Raw data destruction

[PHYPHEDELICS]

There are some features only available in the Photo Persona, and others which can also be found in the Develop Persona. My question is what, if any, effects does developing have on the raw data, and are these effects, if applied, reversed when returning back to the Develop Persona? For example: Can I take a raw file, develop it, adjust the perspective, then go back into the Develop Persona and start making adjustments, or will I be loosing data in the transfer?

Thank you for taking the time to address my question. 

[Dan C]

Hi PHYPHEDELICS,

Welcome to the forums

When developing an image from the Develop Persona to the Photo Persona the default setting is to 'clip' the colour values to 16bit/RGB. This means that technically some data is lost, unless you change the RAW output format in your Develop Assistant settings to 32bit/RGB. (under View>Assistant Manager>Develop Assistant).

Even with this setting change, you will still technically be losing some data, but this is unavoidable when processing RAW images in Affinity Photo, as the development process is destructive. This means that once you've developed your image you cannot 'go back' and make further changes to the same RAW data. You can of course return to the Develop Persona if you wish, but you will now be working with a rasterised image, rather than RAW data.

You can find out more about RAW development in Affinity Photo in the comprehensive Spotlight article we've written, linked below. I hope this helps!

https://affinityspotlight.com/article/raw-actually/

[PHYPHEDELICS]

I have a few follow-up questions. I’ve just started a project which was shot from an iPhone, so it’s a .JPG file. I wanted to verify that opening a .JPG in the Photo Persona, opening it in the Develop Persona to make adjustments, and then developing back into the Photo Persona; would be more destructive than making the same adjustments while still in the Photo Persona? (I hope that makes sense)

My second question is, what does this pop-up mean?

 

thanks for all of your help Dan.

 

[R C-R]

The popup means that you have opened a document previously saved using a file format (like jpg or png) that can only save everything in a single "flat" pixel layer & added something to it (like a live filter, an adjustment layer, text, or a vector shape) that can't be saved as a single "flat" pixel layer using that file format.

So your options are to flatten everything into a single pixel layer & save the document in that file type, or to use "Save As" to save it to an Affinity format file as a new document.

[Dan C]

6 hours ago, PHYPHEDELICS said:

I wanted to verify that opening a .JPG in the Photo Persona, opening it in the Develop Persona to make adjustments, and then developing back into the Photo Persona; would be more destructive than making the same adjustments while still in the Photo Persona?

That's correct, following this method will destructively edit the image, as none of the changes can be edited at a later date. However if you use Live Filters in the Photo Persona you can go back at any time and change the values for your edits!