any chance of significant improvement on this issue? It's been 4 months since the last post on this thread.

 

This cannot possibly be acceptable behavior.

I Gave up on Affinity Photo until all these issues are fixed. Continue my work with Lightroom/Photoshop until further notice. No sense in wasting my time with half-baked solutions and blind chases. Developers know exactly what the problems are.

[R C-R]

Developers know exactly what the problems are.

But do you? Have you read Ben's post from page 1 of the other topic?

[Irvin]

But do you? Have you read Ben's post from page 1 of the other topic?

Yes, I have.

 

Ultimately, I'm a user, not a developer or fanboi - so I only care for what the software does versus what the competing software does, not how it does it or why it does it.

 

In other words: maybe Affinity has extraordinary reasons for delivering huge files, but if I get much smaller and equally good files from Lightroom, DxO or Capture One, I will use one of those programs. I want software that performs better than the competition and as of today, that isn't the case with Affinity Photo.

[Fixx]

When I export to TIF or PSD file size is about the same as saved from Photoshop. I have no problem here.

[R C-R]

Ultimately, I'm a user, not a developer or fanboi - so I only care for what the software does versus what the competing software does, not how it does it or why it does it.

I don't think it is necessary to be a developer to understand that for all such apps there are tradeoffs among file size, compression time, preservation of data accuracy, open & save times, scalability, & so on.