cimfine Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 There is a "View -> Media Browser" which can be used to get access to folders (directories) and which lists the images of those. Quote ☛ 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cedge Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 I suspect the "File > Open folder in Explorer" is the PC equivalent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted February 5, 2018 Staff Share Posted February 5, 2018 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. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cedge Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted February 6, 2018 Staff Share Posted February 6, 2018 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. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cedge Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 MEB No problem. Windows Explorer is a long established and natural part of the work flow here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimfine Posted February 6, 2018 Author Share Posted February 6, 2018 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted February 6, 2018 Staff Share Posted February 6, 2018 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. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimfine Posted February 6, 2018 Author Share Posted February 6, 2018 Another reason to look into Affinity designer --- thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DianeF Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 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. Quote Affinity Photo, V 2.3.1 Affinity Designer, V 2.2 Affinity Publisher, V 2.3.1 Mac Book Air, Sonoma, 14.2.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimfine Posted February 22, 2018 Author Share Posted February 22, 2018 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimfine Posted February 22, 2018 Author Share Posted February 22, 2018 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DianeF Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 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 Quote Affinity Photo, V 2.3.1 Affinity Designer, V 2.2 Affinity Publisher, V 2.3.1 Mac Book Air, Sonoma, 14.2.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lepr Posted February 23, 2018 Share Posted February 23, 2018 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfw222 Posted April 29, 2018 Share Posted April 29, 2018 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". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted April 29, 2018 Staff Share Posted April 29, 2018 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. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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