Using Affinity with DxO PhotoLab

[Vivs]

I'm evaluating Affinity Photo in a work flow that uses DxO PhotoLab to apply lens as well as basic colour & exposure corrections. When I export from DxO into Affinity, photos look significantly different. Is there something I'm overlooking? Can someone please suggest how I can carry forward all of the work done in DxO before I begin more detailed work in Affinity Photo? Thanks.  

[CedarHouse]

Hi, I use DxO with Affinity Photo. As suggestion, one could check the Assitant Manager in Affinity Photo on the top right of the toolbar. Click on Assistant Manager and open the dialogue box and then bottom left corner click on Develop Assistant. Opens another box. Check whether the Tone Curve is set to 'take no action', similar with Lens Corrections set this to 'take no action' and try again to see whether this helps.

There is also Exposure Bias and also this can be set to 'take no action'.

Affinity will apply its own tone curve and presumably Lens Corrections to an image imported in to the the Develop Persona unless the command is changed to 'take no action'.

I edit images as PEF (Pentax RAW file) in DxO and then export as a .dng file that then opens in Affinity Photo Delevop Persona as a RAW image file for further or additional development. There is a slight difference in the tone and contrast but the images are not that much different between the two. DxO gives me a method of viewing images and sorting images in a way that is not possible to do in Affinity Photo.

[Vivs]

9 hours ago, CedarHouse said:

Hi, I use DxO with Affinity Photo. As suggestion, one could check the Assitant Manager in Affinity Photo on the top right of the toolbar. Click on Assistant Manager and open the dialogue box and then bottom left corner click on Develop Assistant. Opens another box. Check whether the Tone Curve is set to 'take no action', similar with Lens Corrections set this to 'take no action' and try again to see whether this helps.

There is also Exposure Bias and also this can be set to 'take no action'.

Affinity will apply its own tone curve and presumably Lens Corrections to an image imported in to the the Develop Persona unless the command is changed to 'take no action'.

I edit images as PEF (Pentax RAW file) in DxO and then export as a .dng file that then opens in Affinity Photo Delevop Persona as a RAW image file for further or additional development. There is a slight difference in the tone and contrast but the images are not that much different between the two. DxO gives me a method of viewing images and sorting images in a way that is not possible to do in Affinity Photo.

 

Thanks, CedarHouse. This worked for lens correction but exposure and colour rendering are still quite different. If I export as a TIFF, no problem. But as DNG, I have to adjust exposure, saturation, vibrance and contrast to get the desired look I had previously achieved in DxO PhotoLab. Not sure if the new local corrections are making through to Affinity either... I'm not there yet but what you suggested is a big step forward for me.

 

There must be a way... I've attached screen shots below. The lighter skin is Affinity and the dark, DxO.

[CedarHouse]

Hi, DxO has slightly better saturation than Affinity Photo when exported as DNG to AP Develop Persona but I to date have not had a great difference that cannot be fixed in AP.

The only difference I can see is in the top ribbon in your version has RGB ISO 200 f5.0 12.0mm 1/50sec. Mine does not display the RGB. Cannot be sure but is the camera set to sRGB or AdobeRGB.

My camera allows one to chose either sRGB or AdobeRGB. Have it set for sRGB. Also in preferences in AP have set to (Edit) Preferences Color and RGB Color profile set to sRGB and 32 bit RGB Color Profile set to sRGB. Atttached a screengrab with DxO on left and AP on left.

 

[Vivs]

Thanks again, CedarHouse. Will check that...

[wps]

I also use this combination.  Be sure to use DXO first as AP strips out the makernote tag in exif and DXO uses info in that tag for lens correction.

[Vivs]

Thanks, wps. Boy, the software guys sure need some standardisation in development.

 

CedarHouse, wps, I finally found one setting that I needed to change: my RAW output format was set to 32-bit RGB in Assistant Options; should have been 16 bits. But I have to select "Apply tone curve" to get some semblance of sanity.

 

 

The screen shot above is the intent for output.

 

 

This screen shot (above) is with "Take no action" in the Tone curve selection.

 

The next is with the AP Tone curve applied.

 

 

Closer to the original intent but not quite. I'd still have to edit--I'd still need to boost Exposure, Saturation, Vibrance and possibly Contrast in AP.

 

Here are the colour space settings in Preferences... in case I've got something wrong there...

 

 

Thanks, again.

[CedarHouse]

Hi, I do have difficulty in understanding the colour space and whether to use Adobe RGB or sRGB. I have not opportunity to try out the variations, as I use a Photo Lab company for the printing of images and the Lab requires the image files as sRGB and jpeg and they specifically request the image files are not sent in RGB. In the preferences in both AP and DxO I have set to sRGB and I use a calorimeter to set my monitor display settings (Spyder) or ColorMunki would suffice. The calorimeter appears to ensure that the prints are fairly close to the screen display output. I do not own a photo printer. I can get 16inch by 12 inch prints a £1.15 each so the cost of ink for a printer and then purchasing photo quality paper plus the high prices for a photo quality printer just does not add up compared to the lab pricing. Use a small basic printer for 6" by 4" or 5" by 7" paper only. Larger prints gets sent to the photo lab.

As far as I understand sRGB is the standard for all monitors, TV's etc and wiil display great for digital images and Internet(printing is also okay). Adobe RGB appears (allegedly) to squeeze colours into a smaller range and makes the display duller on a monitor screen but is best for printing output (alledgedly). I probably need to experiment a bit.

 

[CedarHouse]

Slight correction. Most monitors and other display equipment etc are mostly sRGB and again unless it is calibrated to a standard using a calorimeter one will never really know what the "true" display colours are in different modes. Adobe RGB images on an sRGB monitor turn out a little muddy and dark. Nothing wrong with AdobeRGB. Tried some pictures in both formats and those in AdobeRGB were a little darker when compared with identical images in sRGB on a sRGB calibrated Windows monitor. Do not know what file format DxO is using in Export but looking in the RAW detail in Affinity Photo then when exporting from DxO to AP in sRGB the indentifier for colour space was a value of 1. The AdobeRGB file exported from DxO to AP was showing a colour space setting value of 2. Not sure of the significance?

 

[mrh2]

The problem could be that RAW developers do not communicate with each

other. A solution would be to complete RAW editing in the program of

choice and send that file to Affinity Photo as a PSD or TIFF which

Affinity Photo can accurately decode. The corrections made in your

RAW editor should be reproduced faithfully in AP.

[Vivs]

Thanks mrh2. Serif sent me some the settings and I should have posted them here sooner; my apologies everyone. In the Develop Assistant (shown in the second and third screen shots in my second post), I just needed to select the appropriate RAW engine: Apple (Core  Image Raw). I had Serif Labs selected earlier. This change did the trick.