Develop Persona

[Vikas B]

Hi, I am a brand new user to Affinity and still a bit lost (not very intuitive).

The 'develop' toggle button has started appearing on the top as soon as I open a RAW picture. Consequently the tool bar on the side get smaller (in numbers) and sub-options when I open a picture? It showed several options earlier and now there's just a handful

 

[John Rostron]

When you open a raw file, it will automatically open in the Develop persona. You can then use the develop tools to develop the raw image. These are typically global adjustments. When you have done this you click on the Develop button to confirm your adjustments, and then continue in the Photo persona.

I would guess that the images that you had previously opened were not raw files, but jpegs or tiffs. These open in the Photo persona.

Jihn

[Vikas B]

Thanks very much for the quick response. Very likely that the earlier pics were JPG. That means I have to first hit the 'develop' toggle button without doing anything to get access to the full set of tools (to get into the Photo persona?) - thats a little counter-intuitive. 

 

Similarly, why does the band-aid tool disappear every now and then? Is there an easy tutorial or trips available somewhere?

 

lastly, it saves the modified picture as an AFPhoto - is there a way to export that into Apple photos? Seems like the RAW is converted

[Alfred]

41 minutes ago, Vikas B said:

Similarly, why does the band-aid tool disappear every now and then? Is there an easy tutorial or trips available somewhere?

 

The healing tools in Affinity Photo are grouped together by default, so they share a single toolbar flyout and a common shortcut [J]. Repeatedly pressing the J key will cause the tool selection to cycle through the tools in the group.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Vikas B said:

That means I have to first hit the 'develop' toggle button without doing anything to get access to the full set of tools (to get into the Photo persona?) - thats a little counter-intuitive.

Generally speaking, if you have a raw file there are some things you would do in the Develop persona, then you would push the Develop button, and then you would finish in the Photo persona. 

 

The tools in the Develop persona are specialized for that initial processing of a raw file. The tools in the Photo persona are more general.

1 hour ago, Vikas B said:

lastly, it saves the modified picture as an AFPhoto - is there a way to export that into Apple photos? Seems like the RAW is converted

Yes, Save will save the file as an Affinity Photo file. To save in a different format (jpeg, tif, etc.) you would use the Export function, via File Export or via the Export persona.

 

The raw file is not modified in any way.

[IanSG]

2 hours ago, Vikas B said:

That means I have to first hit the 'develop' toggle button without doing anything to get access to the full set of tools (to get into the Photo persona?) - thats a little counter-intuitive. 

RAW files are often described as "undeveloped", especialy when compared to jpgs, where the camera will already have applied things like sharpening, noise reduction and colour enhancement.  You don't have to do them in the Develop persona but it's a very common workflow.

[Vikas B]

Thank you all! One final question - how do I import the edited AFPhoto back into Apple Photos? Is the only way to export it as Jpeg as then import into Apple?

[v_kyr]

Usually you can access Affinity Photo on a Mac also from inside of Apple Photos via "Edit -> Extensions", since APh hooks there into the Apple Photos Extensions intercommunication tool chain. That way you access Aph from any in Apple Photos loaded/opened image, can edit the image in it APh, save and return/will be back in Apple Photos.

However, you can also do it more manually to interoperate the way as you asked above, Aph export as JPG, PNG etc. and then import into Apple Photos.