Project / Photo Bin

[cimfine]

Hello,

I am using Affinity Photo since a while and love it very much. But there is one thing I miss from my Photoshop Elements workflow: the "project bin" or in newer versions "photo bin". Using this, it was possible to firstly open and collect files from various folders on the harddisk and then start to put them e.g. into a collage. So far, I failed to find a similar function in Affinity Photo. Did I miss it? What is the best way to get an overview over 20+ files that I may have open to work with?

Any suggestion would be much appreciated,

best regards, Christoph

[v_kyr]

There is a "View -> Media Browser" which can be used to get access to folders (directories) and which lists the images of those.

[Cedge]

I suspect the "File > Open folder in Explorer" is the PC equivalent.

[MEB]

Hi cimfine,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

The closest feature we have is the Media Browser as v_kyr suggested which works as a limited browser for common Mac libraries and selected folders: the Media Browser (menu View ▸ Media Browser...) only lists folders that were explicitly added to it (dragging them from the Finder - including drives), the user Pictures folder and the default libraries for Apple's apps (Aperture, iPhoto Apple Photos). It doesn't let you navigate through the file system as a regular file/image browser unless you add the entire drive to it. It is also only available on the Mac since it uses third party code developed exclusively for macOS.

 

Cedge,

That command is the equivalent to the File ▸ Reveal in Finder on the Mac and it simply opens the folder where the document currently opened is.

[Cedge]

 

Doesn't sound as if  we PC guys are likely to see that feature  added any time soon...(grin). Slowly picking up on the small differences in the two versions.

[MEB]

Cedge,

I believe there will be changes here later. Currently the Media Browser funcionality is quite limited and can be easily replaced by the Windows Explorer functionality.

[Cedge]

MEB

No problem. Windows Explorer is a long established and natural part of the work flow here.

[cimfine]

Good morning and thanks a lot for all the answers and the warm welcome.

@MED, what you describe sounds like a catalog functionality, which I am very familiar which, as I am still using LR as DAM until something better comes along (hint, hint) and also from various other programs.

Nevertheless, this is not quite what I am after. I would like to collect the material (pictures, patterns, symbols, logos, text fragments, ...) in the first stage within Affinity Photo and then start the creative process of deciding which to use and arranging them. As the material will come from different sources, a browser/library that only shows one folder at a time will not do it.

@Cedge, I am aware that this can be done using the library or quick access functions of Windows 10 but would be little intuitive. It would be just much nicer to just have a separate window within Affinity Photo, that shows thumbnails of all open files.

[MEB]

I understood your question but as i said the closest feature we have is the Media Browser (on the Mac). If you were using Designer i would suggest to use the Pasteboard area (the space around the canvas) to store the material temporarily (or the Assets panel) but neither of these features are available in Affinity Photo.

 

[cimfine]

Another reason to look into Affinity designer --- thanks.

[DianeF]

Another option is to create a folder for each of your projects and pull in all the relevant material prior to starting the project.

 

I'm an artist, and I have a folder on my Mac called "Assets for Design and Photography." In that folder I have sub folders for various things including photos I might use in my digital art work, scans of materials I've created by printing or dyeing, some brushes I've made, some templates, textures, etc. When I want to start a new project, it's easy to browse through those materials to see if anything is suitable for the project I'm thinking about and then copy some of these materials to my specific project folder. I don't know if this would suit your situation, but it's something to think about.

[cimfine]

Hi Diane, 

thanks to the suggestion, my hard-disk has a similar folder that contains background, pattern, wordart, maps, all kind of things that ended up there because they could be useful for composites. 

The way you suggest to copy the stuff first to a separate folder is certainly useful, but is also has a few drawbacks:

• You create duplicates and if you forget to delete them afterwards (I would every once in a while) you waste space
• If you modify source materials (e.g. create a b/w outline of a map) and store this for later use, you have to remember not to delete this new version in your clean up process
• You do not have an overview of several currently open affinity files
• You cannot stay within the affinity workspace

best regards, 

 

Christoph

 

[cimfine]

To summarize a few thoughts over the last days: I am quite surprised that PSE seems to be the only image editing program out there that has this Photo Bin concept. I understand that this is not a must have feature and I am quite an experience professional user of a lot of office and data evaluation software so believe me, I know how to handle the Windows explorer and multiple screens. Nevertheless, I also find the photo bin very useful when working with more than one photo, and this is what I use Affinity for, because, to be very open, as much as I love Affinity, my raw converter is still better when it comes to working on the basics of a single photo.

[DianeF]

Hi Christoph,

 

I know that my suggestion was an imperfect solution, but at least for me, it's been a partial solution and helpful when I'm thinking about doing a new digital project. If I modify something in one of my "asset" folders and use it in a project, I save the modified version in a new project folder and keep the original asset as it was. I have an Imac with a lot of storage so I don't worry very much about having extra files on it. And, yes, it would be great to stay within the Affinity space for everything. Maybe that's something that might come in a future version.

 

Diane

[lepr]

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[jfw222]

On te Mac, how do I delete a folder from the Media Browser?   I've tried control + rt. and lf. clicking, but all I get is "Reload".

 

[MEB]

Hi jfw222,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

You can only remove custom folders you have added (dragged) manually to the Media Browser. The default app libraries (Apple Aperture, iPhoto, Photos) and Pictures Folder cannot be removed.