How does Affinity Photo store edits?

[Robert K]

Hi,

I'm currently looking at moving to AP from Lightroom. 

Does AP store its edit changes in a catalogue, as Lightroom does, or does it store the changes in a sidecar file with the raw image?

Secondly, I've read through other entries in this forum and somethings still unclear to me. I shoot in RAW format, make changes and then export to jpg for printing, etc.
Can changes that I make to RAW files be edited at a later date, the way Lightroom does? That is, RAW files retain a history, and changes can be undone.

 

[Gabe]

Hi @Robert K,

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

AP works a bit different as it's mainly a Photo editing, not a DAM (Like LR). Therefore, some of LR feature will not work on AP( catalogue, later edits, compare, etc). As a reference, AD works more like PS rather than LR. You can, however, edit a photo and continue later, but you will have to save it as a .afphoto file. The system does not have any build in catalogue  

 

Thanks,

Gabriel. 

[IanSG]

 

3 hours ago, Robert K said:

Secondly, I've read through other entries in this forum and somethings still unclear to me. I shoot in RAW format, make changes and then export to jpg for printing, etc.

 You don't need to export - you can print directly.  

3 hours ago, Robert K said:

Can changes that I make to RAW files be edited at a later date, the way Lightroom does? That is, RAW files retain a history, and changes can be undone.

The RAW files are never altered, but there are degrees of "undoingness" (sorry!) in the .afphoto file.  Changes made in the Develop Persona are baked in and can't be changed.  Once the image is developed the change history can be saved - this means that you can go back to an earlier point in your work, but you can't then go forward e.g.  you've made 10 changes and then go back to the 4th and make a new change - the original changes 5-10 are lost.  If you use Live Filter Layers you can go back to them at any time and change them.