Export master when editing from Photos Mac

[emuuuh]

In my workflow I import all my pictures into apple photos and from there I choose edit in affinity photo. The problem I encounter is that when I'm in affinity photo I like to save the edited photo as a master file sometime (affinity photo document) because when I go back to the photos app it flattens the document.

However.. the save as button is not available now.

Is this something that can be fixed or am I overlooking something?

Thanks!

[Gabe]

Hi @emuuuh,

Welcome to the forums. 

What file type is that? If it's RAW, you cannot write back to is as the file sent between the apps is a TIFF. Photos will always keep the original raw file and send a tiff to the editing app. You can then save back to that tiff. Next, photos will display the edited tiff instead of the raw file. You can, however, export the unmodified version from the Photos app from File > Export unmodified.

Thanks,

Gabe. 

[emuuuh]

Hi @GabrielM 

 

Thanks for you reply. I was hoping I could safe the edited file as an affinity document in case I wanted to do some slight modification.

It is a raw file indeed.

Do I lose a lot of quality working this way? (sending the file as a tiff?)

[Gabe]

You can always File > Save as and that will save is as an .afphoto file. Transferring it via TIFF will "lose" the RAW capability. Also, you will end up with a 16bit image rather than 32bit. But that really depends on your workflow. You might not necessarily need 32bit. Technically, you will lose quality as you're going from 32 bit to 16 bit. Whether you see the difference or not, it's a different story. 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, GabrielM said:

You can always File > Save as and that will save is as an .afphoto file.

Unless I am missing something, if you use "Edit in Affinity Photo" on a RAW file stored in an Apple Photos library, File > Save in Affinity Photo does not save the developed file as a separate .afphoto file. It actually just does the equivalent of a 'save as' step & returns that developed version to Apple Photos, where the user has the option of keeping the developed/edited version in the library or discarding it.

[emuuuh]

16 hours ago, R C-R said:

Unless I am missing something, if you use "Edit in Affinity Photo" on a RAW file stored in an Apple Photos library, File > Save in Affinity Photo does not save the developed file as a separate .afphoto file. It actually just does the equivalent of a 'save as' step & returns that developed version to Apple Photos, where the user has the option of keeping the developed/edited version in the library or discarding it.

Yeap this is what my question was about indeed.

It is not possible to do save as when editing a raw.   But I wish it was.

[Gabe]

Hmm... that's odd. Have a quick look at this:

[R C-R]

56 minutes ago, GabrielM said:

Hmm... that's odd. Have a quick look at this:

As your video shows, "Edit with" sends an already developed tiff version of the RAW cr2 file to Affinity Photo. That isn't useful if you want to develop the cr2 in Affinity Photo & save it as a separate .afphoto file.

The only way I know to do that is to open the file into editing mode in Apple Photos, & choose "Edit in Affinity Photo" from the popup menu:

Using that option opens the RAW cr2 file into Affinity Photo's Develop Persona where it can be developed & edited in the other personas. However, that disables the "Save as" menu option, & when you click on the "Save" option, a progress bar appears indicating a 'save as' operation is occurring. After the developed file is closed in Affinity Photo, back in Apple Photos you have the option of saving the developed/edited version or discarding it, & if that version is >16 MB (which it usually is for a high resolution RAW file), you get a notification that the file will be saved 'flattened."

[Gabe]

Oh. Yeah. You're right. If you start to "edit" from Photos and then use the "edit in Affinity" it's basically Apple's integration. It's their internal way of handling the RAW and it cannot be saved as .afphoto. 

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, GabrielM said:

it's basically Apple's integration. It's their internal way of handling the RAW and it cannot be saved as .afphoto. 

Since as I understand it, there is no way for Affinity Photo (or any other app) to work around this, the only way to open a RAW file stored in an Apple Photos library so it can be developed & saved as a separate .afphoto file is to do what you suggested in your first reply & export the unmodified original from Photos & open that in Affinity Photo.