Workflow Suggestions for Affinity 1.5.1 & Apple Photos

[Warmington Paul]

Has anyone worked out the best workflows to use when editing RAW images in Affinity extracted from Apple Photos? The new 1.5.1 extension works fine to take the RAW image across and the JPEGs produced seem of good quality with a lot of details retained vs the JPEGs produced by Photos in a similar process. However - when saving back to Photos (unless I am missing a step) they go back as a JPEG and the RAW image is no longer available without a revert to original action. I am sure this is not the real case but as yet I can't find the work around?

[Warmington Paul]

Has anyone worked out the best workflows to use when editing RAW images in Affinity extracted from Apple Photos? The new 1.5.1 extension works fine to take the RAW image across and the JPEGs produced seem of good quality with a lot of details retained vs the JPEGs produced by Photos in a similar process. However - when saving back to Photos (unless I am missing a step) they go back as a JPEG and the RAW image is no longer available without a revert to original action. I am sure this is not the real case but as yet I can't find the work around?

No answers then?

[Petar Petrenko]

When you start editing RAW file it can't be saved anymore in RAW format. You must choose another one and the best one (lossles) is TIF. If you save it as JPG and continue to work with, then you will lose quality everytime you save the file.

[F_WRLCK]

As mentioned, once you develop an image, you can no longer edit it as raw. If you want to start over, you can go back to your original raw in Photos. You can also save a layered document in Affinity and go back to that later. You can't use the Affinity plugin for that though, but there's another plugin called External Editors in the App Store for $3 that is totally worthwhile and will allow you to update the jpeg for any image in your library.

[Warmington Paul]

When you start editing RAW file it can't be saved anymore in RAW format. You must choose another one and the best one (lossles) is TIF. If you save it as JPG and continue to work with, then you will lose quality everytime you save the file.

I think you missed the point of the question - I am not trying to save the updated RAW file - I want a JPEG, TIFF, whatever new version, and am NOT trying to save an updated RAW. The issue is that exiting Affinity back to Photos saves a JPEG but also masks the original RAW. In the Photo Persona, the Save As function is greyed out when editing a RAW from Photos - see my post below for the options I have worked through.

[Warmington Paul]

As mentioned, once you develop an image, you can no longer edit it as raw. If you want to start over, you can go back to your original raw in Photos. You can also save a layered document in Affinity and go back to that later. You can't use the Affinity plugin for that though, but there's another plugin called External Editors in the App Store for $3 that is totally worthwhile and will allow you to update the jpeg for any image in your library.

 

Hi and thanks - as I said above, I was not looking to save a RAW file but create a better JPEg from it than Apple Photos seems capable of!

 

Anyway - a bit more playing around and here is what I have worked out - may be useful for others trying to use Affinity and Photos together

 

Firstly, there is a fundamental difference between accessing Affinity from External Editors and as a direct extension. In External Editors, the RAW files stays a RAW file in the edit tray. Calling up Affinity directly as an extension transfers the file to "Apple Photos Format" - which I presume is just a JPEG?

 

Using External Editors -

 

Open a RAW file - edit etc.

- Save or Save As creates an Affinity Photo format file that you can place in any folder, desktop etc, but not back to Photos

- Export allows any file format but again only in folders not to Photos automatically, only via drag & drop - which places it in the right date and file sequence in the library

- Share in Photos creates a new JPEG in Photos based on the edited RAW

- None of these ends up changing the original RAW which stats in Photos nested with the original JPEG unless you Save Changes in External Editors which does mask the RAW unless you Revert to Original

 

 

Using Affinity direct from Photos without External Editors does not allow Save As (its greyed out) but all the other options above are available.

The only difference to the detail above is that Saving the edited file, then closing it takes you to a new edit window in Photos where you save the changes. That kills the RAW until you revert to original in Photos.

 

For me - if I want better JPEGs from the RAW originals in my main library, Share to Photos looks a good option with access from the External Editors extension.

 

In fact, it would appear that using EE is the best bet to work on RAW files contained in Photos full stop as unless I am missing something there is an automatic translation away from RAW when calling Affinity direct from Photos without going via EE?

[F_WRLCK]

Yeah, I tried out the "Edit in Affinity Photo" plugin that came with v1.5, but it doesn't really provide a useful workflow. You can't save your layered file, which means I'm not going to spend time doing any detailed edits using that plugin.

 

I just use the External Editors plugin. If I'm just editing a couple of files, I'll use it directly. Otherwise, I export the RAW files for my picks and then use EE to replace the jpeg after I'm done editing.

 

Edit: didn't see your last question. If you want to export RAW, you need to have "Use RAW as original" selected for jpeg/raw pairs. Additionally, you can't have any edits on the file because of course that causes the RAW to get developed.