Affinity DAM (Digital Asset Manager) Feature Request List

[Vike_in_RI]

Greetings!  As a relatively new convert to Affinity Photo on both Mac and iPad Pro, I can only say how impressed I am with the speed, depth and polish of your apps!  I’m also VERY hopeful to see a DAM come out soon from your developer team, and very likely it is already well underway.  So... I thought I’d start the bidding for specific features for the software.  Here goes:

 

1)  RAW storage and WiFi transfer of image files from iPad to Mac.  So far, we are hamstrung on the iPad Pro (an otherwise VERY powerful tablet) by the requirement to import all photos first into the Apple Photos app before moving to other apps for editing or storage.  I’ve been using Mylio to enable immediate transfer into the Mylio library on my iPad, and then via WiFi to my iMac, so the SD card only has to come out of the camera one time for getting all photos into my libraries and backed up.  Unlike Lightroom and Apple Photos, both of which rely on cloud syncing and are therefore much slower, mylio gets it right using local WiFi transfer.  But Mylio doesn’t do well with RAW files or have a very deep editing feature set for RAW photo development.  Please, PLEASE work to incorporate this feature into any DAM that you develop, as it is the secret sauce that will enable us as photographers to leave our laptops at home and travel much lighter with only an iPad or even iphone.  Add this feature and a good RAW engine that handles Fujifilm files well, and I’ll forever drop Lightroom for Affinity!

 

Thanks, and I’ll now step aside to let others add their requests.   

 

 

[anon1]

handoff will eventually be enabled when apple gets their...together see here 

more specifically 

 

4 hours ago, Vike_in_RI said:

as it is the secret sauce that will enable us as photographers to leave our laptops at home and travel much lighter with only an iPad or even iphone.

 

maybe one day tethered on iPad he?

 

 

 

but the DAM for desktop is also already in the waiting queue 

because there apparently is some demand 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/25835-digital-asset-management/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/40203-dam-update/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/38123-affinity-dam-and-lightroom/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/23270-dam-feature-suggestions-for-affinity-digital-asset-manager/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/44626-advice-please-on-photo-catalogue-and-dam/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/31602-dam-photo-manager/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/6884-digital-asset-management-with-affinity-photo-beta/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/34446-dam-please/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/44692-what-dam-do-you-use/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/41264-switching-from-lr-but-what-about-dam-workflow/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/14414-serifs-dam-philosophy/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/13981-digital-asset-manager-asap/

even on desktop where "alternatives" exist 

 

 

 

hope you find that interesting as well 

cheers 

[Stuke]

On 9/26/2017 at 4:06 AM, anon1 said:

because there apparently is some demand 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/25835-digital-asset-management/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/40203-dam-update/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/38123-affinity-dam-and-lightroom/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/23270-dam-feature-suggestions-for-affinity-digital-asset-manager/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/44626-advice-please-on-photo-catalogue-and-dam/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/31602-dam-photo-manager/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/6884-digital-asset-management-with-affinity-photo-beta/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/34446-dam-please/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/44692-what-dam-do-you-use/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/41264-switching-from-lr-but-what-about-dam-workflow/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/14414-serifs-dam-philosophy/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/13981-digital-asset-manager-asap/

even on desktop where "alternatives" exist 

 

EXACTLY.  All you have to do is copy Aperture.  That for the first release would steal the market because just about everyone of us commenting here, loving Affinity Photo (and Designer), are still moaning over Apple's blatant disregard for its photographic professional customers.  Organization of photographs is paramount, with editing in the same app just a pure bonus.  Aperture with NIK, MacPhun, and other plug-ins ruled.  Then when I needed something, I fired up that AWESOME, FANTASTIC search dialog in Aperture and ... BAM ... there were my assets.

 

So, as 2017 comes to an end, and we've discussed this all year long, and since 2016, it's time to see a result.

[sgbotsford]

My feature requests for DAM

 

* Runs on Mac or on local apache web server.
 * Fast keywording
 * Full access to standard metadata, subject to limits of the file format. (Additional fields are written to sidecars)
 * Controlled vocabulary
 * Hierarchial vocabulary.  E.g. Separate entries for Birds -> raptors -> falcon and Planes -> fighters -> falcon.  Parents are stored with keywords. 
 * Parent items are automatically entered as keywords. (With the correct database link, this comes free as a side effect of the point above.
 * Synonyms -- I can define "Picea glauca" as a synonmym for "White Spruce" entering one, enters the other.
 * Version tracking  If a lower resolution or a black and white image is produced from a master, the system should show that it's a derived image, and allow access to the master.  A master should be able to  list derived images.  Derived images are not linear but form a multi-branched tree.
 * Metadata applied to a master should propagate down to derived images.
 * Ability to track through external editing programs.  E.g. If I edit a program in photoshop, it will mark the PSD file as being derived, restore as much of the metadata as the PSD format allows.  If Photoshop is used to create a jpeg image, that too is tracked.
 * All metadata is indexed.
 * Metadata is also written to sidecar files.
 * Through file system watching, name changes and directory reorganization are caught.  Relevant sidecars are also renamed, and the database updated with new file location/name.
 * Support for previews of all common image formats and most raw formats.
 * Reasonable speed with catalogs of more than 100,000 images.
 * Ability to rebuild corrupt database from sidecars.

Nice to have:

* Simple non-destructive editing -- crop, brightness, contrast.
* Rating system
* Smart albums

Suggestions?

So far:

 * Nothing I've found supports version tracking.
 * Lightroom:  Doesn't support PNG, very clunky interface, slow on large catalogs; 
 * Photomechanic is fast for keywording and culling, but has very limited search capability.
 * Photo supreme:  Erratic quirks.  Crashes. One man shop.
 * Fotostation:  AFAIK no underlying database.  Has to read metadata from images/sidecar files on startup.  Slow after 10K images. (They have server based software too that is big bucks.)

Similar question: https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/37348/advanced-software-to-organize-and-manage-a-life-of-photos

That question has a more general set of requirements and received no answers.

To budnip answers of the form "This is impossible" here's how it could be implemented: 

 * For each master image generate a unique ID based on the content of the file.  This could be a checksum of the file preview image, or Camera model+serial number + shutter count.

 * This ID is written to a set of fields in meta data that most editors will leave at least one intact.  If the master is unwritable, it's written to a sidecar file.

 * I addition all metadata in the file is slurped into a database.

 * When a file is edited, a file system watcher notes that the file was opened.  The file goes onto the 'watch' list.

 * When a file is closed, this is also noted.  If there has been a new file created it is checked for metadata.  If the new file's metadata has a match for an existing file, then existing file metadata is used to repopulate missing data in the file.  (Photoshop is notorious for not respecting all metadata.)

* Database is updated with the new file being derivative of the original file.

* optionally a suffix may be added to the new file's image number, showing whether it derives directly from the original or from another derivative.