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Does Serif have anything in the pipeline that will replace my old copy of lightroom 4 i really love photo but 99% of my work is done in lightroom and version 4 is no longer being updated so can't get raw support for newer camera's. failing that can someone suggest a lighroom replacement that is single purchase supports multiple monitors and less than £100?

 

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Hi Occulon,

 

Welcome to the forums!

 

A Digital Asset Management app isn't something we have any immediate plans for but its something we'd like to do in the future. Hopefully another user on the forum can suggest a DAM application for you :)

 

C

Please tag me using @ in your reply so I can be sure to respond ASAP.

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At the suggestion of someone on this forum, I decided to try and then buy Pixave . I have a Mac and don't know if there's also a Windows version. This program is only a DAM, not a raw image editor, but so far it seems pretty powerful. It also has an interesting Web Capture tool that lets you easily download images from any website, in formats for a desktop computer, tablet and phone. I have started to import and categorize my thousands of photographs. Once you've tagged, or otherwise categorized your photos (there are multiple ways to do this), doing searches is extremely fast. 

 

The main negative of the program for me has been the Help files which I think are not well done. 

 

There is a free trial version which you can download from the App store and test out.

Affinity Photo, V 2.3.1    Affinity Designer, V 2.2 Affinity Publisher, V 2.3.1

Mac Book Air, Sonoma, 14.2.1

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AFAIK Pixave is for MacOS/iOS only, for Windows systems iMatch is quite a well known one.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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Thanks Diane it is on Mac i want it so that's OK but really needs to support raw editing because i mostly do underwater photo's and correct one then apply the same fix to all of the others shot at a similar depth as it's a massive time saving. i only really use Photo if it's a poor photo of a really interesting subject or if i am going to print or publish it. 

 

so far of all the one's i have tried from the lightroom alternatives list not a singler one supports multiple monitors, am i the only person that works this way with catalogue on one screen and photo/tools open on another. surly it's really not to much to ask in this day and age for a program to support multiple monitors?

 

 

Rachel

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Hi Rachel,

 

Sorry, but I really don't know anything about programs that do raw editing and have a cataloging function.

 

Re. multiple monitors, I used two monitors for years, and all my programs worked with multiple monitors. Here's a link to some information for configuring your computer for multiple displays: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202351

 

Affinity Photo, V 2.3.1    Affinity Designer, V 2.2 Affinity Publisher, V 2.3.1

Mac Book Air, Sonoma, 14.2.1

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Hello Occulon,

 

The best DAM I know is, by far, Photo Mechanic. But It is only a DAM, another software like Affinity Photo is needed for editing. And It is a bit expensive. You can also  have a look at Graphic Converter from the german company Lemkesoft (Mac only, 32£). The devellopers claim that it is a "swiss knife" and, indeed, it is one. But sometimes too many functions on your knife lead to a bulky size and some difficulties to handle... (it may take a whole week to handle the preferences panel :/). Anyway, for the price it is a very good DAM. There is a function to make basic RAW editing, but it is not very efficient (the soft is not made for that), so I guess you will need another software to do the work properly.

 

Using two or three software to manage your files is not a problem. It is actually more lightweight and secure. What is needed is a DAM not too "greedy" with hardware ressources, and a good RAW converter with batch processing before editing in Affinity, or any software you want, for the finishing work.

Batch processing in the RAW software part is essential to manage several files in one time (to create previews for instance).

 

I have used Lightroom since 2012 and the 4th, 5th and 6th versions before completely switching a few weeks ago for a combination of three softwares : Photo Mechanic, Iridient Developer, and Affinity photo (I also use Nik plugins for a long time). I still learn to use Affinity Photo Properly, but that workflow suits me perfectly. 

It is above the budget you have mentioned. But, you can focus on the RAW developer, because it is the most important part if you use RAW files, Affinity is not very expensive, Nik plugins are free, for now. And Graphic converter will do a good job. There is also a free DAM named XnView, I know it for a long time since I have used the Windows version in the newspaper I was working for. You can have a look at it.

 

Regards,
Fx

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3 hours ago, FxRphoto said:

Anyway, for the price it is a very good DAM.

I am just curious, but how do you use GraphicConverter as a DAM? I have version 9, so maybe something is different in v10, but aside from the tedious to set up & use catalog functions, I don't see any simple way to browse through all my photos in a single window.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 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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Hello R C-R,

 

A DAM (Digital Assets Management) is just a bit more than a photo viewer in a sense that it can, like Adobe Bridge, manage any type of files you want (in the case of Graphic Converter it really does).


But you are right, It lacks the ability to view the whole content of a folder and its subfolders.


This is one of the many reasons I prefer Photo Mechanic. One of the other reasons is that GC cannot combine RAW+JPEG, for instance.
Anyway, I have mentioned it just because it could be a useful software for its price.

 

Regards,

Fx

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15 minutes ago, FxRphoto said:

A DAM (Digital Assets Management) is just a bit more than a photo viewer in a sense that it can, like Adobe Bridge, manage any type of files you want (in the case of Graphic Converter it really does).

At least for me, GC9 does not offer much that is particularly useful for .afphoto files. It does not always show an image preview or shows what appears to be a thumbnail from the original image instead of an accurate preview of the edited version. I am not sure what that is but it seems to have something to do with the layer structure of the file. The Mac Quick Look feature & Finder views both show the native Affinity format files as they appear in the app, so maybe it has something to do with GC9 not being able to access that.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 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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5 minutes ago, R C-R said:

At least for me, GC9 does not offer much that is particularly useful for .afphoto files. It does not always show an image preview or shows what appears to be a thumbnail from the original image instead of an accurate preview of the edited version. I am not sure what that is but it seems to have something to do with the layer structure of the file. The Mac Quick Look feature & Finder views both show the native Affinity format files as they appear in the app, so maybe it has something to do with GC9 not being able to access that.

 

I have GC 10 installed on one of my computers. I check if it works with the native Affinity Photo files and  I come back to you in a minute.

 

Fx

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34 minutes ago, R C-R said:

At least for me, GC9 does not offer much that is particularly useful for .afphoto files. It does not always show an image preview or shows what appears to be a thumbnail from the original image instead of an accurate preview of the edited version. I am not sure what that is but it seems to have something to do with the layer structure of the file. The Mac Quick Look feature & Finder views both show the native Affinity format files as they appear in the app, so maybe it has something to do with GC9 not being able to access that.

That's right, it seems that GC9 doesn't know how to handle the compressed Affinity files here, in order to be able to show a thumbnail preview etc. The Mac Quick Look feature in turn is a custom Affinity add-on for OSX and again it seems that GC9 doesn't know, (re)use, or makes any use of this one here, at least not for my AD files!

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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R C-R,

 

I have created an .afphoto file with basic black & white conversion (to see the obvious change). No more layers.

 

Indeed, GC10 always shows the original color preview and don't really manage the file properly, since when I double-click on it, the soft  tries to open it with my raw converter instead of AP !


The OSX interface just shows the same color icon (maybe I need to restart to refresh the icon file) but a small, totally useless b&w preview in Quick look. Of course, it opens the file correctly in AP.


As for Photo Mechanic, It doesn't show any preview, but it opens the file correctly.

 

I do not use native files of any software so much, I prefer the .tiff format. That's why I missed that.

 

I have seen that there is some feature claims on the Photo Mechanic users forum regarding the .afphoto files. Maybe one day the Camera Bits team will include this file format in their soft...

 

Regards,

Fx

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Hi FxRphto,

Affinity's native file format is proprietary/closed so no other software is able to open or generate previews for its files. As far as i know third party apps can still access the thumbnails/previews generated through Quick Look generator plugins files (which we provide in the application's bundle Library: Affinity Designer.app/Contents/Library/QuickLook/) without the need for the format specs as long as the application is installed. Photo Mechanic can take advantage of it to display previews for Affinity files...

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Thank you for the information, MEB. 

I have to say that I'am not part or even affiliate to the Photo Mechanic team.

Maybe it would be better to ask for this on their forum, if some people are interested. More demands will bring more motivation to add more file support.

 

But, we are far from the original topic here, I guess...

Fx

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