asharpe Posted January 5, 2017 Share Posted January 5, 2017 ... what is the appropriate workflow to ensure that my raw files (DNGs, in my case) are not modified by the program, but I allow me to still edit them in the Photo Persona? Is the only way to process them with yet another raw processing program that will not destructively save (by using xml sidecars, etc.) and then exporting as tiff? Is there any way I can open a DNG in Affinity, and immediately go to Photo without saving the file back to the DNG? I know I can turn off "automatic" raw processing options in the Assistant Options, but I'm still concerned that if I save back to the DNG (by leaving Develop), ostensibly not changing anything, Affinity will *still* modify the original DNG. I don't want it to do that, since I always want the untouched, raw file available. What I'm thinking of doing is copying the raw file before I open it in Affinity, but that seems wasteful. How do other folks implement a fully non-destructive workflow starting from a raw file, using only Affinity? An interesting related question is: how does Affinity know not to apply all the auto corrections again to a raw file that has already been through Develop? It can't reapply all the noise reduction, curves and lens correction again, can it? That would be silly. So, perhaps it's writing an EXIF field that says "I've already messed with this file, don't mess with it again"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asharpe Posted January 6, 2017 Author Share Posted January 6, 2017 Well, I appear to have been mistaken. Here is a rather succinct description of what happens between Develop and Photo: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/31866-raw-workflownik-plug-insbw/?p=155176 In a nutshell, apparently the edits during Develop are destructive in the sense that once you are in Photo, you cannot undo them anymore. Affinity claims they never touch the raw file, which is very good for me; it was going to be a deal breaker if they did. However, I might add that the status messages leaving Develop certainly led me to believe that they were writing the raw file. But the modification date of the file didn't change, and there is nothing in the EXIF to indicate that Affinity did anything. So, I will do more experimenting, but it appears that the raw file is untouched, as it should be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dooblaque Posted January 6, 2017 Share Posted January 6, 2017 When you edit a RAW file (no matter which camera generated it) you actually never change the RAW itself. To my knowledge there is no program anywhere which will overwrite a RAW file. You can't write to it. It always has to be saved in some other format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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