DAM Implementation

[froggy]

Hello,

I have been working with Affinity Photo for quite a while and I love it.  B U T it is annoying to always export pictures i have worked on.  I'll explain. I often work on pictures and  and I have to select some of the worked on pictures for comparison, or because I need some pictures for a special purpus. Up to now, so far as I know, there are only two ways to select my photos.

1. each photo that i have worked on and have saved  must be opened in Affinity Photo which means, that this will take a lot of time and there is no possibility for comparison.

2. The other possibility is to export all these photos, save them as jpegs and then use a different Viewer or DMA to compare the selected pictures. This is really annoying, as it will fill my hard disk in no time, because  each photo will be on the drive in two versions. An unchanged one and a developed one.

It would save time and space if you develloped a database for  Affinity Photo, that shows all photos that are saved as ' aphoto '

As much as I love Affinity Photo, I will have to change to other software if there will not be such a database in future

[running tide]

I total agree with this comment. I not that SERIF stated years ago that it was working on and going to release a DMA for Affinity Photo but never did and in recent times has not said anything about this. What is happening along these lines.

 I note that some user recommend using ADOBE Bridge, but this requires saving each image twice (once in AFFINITY photo and other in JPEG or some other format) if one wants to be able to view and search processed images in Bridge - this is cumbersome and a nightmare to ensure that the jpeg version viewing in Bridge matched the last of ones edits, etc. Also, means that unless save in high resolution there is no way to view as a final slide etc. 

I have invested a lot of time to learn AFFINITY Photo and Affinity Publisher.  For the most part think it is great. I really don't want to switch to PHOTOSHOP but the lack of DMA and the limitation that it  imposes may force me to change. So is AFFINITY going to produce any DMA software in the near furutre? Or alternative are there any plans to pair up with an existing one by makings its file format visible? Hoping for an affirmative on this.

[Ron P.]

Last official statement in their FAQ

Just doing a website wide search on "dam" reveals this:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&q=DAM

[Claudio60]

XnView MP (https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/) supports .aphoto files if enabled under tools/settings/general/show all graphic files. Hope it helps 

[KC Honie]

17 hours ago, Ron P. said:

Last official statement in their FAQ

Just doing a website wide search on "dam" reveals this:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&q=DAM

For the photographers in the group it is getting cumbersome to work with tens of thousands (or in many cases, hundreds of thousands) of digital assets and flip back and forth between dissimilar editing systems...  Capture One Pro and Affinity Photo.

I would love to see the product roadmap and who Serif plans to partner with.  I hope it is not one of the 2nd tier Raw Developer companies.

[harrym]

This whole topic has been discussed since forever. I'm also in the camp of them partnering with a tier 1 raw dev company not necessarily because of dam but simply because the whole dev module is just badly conceived i gave up using it years ago, things haven't changed. The obvious and possibly  easiest choice would be dxo, both ux's are reasonably similar still no dam though. C1 is a superb product (with dam) but conceptually quite different in ux. Also very expensive if your a Canon shooter. Perhaps there might be enough in a deal to convince C1 to create a cut down cheaper version that is basically a plugin to AP and licenced to Affinity such that they are guaranteed income. I'd happily pay double what AP costs and have more upgrade costs to have that solution.

[Jowday]

1 hour ago, harrym said:

This whole topic has been discussed since forever. I'm also in the camp of them partnering with a tier 1 raw dev company not necessarily because of dam but simply because the whole dev module is just badly conceived i gave up using it years ago, things haven't changed. The obvious and possibly  easiest choice would be dxo, both ux's are reasonably similar still no dam though. C1 is a superb product (with dam) but conceptually quite different in ux. Also very expensive if your a Canon shooter. Perhaps there might be enough in a deal to convince C1 to create a cut down cheaper version that is basically a plugin to AP and licenced to Affinity such that they are guaranteed income. I'd happily pay double what AP costs and have more upgrade costs to have that solution.

Serif should have partnered with a RAW dep company from the very beginning when they made PhotoPlus. Instead they chose to use (especially in their case) precious resources to piece together and maintain their own RAW dev module that simply is awful - and doesn't render images as good as you would expect on Windows because of the open source components they use with no aesthetic tweaking. RAW development is simply specialist territory and if Serif wants to live up to the the term professional - not just use it for marketing - it is time to partner with a professional RAW dev company somehow.

For RAW shooters Photo would be a 10 times better deal with a competent RAW module from fx DxO - fx the cut down easy to use version from DxO used in DxO Film Pack. DxO was in financial trouble a few times so I can't imagine DxO not being interesting in opportunities for more attention.

Using a bad RAW developer to develop files from great cameras makes absolutely no sense.

To make it clear what I am talking about: every single RAW development program I tried from companies without own demosaic experts and algorithms is useless. No matter how many fancy modules they add to the software. Simply because the great programs with great demosaic algorithms are way, way, way better. And even they struggle to make results comparable with the out-of-camera JPGs because the manufacturers have even more knowledge about great demosaic algorithms.

So by all means, purchase a RAW developer. Slower workflow, much, much better results. 

[KC Honie]

6 hours ago, harrym said:

This whole topic has been discussed since forever. I'm also in the camp of them partnering with a tier 1 raw dev company not necessarily because of dam but simply because the whole dev module is just badly conceived i gave up using it years ago, things haven't changed. The obvious and possibly  easiest choice would be dxo, both ux's are reasonably similar still no dam though. C1 is a superb product (with dam) but conceptually quite different in ux. Also very expensive if your a Canon shooter. Perhaps there might be enough in a deal to convince C1 to create a cut down cheaper version that is basically a plugin to AP and licenced to Affinity such that they are guaranteed income. I'd happily pay double what AP costs and have more upgrade costs to have that solution.

 

5 hours ago, Jowday said:

Serif should have partnered with a RAW dep company from the very beginning when they made PhotoPlus. Instead they chose to use (especially in their case) precious resources to piece together and maintain their own RAW dev module that simply is awful - and doesn't render images as good as you would expect on Windows because of the open source components they use with no aesthetic tweaking. RAW development is simply specialist territory and if Serif wants to live up to the the term professional - not just use it for marketing - it is time to partner with a professional RAW dev company somehow.

For RAW shooters Photo would be a 10 times better deal with a competent RAW module from fx DxO - fx the cut down easy to use version from DxO used in DxO Film Pack. DxO was in financial trouble a few times so I can't imagine DxO not being interesting in opportunities for more attention.

Using a bad RAW developer to develop files from great cameras makes absolutely no sense.

To make it clear what I am talking about: every single RAW development program I tried from companies without own demosaic experts and algorithms is useless. No matter how many fancy modules they add to the software. Simply because the great programs with great demosaic algorithms are way, way, way better. And even they struggle to make results comparable with the out-of-camera JPGs because the manufacturers have even more knowledge about great demosaic algorithms.

So by all means, purchase a RAW developer. Slower workflow, much, much better results. 

The challenge is that some of us use C1P (me), others DxO, ON1, Luminar, Darktable, & Raw Therapy (and others).  I only consider LR and C1P to be tier one Raw Converters / Developers.

I switched to C1P (even though it is very expensive) because of it"s amazing Raw Converter and its speed (LR was just excruciatingly slow and the handwriting was on the the wall for the classic version).  Affinity Photo's Raw converter is not even in C1P's league and I completely agree it is maddening that they rolled their own Raw Converter, particularly given their lack of resources. Of course it might be no one would work with them.  Assume they were able to embed Capture One's converter, just imagine how integrated, powerful and fast an Affinity Photo / Capture One solution would be. (Pick one of the others and the same applies) 

I really hope there are some surprise announcements in version 2.x.

It is late and I am tired, sorry for the rambling...

[harrym]

On 9/27/2020 at 5:32 AM, KC Honie said:

 

The challenge is that some of us use C1P (me), others DxO, ON1, Luminar, Darktable, & Raw Therapy (and others).  I only consider LR and C1P to be tier one Raw Converters / Developers.

I switched to C1P (even though it is very expensive) because of it"s amazing Raw Converter and its speed (LR was just excruciatingly slow and the handwriting was on the the wall for the classic version).  Affinity Photo's Raw converter is not even in C1P's league and I completely agree it is maddening that they rolled their own Raw Converter, particularly given their lack of resources. Of course it might be no one would work with them.  Assume they were able to embed Capture One's converter, just imagine how integrated, powerful and fast an Affinity Photo / Capture One solution would be. (Pick one of the others and the same applies) 

I really hope there are some surprise announcements in version 2.x.

It is late and I am tired, sorry for the rambling...

Not a ramble! 

You and Jowday are spot on

[KC Honie]

Thank you for your kind words, I just hope Serif doesn't hitch their wagon to On1 or Skylum...

Round tripping between the raw converter and AP while preserving the edits and not having to convert to a tiff file would be fantastic and would remove any need for the LR/PS combo.

But the LR/PS combo is held together with the Adobe Camera Raw glue that no one else has...

For me personally my challenge is I don't really care how good of a RAW converter/developer/DAM (i.e., LR) Serif comes up with I am now locked in to my raw converter (C1P).  With tens of thousands of edited images, and I am not going to change.  

[JMRobinson]

I've been using Photo and Designer for 3 years. After all this time I still can't believe Photo does not have a DAM. I've had to acquire other editing software just to use its DAM feature. I don't like having two Pro software packages installed especially when I use one mostly for editing and the other just for the DAM. I'm being solicited by the other company to upgrade to their 2021 version. I may just do that and stop using Photo. This company doesn't seem to have their priorities in place, that or they don't really listen to their customers. Many have been asking for this so we are on a level playing field with other great photo editing software.

[DigitalVisuals]

For a DAM I use AbeMedia .7.3 and yes it can let see .afphoto files to. And yes you can direct open AF from it.
For so long AF has no one for us.

[KC Honie]

19 minutes ago, studio97 said:

For a DAM I use AbeMedia .7.3 and yes it can let see .afphoto files to. And yes you can direct open AF from it.
For so long AF has no one for us.

That looks like a reasonable solution for Windows users, of course us MacOS users are still out in the cold...

[Fritz_H]

I don´t need a DAM =  don´t want to have to pay for it.
Please make it a separate product.

[JMRobinson]

1 hour ago, Fritz_H said:

I don´t need a DAM =  don´t want to have to pay for it.
Please make it a separate product.

Fritz; Do you currently use 100% of Affinity Photo features? If not, you have already paid for things you don't use.

[drmoss_ca]

This will only be of interest to Mac users, but I note it would quite nifty if Photos app would support .afphoto files. Photos already copes with layered files like .psd files from Photoshop, and the Finder supports .afphoto files with icon previews and quicklook (and with things like new RAW formats Finder support has always gone hand in hand with iPhoto/Photos/Aperture support as they all use the same routines). Affinity Photo already integrates with Photos by working as an extension when editing. If Apple would add support for .afphoto files in Photos we would have a decent DAM ready made that integrates with other macOS apps rather better than NeoFinder.

[Fritz_H]

On 10/8/2020 at 11:52 PM, JMRobinson said:

Fritz; Do you currently use 100% of Affinity Photo features? If not, you have already paid for things you don't use.

....and this justifies to pay even more money for features which I will not use?  :-)

Please don´t get me wrong: I fully understand and support that pro-users need such a feature.
But please: make it an independent application that is open to applications from other developers.

[KC Honie]

I’m sorry but you are complaining about the price of an application that retails for $50 and can routinely be purchased for $25...

[Ron P.]

20 hours ago, KC Honie said:

I’m sorry but you are complaining about the price of an application that retails for $50 and can routinely be purchased for $25...

$50 is a lot of money to some people. Chastise someone because they may not have the budget you do? Really?

I'm sure Serif could make their Affinity suite just like PS, LR, any of them, But it would no longer cost $50, but more like $500. I for one hope with all the additional feature requests, the continual because it's in PS, Serif does not make it a PS clone, because that will drive the cost up, and rightfully so.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Why not make this a separate program with the StudioLink feature instead of cramming a DAM into Photo?  Last I checked Photoshop is not Lightroom and to me it sounds a bit absurd to increase the pricing of Photo by forcing it to become Lightroom as well, especially since I am not a photographer who would be the only ones that benefit from such a system.

By all means, Serif should make a DAM program eventually after they have developed their current three programs some more, but please don't cram all of these things into Photo and up the pricing.

[KC Honie]

3 hours ago, Ron P. said:

$50 is a lot of money to some people. Chastise someone because they may not have the budget you do? Really?

I'm sure Serif could make their Affinity suite just like PS, LR, any of them, But it would no longer cost $50, but more like $500. I for one hope with all the additional feature requests, the continual because it's in PS, Serif does not make it a PS clone, because that will drive the cost up, and rightfully so.

If $25 is too much for you to spend for a professional graphics editor then by all means you should be looking at alternatives like GIMP.

In all honesty it is not Serifs concern nor mine if you think $25 to $50 is too much for this type of app.  Few are concerned about the price of entry for Serif's apps...

1 hour ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

Why not make this a separate program with the StudioLink feature instead of cramming a DAM into Photo?  Last I checked Photoshop is not Lightroom and to me it sounds a bit absurd to increase the pricing of Photo by forcing it to become Lightroom as well, especially since I am not a photographer who would be only ones that benefit from such a system.

By all means, Serif should make a DAM program eventually after they have developed their current three programs some more, but please don't cram all of these things into Photo and up the pricing.

All along I was assuming that a DAM would be a separate application or a component of a RAW Developer, i.e., Affinity Develop.

I think a Studio link DAM would be great.

Concerning pricing of the Affinity Apps, it might be time for you to wake up and smell the coffee, features are going to be added to all of the apps as Serif continues to come closer to parity with Mud's apps.  At some point prices will indeed rise, it is the way business works.  GIMP is always a reasonable alternative.

[Frozen Death Knight]

40 minutes ago, KC Honie said:

All along I was assuming that a DAM would be a separate application or a component of a RAW Developer, i.e., Affinity Develop.

I think a Studio link DAM would be great.

Concerning pricing of the Affinity Apps, it might be time for you to wake up and smell the coffee, features are going to be added to all of the apps as Serif continues to come closer to parity with Mud's apps.  At some point prices will indeed rise, it is the way business works.  GIMP is always a reasonable alternative.

At least we both agree on that.

I already bought all three. Your argument really doesn't work here when we started off with the premise that Affinity should become more expensive than their current price points, specifically Photo by making it a DAM as well. I like the current pricing model, which is why I decided to buy them all and is also why I am arguing against such a push.

I have no doubt that eventually prices will go up just as economy inflation eventually kicks in, but that wasn't what was talked about, wasn't it?  We were discussing making Photo more expensive by making it a DAM program as well, which is not something I want to happen. Making each program more expensive for the sake of it when it is a major selling point that there is a low bar of entry for getting into the Affinity ecosystem is not what I consider wise.  

Heck, if it wasn't for the pricing I might not have been using Affinity right now, but something else. I think that's the case for a lot of people. I think there are other ways to monetise a product besides the intitial price point. For instance, I have already checked out the Affinity shop and bought a couple of brush packs I liked because I didn't break bank when I began using Photo. I am also considering buying Photo for my Macbook Air since I have been using a bunch lately and my current versions are Windows only. I would frankly never consider double dipping like this if Affinity had a higher price point. 

[KC Honie]

^^^ What you are in suggesting is to keep pricing consistent and stop adding needed usability to the applications.  What you are advocating is for the demise of the Affinity suite of applications.  Not to be argumentative, but you are not the type of customer that Serif nor any software developer needs...  You are happy with a stagnant product.

[Frozen Death Knight]

20 minutes ago, KC Honie said:

^^^ What you are in essence advocating is to keep pricing consistent and stop adding needed usability to the applications.  What you are advocating is for the demise of the Affinity suite of applications.  Not to be argumentative, but you are not the type of customer that Serif or any software developer needs...  You are happy with a stagnant product.

What an absolutely absurd statement. I bought the softwares as well as some additional things beyond that and I am ready to buy 2.0 whenever that comes out, assuming it has features I want on launch. Who are you to decide who is a good customer or not? Ever since 1.6 when I bought Photo on Windows I have been actively Beta testing all of Affinity's major releases, including minor patches, and written pages upon pages of feedback on how to improve them. If I wanted a stagnant product, I wouldn't have done any of this in the first place.

[KC Honie]

^^^ I stand by my statements...