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Is Affinity Photo Inadequate for Advanced Amateur and Professional USE?


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On another, general, photography forum I have been having a spirited debate with 3 or 4 posters who insist Affinity Photo is only adequate for low level amateur Raw users (and I am in  that category) and is inadequate for high level amateur and professional users, and very few of these high end users use Affinity.  They take this position because of faults and inadequacies they perceive in the Develop Persona that they consider "fatal flaws".

I do not have the necessary knowledge and ability about editing programs in general or Affinity Photo, although I do use it, to effectively debate these individuals, who appear to be very advanced in their processing/editing skills and are certainly very, very articulate in expressing their criticisms and opinions.

In very general terms they have 3 criticisms of the Develop Persona:  They claim:  1.  It is forced destructive,  2.  It does not have HSL and although that is available in the Photo Persona it is "too late" to be used effectively there, 3.  It cannot do highlight reconstruction.

Below is a quote from one of these posts, "it" referring to Affinity Photo:

"In my comments I was careful to say; "It's a great raster editor and a terrific price but it has multiple raw processing flaws that I consider show stoppers." Please note the text I just made bold. I further clarified my comments;  My comments apply to Affinity's raw Develop Persona only."

"I said Affinity's raw processing is forced destructive. I was then and I remain correct. The term destructive carries two meaning for us when talking about an image processing workflow. We obviously do not want to lose our camera original by overwriting it. Affinity is fine in that regard. However we also use the term destructive if the software does not save out work such that we are forced to repeat or do the work over should we want to make a revision. Affinity's Raw Develop Persona in that context is forced destructive. Any work you do in the Raw Develop Persona with a raw file is discarded when you convert the raw file to an RGB image and move to the Photo Persona. Discarding your work is destructive of your work."                                                                                     

"I said Affinity's Raw Develop Persona lacks an HSL adjustment. I am correct. Having an HSL adjustment available in the Photo Persona is no consolation because by then it's too late. An HSL adjustment tool is needed in the Raw Develop Persona."

"I also noted that in the Raw Develop Persona Affinity does not attempt highlight reconstruction. And I am correct about that as well." (end quote)

They further make the point, as they perceive it, that either in the Develop Persona or when a file is transferred to the Photo Persona the file is changed from Raw to RGB (as noted in the above quote), I don't know which,  and the latter is much inferior to editing a Raw file, data and detail being lost, etc.  I can't find it listed anywhere during the conversion or editing process in Affinity that this occurs but  perhaps I don't know where to look.  They also stress that, as they see it. any changes to the processing done in the Develop Persona cannot be done later and the process must be restarted from the beginning to make changes after the file is transferred from the Develop Persona.

A link to one of these thread is: https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-605390-9.html, this discussion being mainly in pages 9, 10, and 11, and https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-605064-1.html#10398297.  I'm wanderer2, Mike.

I hope that some members of this forum can affirm for me what parts of the argument by the posters sited above are conrrect, if any, and what are not, if any, and how the ones that are not can best be rebutted.  As I indicated above I am way over my head in the discussion and need help.  Thanks for any info and input.
Mike
 

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"They" are correct in their assessment as regards the details: destructive & lacking hsl in the develop stage as far as I remember. I don't have APhoto installed on the new computer at this time to be certain. Whether hsl adjustment is vital during developing is another issue and greatly depends on the shot/shoot. I don't like the shadow/highlight recovery in APhoto, etc. Maybe it's just me, but I found the controls difficult to use in fine adjustments.

Personally, I'll use a RAW editor and export a tiff if I need/want post-develop work and for usage in layout work.

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What MikeW said. I have used AP for some developing and it can give great results but with some raw images its abilities fall short. Exposure, blackpoint and brightness adjustments are not separated enough but their adjustments overlap. Said recovery tech is not advanced enough. It would not hurt to have HSL tools here too. 

Development is not non-destructive as defined – for some uses that is not a problem. If you want non-destructive, you really need a catalogue/DAM anyway and that AP is not. Affinity DAM will come later.

I use old Lightroom for now and export TIF for further tuning in AP or Photoshop, some cases can export direct to use from LR.

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I can confirm that AP is an excellent Photoshop replacement for photographers. For quality RAW development, just use a dedicated tool (Lightroom, Capture One, DxO Photolab, etc.). For this task, AP still has a lot of progress to do. Actually, I think that a version of AP without the Development Persona and focusing on image editing would be welcome.

--Patrick
Hamburg ist der wahre Grund
warum Kompassnadeln nach Norden zeigen.

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Well those statements are correct that it is inadequate for high level amateur and professional users, since it lacks most of the capabilities more professional RAW converter software offers in this regard. Further it relies/depends highly on updated third party code (libs) for being able to make any use out of camera RAW formats and lens data at all, it's nothing done under their own dev support & control.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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Thanks for the replies and feedback  It seems that the 3 - 4 people I debated with in the  other forum are correct in all, or almost all, of what they claimed about AP deficiencies.  However, I still wonder about the claim that Raw files are changed to RGB files in the Develop Persona or upon exit from it.  My files are DNG files going it to the Develop Persona and after it finishes it indicates they are DNG (modified) files, and upon export almost any file type can be chosen to save them, but with no mention anywhere of RGB files that I can find.  If anyone can clarify this I would be grateful.

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Look into the "Info panel" of the Develop and Photo Personas, they will tell you the bit-mode and color format/space. In Photo Persona the "Document > Format convert ..." menu and it's associated panel will also tell you which default color format and ICC profile is used.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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8 hours ago, Wanderer3 said:

I still wonder about the claim that Raw files are changed to RGB files in the Develop Persona or upon exit from it.

The whole point of developing Raw files is to get them to RGB colour space. So, when you hit "Develop" Raw image data is converted to RGB space and presented in normal AP work persona. Original Raw/DNG is preserved as it is.

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7 hours ago, Fixx said:

The whole point of developing Raw files is to get them to RGB colour space. So, when you hit "Develop" Raw image data is converted to RGB space and presented in normal AP work persona. Original Raw/DNG is preserved as it is.

Thanks for this info.  Is this way of development different than what other programs use or do they all or most of them do it this way?  My debate adversaries seem to be saying this is a deficient way of development compared to numerous other companies programs.  And is "RGB space" a file that is then developed after a Raw file is converted to this, or a file extension, or??.  Sorry for my lack of knowledge in this.

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11 minutes ago, Wanderer3 said:

And is "RGB space" a file that is then developed after a Raw file is converted to this, or a file extension, or??.  Sorry for my lack of knowledge in this.

RGB space is how a computer screen (or TV) shows colours.

Your RAW files do not change or get converted. When you develop Open a RAW file all that happens is the information in the file (be it Nikon, Fuji, Canon, Sony etc.) is read and displayed in the window your Program provides. Nothing happens to the Raw file's picture information. Some Raw developers may be able to add information to the Header of the file, but the image bits of the file are unaltered.

RGB is how the human eye and brain work, that is why camera makers (and back in the day film makers) use RGB sensitive sensors (silver salts) for recording and storing light's colour information. The printing industry (both ink and photographic) came up with CMYK for printing, there are two ways of mixing light. Additive and Subtractive, RGB and CMYK. 

I suggest you be careful with going down rabbit holes. [wry smiley face earned by exploring said rabbit holes with little useful knowledge as a result]

 

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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38 minutes ago, Wanderer3 said:

Is this way of development different than what other programs use or do they all or most of them do it this way?  My debate adversaries seem to be saying this is a deficient way of development compared to numerous other companies programs.

All raw converters do it the same way. Only practical difference is that "non-destructive" converters save the "formula" of conversion (conversion adjustments) in database or sidecar file when AP does not. (And some adjustment tools are a bit better is some converters.)

 

41 minutes ago, Wanderer3 said:

is "RGB space" a file that is then developed after a Raw file is converted to this, or a file extension, or??.

RGB is a colour space – the basic way how computer handles colour. RGB images can be saved is normal file formats like JPEG or TIFF.

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The afphoto file created by a default develop is an RGB 16 bit per channel non compressed file. No information from the raw file (typically 12 or 14 bits) is lost. That implies that HSL can be done just as well in afphoto as in ACR. I suspect that the detractors are hardened Adobe users who are very set in their ways.

You may find that the afphoto file looks flat because the default curve applied during development is not aggressive. If you disable that curve then the result looks even more flat. Some people like to start from the flat state. Expert videographers, for example, demand flat files so they can create consistant colour grading.

If you want to start editing from an image that looks like the jpeg preview on your camera screen, a perfectly reasonable way to work, then you can do your raw conversion to 16 bit tiff using your camera manufactures' software. Then use Affinity to do the real edit. If you go down that route then make sure that you avoid any form of jpeg as an intermediate file format. 16 bit Tiff files are big because they throw nothing away;  Afphoto files are even bigger but huge discs are cheap so who cares. Affinity is an excellent alternative to Photoshop. It is not a replacement for LR yet. Hopefully it will soon replace both of them.

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