Working with NEF and Apple photos

[bp1000]

Hello 

I’m considering purchasing AP but I would like to know how it works with apple photos. 

I love the look of the develop workspace and know I can choose edit in AP from Apple photos. 

But what happens after I make my edits and adjustments in AP. Does it save my modifications back to the same NEF file which is reflected back in Apple photos? 

Asking because I don’t want duplicate files nor do I want to create JPEG/tiff versions of a photo in case I want to make future adjustments and have even more files everywhere. 

Thanks! 

[R C-R]

Apple Photos always saves an edited version in addition to the original 'master' one (& some other related stuff as well) in its Library, so there is no way to avoid that duplication unless you export the edited version from Apple Photos, import that back into the app as a new photo, & delete the original (& I am not even sure if that removes all traces of the original).

You might be temped to use Finder's "Show Package Contents" option to open the Photos Library.photoslibrary package & delete some of the duplicate files directly, but that is a very bad idea because doing that can cause corruption of the database & other support files Apple Photos requires to work correctly, resulting in irreversible loss of some or even all of the photos stored there.

[h_d]

Hi @bp1000

If .nef files work in the same way as other proprietary RAW files, then the original file - sometimes called the 'digital negative', is not normally editable in any software. Changes to the original have to be exported to, or "saved as", a file format such as .jpg, .tiff or .png. The original RAW file stays the same.

I don't have a Nikon camera myself, but in Apple Photos, if I edit one of my Panasonic .RW2 files with Affinity Photo, the editable image is automatically converted to a TIFF before any editing or manipulation takes place. (The file name extension displayed in the Affinity Photo interface is .tiff)

The image is not opened into the Develop Persona (as it would be if the RAW file was opened directly from the Finder) but into the Photo Persona. It possible to switch into the Develop Persona, or any of the others if you want to.

When I save and close the image, the Apple Photos interface now shows what appears to be an edited version of the RAW file, with an ".RW2" name extension, but personally I think this is misleading. 

It's still possible to use Apple Photos' own editing interface to revert the image to the original version.

Basically, whenever you edit any image of any kind in Apple Photos, whether using the Affinity Photos extensions or Apple Photos' own interface, you are working on a copy. The original remains untouched, and what happens to the edited copy if you revert is a secret known only to Apple .

Hope this makes sense!