General Workflows in Affinity Photo Beta

[WeiPhotoArts]

Been dabbling in the Affinity Photo Beta. I’ve been somewhat stymied by the philosophy of the workflow of personas. I’m used to Lightroom (LR), its plugins, and Photoshop. Looking forward to transferring to Affinity.

However, how have some Beta users created workflows straight from RAW? Or do you work from LR processing and create Tifs to be processed in Affinity Photo Beta? Here’s where I can best be elucidated: The Affinity and Develop Personas seem to offer similar processes; but they are different—what’s the philosophy behind both? Is there some documentation (with more detail than the videos) that create a crude map of what some workflows can accomplish?

Thanks in advance,

Wei Chong

[MikeFromMesa]

I can't speak for others, but my workflow probably parallels the one you were mentioning. I do most of my raw processing in workflow tools - Dxo Optics Pro or CaptureOne - and do my external editing for functionality not covered in those using Affinity Photo Beta. To do that I send tiffs to APB, do my layers/selections/masking/other using that tiff, and then send the result back to my workflow tool. In essence my processing is as it was before, except I am using APB as a replacement for Photoshop CC. That processing flow will also include plugins when the APB developers have smoothed out the plugin interface.

 

As to the differences between the Develop Persona and the Photo Persona, it seems to me that it closely parallels the normal raw pixel editor flow with a separate editor for raw and for post-raw. Photoshop uses ACR and PS as editing tools, Corel has a similar pair of functionality as does Acorn. I can not speak as to the philosophy, but the approach is widely used in the editing community.

 

Don't know if any of this answers your questions.

[WeiPhotoArts]

Mike,

 

Thank you for your lucid reply to my question. You answered it perfectly.

[MikeFromMesa]

Glad to have helped.

 

There are a wide variety of Affinity Photo Beta users on this site and some others may well have a very different workflow. I am sure that some of them use only APB and its Media Browser for their processing, just as many people use only Bridge/Photoshop for their processing. I, however, am not one of them.

 

For what it is worth Lightroom works very well with APB as I have also used that tool pairing.

[billtils]

@WeiPhotoArts

 

Just about the only work flow that cannot be implemented at present is the one we all want!   Namely, to download directly from the camera, create the RAW files, add to an integrated library, and do your post editing all in Affinity Photo.  (But that is coming ...).

 

Of the other options I vary between one that Mike mentioned - download and generate the RAW files using the camera S/W (Nikon ViewNX 2) and then process in AP selecting the images from its media browser;  or I download using ViewNX 2 and import the folder into Aperture then call AP as external editor.  

 

Which is used on any given day is almost random with no real logic.  The first mentioned would be the preferred route except that ViewNX 2 is clunky and I am still left with having to export the final image to the library in Aperture.  It does have the personal advantage that I can upload any images that are to be shared with family or friends directly from it to Nikon's Image Space (gives me 20GB free storage).  However if what I am processing contains lots of images that are going to end up in different Projects/Albums the second is easier.

[jkehoe]

Hello Everyone,

 

Thanks for posting these points of view; I am learning a lot from this. Like billtills has identified here, I'd like to be able to use just one product to process my raw files from start to finish (either post to Flickr or go to print). Right now I like Aperture and on my older Mac I had used Photoshop Elements. I am eager to see the next release of Affinity Photo Beta and its Develop Persona as I am having difficulty with the current one. :) :)

[MikeFromMesa]

jkehoe,

 

While I do not use APB as my sole processing software, if I did my workflow would probably be something like this:

 

1) Open the APB Media Browser, browse to the desired folder and select an image to process,

2) Using the Media Browser, open the image in APB. If the image is raw, develop in the Develop Persona, move to the Photo Persona and edit further. If the image is not raw, develop in the Photo Persona only,

3) Call and use plugins as needed,

4) Export each image, when processed, to the format and location I wished to use.

 

This is the exact analog of how I used to do processing using Photoshop and Bridge. Unlike Bill, who has an interest in cataloging and indexing his images (using a DAM of some sort) I have no need or interest in using one, so my processed images get copied to my wife's laptop for viewing, my raw images get copied to my dual backups and I am finished with my processing of that batch.

 

Is the difficulty you are having related to deciding on a workflow? Or is it with using the functionality in APB itself? Or both? Or neither? If it is related to using APB to do your editing, then perhaps there is something that we can help you, provided we know where the issue (issues) is (are). It has been my experience that the people on this forum are extraordinarily interested in helping those new to the tool and will try very hard to help, and to help the Serif people get this product to release.

[billtils]

There are many posts in the AP Forum that address workflow, but the above from Mike makes some valid points that tend to get lost in a sea of "why can't I do ..." or even worse, "why does it not do it like XX".  

 

The truth is that different users have different needs regarding what they do with the binary data captured by their camera sensor to produce an end product that makes them happy, and they (we) have just as many different preferred ways of implementing them.  We also need constant reminding that AP is being launched as a photo editor, not an integrated digital asset management solution.   Making it the best editor that they can is repeatedly stated by Affinity as their first objective - more will certainly follow.

 

For now, AP is an editor in beta:  if you like what it does in that area, then adapt your workflow to suit - there are lots of ways to accomplish that.  Likewise accept for now there are some other limitations - my personal bugbear is the printing UI, but that's on the radar for fixing.  

 

Otherwise - it has to be "Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick with LR (or whatever)".  

[jkehoe]

Hello All,

 

I've been shooting only in Raw for some years now and had developed a workflow based on a number of books and articles, starting with Photoshop. I'd like to use one program to open my Canon Raw files, develop them (Adobe Camera Raw portion of Photoshop or whatever it's called in Aperture), and then export them as jpg or whatever format a print house prefers. I found Affinity Photo Beta, Develop Persona, to blow out the highlights of most of my images, especially those that I had "exposed to the right" and had bright highlights (think of a black bee on a white flower--I need the bee's details more than the flower's). I find I must spend a lot of time in Affinity on these kinds of images by tweaking exposure, black point / white point and even tone curves to get them to look acceptable. However, opening these same Raw files in Aperture or Photoshop Elements is a breeze--they are not blown out, I can look first at the histogram and tweak the exposure and/or the recovery sliders and export to jpg in seconds (honestly). If I try adjusting the sliders in Affinity Photo Beta, Develop Persona using the same technique I've been using, the images look awful. MikeFromMesa's workflow matches mine, except I'd like to use Affinity from start to finish. I don't expect Affinity to be my catalogue or Digital Asset Manager. I hope this helps.

 

I've uninstalled Affinity Photo Beta as I noticed that some folks reported using a higher beta version than I had; I even downloaded it again but still had the prior one (I think the suffix was .25410, while others report .258xx). I'll try again in a few days to see what version downloads and resume testing. For comparison sake, browse to my Flickr images here:

Affinity version: https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnjkehoe_photography/17349048906/in/album-72157644858953403/

Aperture version: https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnjkehoe_photography/17375042405/in/album-72157644858953403/

[csp]

we need to be a little bit patient,  ap has some limitations but i´m  rather sure that the developer will come up with better highlight recovery.  do you know http://www.fastrawviewer.comit is a great tool to evaluate your raw images with a real raw histogram.  i would not be surprised  when your image is actually not overexposed and clipped. the issue you see could also be related to a colormanagment problem.  it seems ap uses sRGB as internal colorspace and this colorspace is not big enough for high saturated colors like the yellow flower.

[billtils]

Hello John

 

 

Seems strange to me as I have not encountered that.  Here are some questions and comments to explore this more.

 

Firstly the current version is .25338 (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/8858-affinity-photo-public-beta-12025338/).  There is a download link there.  One area to look at is the settings in the Develop Persona and especially what if anything you do in those for the Assistant.

 

I am in the "no thanks" camp when it comes to shooting to the right, preferring to adjust exposure compensation at the time of shooting, by using the camera B&W histogram to push to the left or right to protect the highs or lows depending on the subject. 

 

This is possibly what my wife calls "age related behaviour" as I started in serious photography in the days of film when you had to to have the GIFT (Get It First Time).  Likewise I developed the habit of trying to fill the frame with what I want when composing and seldom crop to smaller than 75% of the original (the main exception being when I want the final image with an imaginative format) so the information distribution benefit of ETTR is not important to me.   In fact if anything my experiences with AP and Aperture are the opposite of what you are encountering, with some showing blown highlights in Aperture and not in AP.

 

This is a round-about way of saying the very idea of pushing to the right and depending on post processing strikes me as being fraught with difficulties since you become a captive of your software, and perhaps (at least at this point) AP is indeed not your best option.  Are the blown highlights usually associated with contrasty originals, or is it a problem in AP on a regular basis?  

 

I should make it clear that this rather lengthy exposition is intended to explain that I am in no way saying you are doing something "wrong" in using ETTR - I know it works and works well for lots of people, but rather am trying to explore if there is something intrinsic in the technique that is a factor in the issue found when you use AP.