Develop to Photos Persona?

[SF Charter Boat]

Confused about when and how the Develop Persona shifts to Photos? Or does it? I have a bunch of RAW images, and am, finally, about to start learning Affinity after using Aperture, so I am doing the tutorials..... But am not clear on what the transition is from Develop to Photos? What should I do in Develop, should I stay there, when should I shift to Photos, will it do it automatically? Just trying to start with Step One. Thx

PS Liquify rates as a major Persona??? Weird choice to make a major league category. The word Persona odd as well. No worries, though, just want to begin at the beginning

[R C-R]

The transition occurs automatically when you click the large blue "Develop" button in the context toolbar.

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, SF Charter Boat said:

What should I do in Develop, should I stay there, when should I shift to Photos,

You'll need to work out that aspect of your workflow yourself, though I'm sure others here can give recommendations

 

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You'll need to work out that aspect of your workflow yourself, though I'm sure others here can give recommendations

But note that in Affinity Photo you cannot Save, Save As, or Export a file while in the Develop Persona, nor can you switch to another Persona unless you click either the Develop or Cancel buttons  in the context toolbar.

To understand why, it may help to read the RAW, actually Affinity Spotlight article.

[SF Charter Boat]

Thanks, got it, can't Save, SaveAs or Export,  but I still am not clear:

-Should I do ANY work in Develop before moving to Photo? If so, how much and of what nature?

RC-R says it happens "automatically when I click large blue Develop button.."

-I assume I already am in Develop because AF automatically places RAW images there, so why would I have to hit it again?

Still unclear what if any, and when, I should shift to Photo after the image being placed in Develop by AF automatically

Thanks,

Stuart

 

 

 

 

 

[v_kyr]

Well you stay in the Develop Persona (the RAW converter portion) until your RAW images are developed in a sense that you are quite happy with their visual results. So you can use that mode until you realize that there is nothing you can add more here on the RAW develop side. - Now you can take your photo over to the Photo Develop side, which either allows you to store and export your image into some more common reusable formats, OR manipulate it way further with applying filters and a bunch of other artistic image manipulations you don't have on the Develop Persona side.

Basically it's up to you how far you stay in that RAW develop mode and how much you tweak your images there, but in order to save/export your images or manipulate it further you have to take it over to the Photo Persona.

[SF Charter Boat]

So there are a lot more tools in Photo over Develop? Is that correct? Is there a Grad Filter in Develop? Is there a histogram in Develop? It looks, not having used it  before, (or Photo), like there are far more choices in Photo? So why even begin in Develop? Why not immediately transfer to Photo, with the understanding that AF places RAW images in a certain place for whatever reason? I am asking because I do not know if there are any reasons to remain in Develop after the image is opened there? What benefits do I gain by doing some adjustments there and then moving to Photo?

Thx

[v_kyr]

You may want to read the following to get some basic idea why start developing from RAW images is often essential ...

• RAW, actually

 

36 minutes ago, SF Charter Boat said:

So there are a lot more tools in Photo over Develop? Is that correct? ...

Yes, but partly on another level and then not any more working with/on plain camera sensor given data. - It's pretty much like Adobe Camera RAW (or Lightroom) versus Photoshop, if that says anything to you here.

36 minutes ago, SF Charter Boat said:

I am asking because I do not know if there are any reasons to remain in Develop after the image is opened there? What benefits do I gain by doing some adjustments there and then moving to Photo?

Thought I already explained that in short previously. - In RAW/Develop Persona you can get the most out of your cameras sensor data, you can adjust all related things for getting a good developed exposer of your cam images.

In Photo Persona you can take make also different and artistic adjustments and manipulations to the before developed image. You can apply filters, alienating a photo, make a sketch or comic etc. etc. out of it and so on. It's like in the past with analog photographie, Develop Persona is your photo darkroom and Photo Persona is the creative image manipulation after develop.

 

[R C-R]

30 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

You may want to read the following to get some basic idea why start developing from RAW images is often essential ...

• RAW, actually

Courtesy of the Department of Redundancy Department? 

[v_kyr]

10 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Courtesy of the Department of Redundancy Department? 

Ops didn't saw that, LOL.

[SF Charter Boat]

Many of the images I may use are already in raw, so it's moot about its merits or not, my interest is how much, if any, should I do in raw before moving over to Photo?

Is there any advantage doing some prelim work in Develop, then move to Photo? If so, specifically what are the fundamental basics to be done? Can I be specifically told a list of what is to my advantage while in Develop before moving? Is it correct to say AF has already done some of the work by placing it in Develop?

Or, is it the same to just move my image immediately to Photo? And keep it under one roof?

 

[v_kyr]

Looks to me like you haven't used or tried out Photo so far?

Did you looked at some of the following overview tutorials (especially also those about RAW) here?

• Official Affinity Photo (Desktop) Video Tutorials

12 minutes ago, SF Charter Boat said:

Is there any advantage doing some prelim work in Develop, then move to Photo? If so, specifically what are the fundamental basics to be done? Can I be specifically told a list of what is to my advantage while in Develop before moving? Is it correct to say AF has already done some of the work by placing it in Develop?

Of course there is, APh does as default (when you open a RAW file inside Develop) more in a neutral state. Dependend on the cam and the RAW support it either gives you a well balanced or not that optimal balanced initial conversion here when it loads your RAW file. - Now it's time to tweak and develop the RAW accordingly, steps you will have to look after and maybe adjust then...

• Check the histogramm, bandwith, focus/exif
• Perform exposer adjustments
• Whitebalance adjustments
• Brightness/Contrast adjustments
• Noise reduction
• Luminosity/Saturation adjustments
• Possibly adjust Shadows/Lights if needed
• Applying lens corrections (distortions, chromatic aberrations, vignetting etc.)
• Adjust levels if needed
• Cropping the image if needed
• Remove blemishes, red eye removal (can also be done later in Photo persona)
• Apply some toning (can also be done later in Photo persona)
• etc.

Taking over to Photo Persona and then...

• Sharpening or selective sharpening
• Saving/Exporting
• Finetuning
• Watermarking
• ...creative/artistic filters etc....
• ...whatever

 

[Old Bruce]

In Develop Persona you are in RGB, in Photo you can change to CMYK, LAB, Greyscale etc. I do as much as I can in Develop then all the other stuff in Photo. Just remember that the edits in Develop do not change anything in the original Raw file, all the original data is still there and you can try a different approach later.

[SF Charter Boat]

Thanks for patience and contributions. My take from this conversation is stay in Develop to do as much as possible and then move to Photo to fine tune. Thx for the bullet points and time to share. If I am not accurate in my assumption, pls advise. Thx again, Stuart

[SF Charter Boat]

Last question, hopefully on this topic: As I make adjustments in Develop there appears to be no Save after every adjustment. The AF Raw tutorial says once I am happy with my adjustments to click on the blue Develop. This apparently saves my adjustments, but it also, I guess, sends me to Photos.  Does this mean that there is no way to keep saving the changes until the end, when I click on Develop, but takes me out of Develop to Photo? Thx

[v_kyr]

It doesn't save the adjustments you made on the Develop side, there is no sidecar file or the like generated, you would have to make an own Preset there (of all things you applied in Develop) for a later reusage instead. - All it does when pressing the blue Develop button is take your image with those adjustments you made over to the Photo Persona side. There on the Photo Persona you can save it as an Affinity Photo file or export the image into other common image formats (JPG, PNG, TIFF, PDF ... etc.).

So to sum up, there is no real saving on the Develop Persona side, it doesn't create sidecar files or the like, in order to save to something you have to do that on the Photo Persona side!

[SF Charter Boat]

Thanks, so I just keep doing my edits and adjustments on the image in Develop, then when I am happy, hit the blue Develop and it automatically transfers to Photo where I can add any further choices....then I can share or Save, or Save As (will have to look up that distinction) Thanks for the help.

[Old Bruce]

25 minutes ago, SF Charter Boat said:

As I make adjustments in Develop there appears to be no Save after every adjustment.

Just to add to everyone's confusion you can make Presets for some of the adjustments and these are saved. I frequently use them for photos taken at the same time with the same lighting etc. Then I apply them to each subsequent image to start and finish fine tuning that raw file then Develop the file. I also frequently delete the Presets because they are really only any good to me for a handful of images made on the same day/time/subject. It is only really useful for a sequence of similarly exposed images, but it does save me time and more importantly it gives me consistent results.

13 minutes ago, SF Charter Boat said:

Thanks, so I just keep doing my edits and adjustments on the image in Develop, then when I am happy, hit the blue Develop and it automatically transfers to Photo where I can add any further choices....then I can share or Save, or Save As (will have to look up that distinction) Thanks for the help.

Save As... is only going to give you another Affinity Photo file. I use it for backups and renaming. I open a Raw file, Develop, Save in the Affinity File format (.afphoto) and do all sorts of stuff to that file. Export gives you other common file formats, these will usually 'flatten' or 'bake' or 'burn' or 'print' all the layers and what nots, but don't worry about that because you still have them in the Affinity file. Just like you still have all the original camera data in the Raw file.

[SF Charter Boat]

Thanks, everyone, big help! Stuart