Workflow for developing RAWs stored in Photos.app (Mac) that aren't supported natively by Apple's Raw Engine

[kuyman]

Hey there internet friends, I'm having some trouble adapting my workflow around a new camera I've picked up recently, the YI M1. If you're not familiar, the M1 is a micro 4/3 camera with a beautiful 20 megapixel Sony sensor and not much else to offer. I've found that while the JPEGs it makes are mediocre at best, the RAWs can be developed really beautifully with a little effort in Affinity Photo. Unfortunately these RAWs aren't supported at all in Apple's RAW engine. And that's where the trouble starts.

 

I'm a lifelong Aperture user. I have something like 100,000 photos in Aperture libraries, and I always felt kind of attached to it as a longtime Mac user that started getting serious about photography right about the same time it came out. Y'all can pry it out of my cold, dead hands. And although I've considered switching to ON1 (but not Lightroom) or whatever solution Affinity is working to develop (see my tweet w/ Affinity from  5/8/18 here: https://twitter.com/kuyman/status/994021690672910336), I'm currently using Photos.app on the Mac and on the iPad with a lot of success. It's no Aperture, but Apple has done a lot over the last few years to make it suitable for my purposes. Usually I develop my RAW file there, then make the few changes that may be necessary in Affinity Photo, then save it back out to Photos. This workflow works great for supported RAWs on the Mac, and I'm very satisfied with Apple's RAW engine, even for my tricky Fuji RAW files. But for these totally unsupported M1 files, all I get is a black image in Photos.app. And because of the way Photos.app passes the file to Affinity to edit (as a usually great but in this case useless 16 bit TIFF), Affinity Photo also ends up with the totally black image.

 

Although the YI M1 is not listed in the official list of supported RAW cameras, you can develop those files fine. Makes sense to me since this is the same sensor from the Olympus PEN-F which is on the supported list. But to get Affinity Photo to open the RAW relies on me finding the actual RAW file in buried directories inside my Photos.app library, copying that file out, and then opening it directly. While I would find that an acceptable workflow just a few years ago, in 2018 that's a serious pain, especially since I often import all my photos directly into the iPad version of Photos.app.

 

So I guess my question is this: can anyone recommend a workflow where I can open Mac unsupported RAW files directly in Affinity Photo as RAW files? Getting this working on the Mac is a good start, but I'd love to hear ideas for how to get it to work with the iPad as well.

 

I've attached one of the DNGs to this post, but you get the idea.

 

Thanks!

P5090027.DNG

[firstdefence]

I've just dragged your dng into Photos and it shows correctly, what OS X are you on?

Went back into Photos its black, Luminar 2018 opens the file and I can edit it.

 

Have you tried using Adobe DNG Converter

[firstdefence]

After using Adobe DNG Converter.

[kuyman]

18 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I've just dragged your dng into Photos and it shows correctly, what OS X are you on?

Went back into Photos its black, Luminar 2018 opens the file and I can edit it.

 

Have you tried using Adobe DNG Converter

Well I really thought that would be a lot more complicated than that. Thanks for the great answer, firstdefence. That's working great now.

[firstdefence]

Sometimes it's that simple you wonder what you've missed lol

 

The converted DNG opens directly in Affinity no problem that I can see at the moment.

[kuyman]

Most of the files do seem to convert fine, but I've run into some errors already. Here's a particularly glitchy one.

converted_P5090004.dng

P5090004.DNG

[firstdefence]

That's crazy. 

Actually I quite like it lol!

 

I was looking at the exif data to see what had changed to make it go into Photos and after exif:ColorSpace parameter the data is quite different, exif:ColorSpace is about 2/3rds down the list in the exif Panel

[lepr]

.

[kuyman]

@owenr

Thanks, that workflow does seem to work which is a good start! When I finish developing the RAW and save it back to Photos, I get a warning that "Editing complete (16MB change limit exceeded - document will be flattened) - press Save to keep these changes." From there though the photo in Photos.app is a TIFF (although a properly rendered TIFF which is nice) and it doesn't look like the original RAW can be revised (redeveloped?) without reverting to original and starting all over. Any ideas on that?

[lepr]

.

 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, kuyman said:

When I finish developing the RAW and save it back to Photos, I get a warning that "Editing complete (16MB change limit exceeded - document will be flattened) - press Save to keep these changes." From there though the photo in Photos.app is a TIFF (although a properly rendered TIFF which is nice) and it doesn't look like the original RAW can be revised (redeveloped?) without reverting to original and starting all over. Any ideas on that?

Far from ideal, but you could duplicate the RAW file in Apple Photos so you still have one copy that you do not need to revert to the original to redevelop it.

 

Keep in mind that Apple says you should never directly open any file stored in an Apple Photos Library in another app because this can corrupt the databases that keep track of edits or where the original are stored, potentially resulting in unrecoverable loss of some or all of these files. But what might work for you is to set Photos Preferences General to not to copy your photos into the Photos Library:

 

As explained in Apple's Change where Photos stores your files, this creates a reference to their actual storage location, so they are not being stored in the Library.

 

Please note that I have not tried this & cannot say if it would work for you.

[Gabe]

You can switch the RAW engine from Apple to SerifLabs in Develop Assistant(suit like icon in the top right toolbar) and you should be fine. Both files you attached opened correctly. 

[kuyman]

Thanks all. I'll likely use some combination of duplicating the files and developing the RAWs along some presets I'll probably develop. Fingers crossed something easier comes along sooner rather than later, but this should help me keep my new RAWs from the M1 in Photos.

Now I just wish that any of this worked on the iPad...