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Affinity, we need clarification: are you or aren’t you working on a DAM?


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Hey guys,

 

We desperately need some clarification. For the past two years it was mentioned several times here in these forums that you are working on a DAM. However, we haven’t really seen an update on that topic in the past weeks and months. And in your Twitter feed you mentioned a couple of times now that you are currently not developing a DAM. So which is true?

 

With the recent changes from Adobe with their Lightroom software and with Apple still not improving Photos really, it would be a great time to put a great DAM out there right now. Many, many photographers are looking for a new solution to this old and essential problem. Also, MacPhun just announced a DAM for their Luminar app. 

 

In any case, we just need to know if we should wait for a DAM to be released by you guys or if we should look for other alternatives. Thank you!

Check out my site: https://five.photos

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Really nice DAMs out there already. For example iMatch, DigiKam, Daminion, Photo Supreme, and many more. No need to wait, right?

Some searching led me to this page - which mirrors my opinion. Always plan for contingencies - is there an escape route? Software may be discontinued (or go rental only, in spite of "a certain company's promises").

https://www.bkwinephotography.com/technology/found-best-digital-asset-management-dam-system/

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Bones...

 

That is exactly the page I found, and it's the reason I'm using Photo Supreme (on a Mac). I am quite happy with it, and don't regret the purchase for a moment. Having looked at a few other trials, I am particularly impressed with how very easy it is to apply keywords in Photo Supreme. It's well worth a look.

Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2 (latest retail versions) - desktop & iPad
Culling - FastRawViewer; Raw Developer - Capture One Pro; Asset Management - Photo Supreme
Mac Studio with M2 Max (2023}; 64 GB RAM; macOS 13 (Ventura); Mac Studio Display - iPad Air 4th Gen; iPadOS 17

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4 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Really nice DAMs out there already. For example iMatch, DigiKam, Daminion, Photo Supreme, and many more. No need to wait, right?

Some searching led me to this page - which mirrors my opinion. Always plan for contingencies - is there an escape route? Software may be discontinued (or go rental only, in spite of "a certain company's promises").

https://www.bkwinephotography.com/technology/found-best-digital-asset-management-dam-system/

 

Yes! But that’s not the topic/question. I (we) want to know if Affinity is developing their own DAM as previously teased or if they abandoned those plans in the meantime. 

Check out my site: https://five.photos

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As I understand it, plans to develop an Affinity DAM have not been abandoned, but the project has been put on hold indefinitely until sometime after Publisher has been released.

 

I suspect this may have something to do with the native Affinity file format that both Photo & Designer share & presumably Publisher will as well.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.0 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Information would be interesting indeed, but I am by no means desperate about it. Adobe just updated LR, and the beast is actually kind of fast now. The syncing feature is pretty good, too. Don't get me wrong, I have many reasons to leave Adobe, but feature-wise LR is convincing enough to keep me around until something equal arrives. I'd be happy If it happens to be published by Serif.

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I pre-cull before importing images into LR. I save all originals files on external discs, naming the files by year, month and subject. I also treat my camera as if it still had film inside. Digital shutter diarrhoea was pretty infectious when I first started my move from film but I found a cure when I swapped to an expensive SSD drive. Soon learned ways to stop filling it up with surplus images. Who else recalls waiting for your delivery of film and checking the use by dates? The gasp of horror when you realised you had not selected the correct ISO for the film you had and finding it poorly exposed when you picked up the contact sheet? Memories like this make the few pounds I send to Adobe each month seem a real bargain.

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2 hours ago, BSA650 said:

I pre-cull before importing images into LR. I save all originals files on external discs, naming the files by year, month and subject. I also treat my camera as if it still had film inside. Digital shutter diarrhoea was pretty infectious when I first started my move from film but I found a cure when I swapped to an expensive SSD drive. Soon learned ways to stop filling it up with surplus images. Who else recalls waiting for your delivery of film and checking the use by dates? The gasp of horror when you realised you had not selected the correct ISO for the film you had and finding it poorly exposed when you picked up the contact sheet? Memories like this make the few pounds I send to Adobe each month seem a real bargain.

 

That's a good idea actually. Culling images and putting them on an external drive and only having those you will use on the SSD. I had a job recently with 50GB in total! The SSD was feeling the pain. Of that there was probably only around 5GB actually for the final images.But how do you pre-cull? In what software? I like to see the images next to each other to compare....

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I have started using Fast Raw Viewer and find it fast and really effective. Also pretty inexpensive. It displays a histogram based on the actual Raw data (and not the embedded jpg) which makes it great if you use a technique like ETTR. I can cull through all my Raw files quickly, and not wait 5-10 seconds for each image to display - it's as close to instantaneous as I can imagine.

Link: https://www.fastrawviewer.com/

Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2 (latest retail versions) - desktop & iPad
Culling - FastRawViewer; Raw Developer - Capture One Pro; Asset Management - Photo Supreme
Mac Studio with M2 Max (2023}; 64 GB RAM; macOS 13 (Ventura); Mac Studio Display - iPad Air 4th Gen; iPadOS 17

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15 minutes ago, Five said:

Interesting discussions in this thread, but still no answer to my question. Why is it so hard for Serif to answer this? I didn’t ask for a timeline or anything the like. I simply want to know if they are still developing a DAM or not. It’s a simple yes or no question. :(

 

I think @R C-R has come as close as we could expect from anyone other than Serif staff:

 

On 23/10/2017 at 9:15 AM, R C-R said:

As I understand it, plans to develop an Affinity DAM have not been abandoned, but the project has been put on hold indefinitely until sometime after Publisher has been released.

 

In other words, other priorities dictate that they are not currently devoting resources to development of a DAM, but we shouldn't take that to mean that the project won't ever be revived. Since they can't even give us a firm date for the release of the 1.6 updates for Affinity Designer and Photo, let alone the public beta for Publisher, I don't think it's reasonable to expect any new information about future development of a DAM.

 

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4 (iPad 7th gen)

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16 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

I think @R C-R has come as close as we could expect from anyone other than Serif staff:

 

 

In other words, other priorities dictate that they are not currently devoting resources to development of a DAM, but we shouldn't take that to mean that the project won't ever be revived. Since they can't even give us a firm date for the release of the 1.6 updates for Affinity Designer and Photo, let alone the public beta for Publisher, I don't think it's reasonable to expect any new information about future development of a DAM.

 

 

Thanks Alfred. That all makes sense and is fine. But why the conflicted communication and why don't they just give us clarification in a simple statement? I'm really puzzled by the moderators only answering the "easy questions" in this forum.

Check out my site: https://five.photos

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