Picture processing ARW (raw) images

[Anonymouse]

Hello,

I have tried to edit an ARW image taken with a Sony camera. In this situation, Afinity behaves in a very annoying fashion.

First of all, it always opens such images in "develop" mode, and both loading and "developing" are excessively slow.

Second, and much worse, Affinity does not seem to want to rotate images from my camera, if developed or not. The rotation seems to depend on the EXIF data, and where I have found rotation menu items, these are consequently grayed out. I am sorry, but raw files are just bitmaps like everything else, and I question the purpose of having such a develop mode at all, it doesn't make any sense to me. Further, I can't easily load and scroll through such raw images, even freeware like IrfanView does this much better. Combined with the loading time, and the inability to treat such data as a simple 16bpp (or whatever) raw bitmap that doesn't need "developing", makes the application far less useful than if you were to abandon this feature altogether. The workflow is just too slow!

First and foremost, I would like the ability to 90° rotate and reverse raw images bitmaps no matter what the camera says is supposed to be the right way up.

Secondly, I would like to be able to quickly look through and select one or more raw images in Affinity, without going through the rigmarole of this slow and tedious "develop" nonsense...

 

Kind regards

[John Rostron]

7 minutes ago, Anonymouse said:

First of all, it always opens such images in "develop" mode

This is because it is opening a raw file. You will find that all photo editors do this, although the label might be different. Photoshop opens raw files in Adobe Camera Raw.

9 minutes ago, Anonymouse said:

but raw files are just bitmaps like everything else,

But they are not! That is why they need developing. The structure of a raw file is more complex and is very camera dependent.

 

12 minutes ago, Anonymouse said:

freeware like IrfanView does this much better. 

You will find that such software displays the embedded jpeg and not the raw file.

John

[Dan C]

Hi Anonymouse

As John has mentioned, if you're opening RAW files then you have to open them in the Develop Persona.

1 hour ago, Anonymouse said:

Affinity does not seem to want to rotate images from my camera, if developed or not.

This certainly isn't correct however. I've tested this here with multiple RAW image files and I'm yet to find one I cannot rotate. With an image opened in the develop persona you should find Rotate Clockwise and Rotate Anticlockwise on the Toolbar, do these work as expected for you?

If not, could you please provide a sample of one of your RAW files to the following link for me?

https://www.dropbox.com/request/bv8OXxpFRUOh7m6VcZkp

1 hour ago, Anonymouse said:

I would like to be able to quickly look through and select one or more raw images in Affinity, without going through the rigmarole of this slow and tedious "develop" nonsense...

Unfortunately Affinity Photo isn't designed for this, unlike Lightroom - which is a Photo 'Organiser' (DAM) - Affinity Photo is designed to open RAW images to be developed and edited then saved/exported. It isn't designed as a RAW viewer like the other apps you have mentioned, my apologies!

[IanSG]

2 hours ago, Anonymouse said:

Secondly, I would like to be able to quickly look through and select one or more raw images in Affinity, without going through the rigmarole of this slow and tedious "develop" nonsense...

If you use File / Open (but, annoyingly, not Open recent) you can browse through thumbnails of your RAW files- aren't you seeing them, or do you want to browse through full screen versions of the images?   AP uses the OS' native file manager, so if it's the former you'll need to add a codec to handle it.  If it's the latter, have a look at Fast RAW Viewer - it's not free, but it's a useful tool to have.

[Anonymouse]

1 hour ago, John Rostron said:

This is because it is opening a raw file. You will find that all photo editors do this, although the label might be different. Photoshop opens raw files in Adobe Camera Raw.

But they are not! That is why they need developing. The structure of a raw file is more complex and is very camera dependent.

 

You will find that such software displays the embedded jpeg and not the raw file.

John

Sorry, I beg to differ. Raw files are also bitmaps, just with more bits per pixel. I can read them as 16bpp/color images with my own application...

Apps like Photoshop are bloatware, but even there I have faster and better access to images. I like Affinity for a number of reasons, and my critique was in the hope of maybe persuading Serif to make some basic improvements, like rotating the image map of an unprocessed raw file, for example.

[Dan C]

5 minutes ago, Anonymouse said:

Raw files are also bitmaps, just with more bits per pixel

I recommend checking out our Spotlight article on RAW files - RAW, Actually - as RAW files are handled completely differently to raster files such as JPEG etc.

[Anonymouse]

19 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Hi Anonymouse

This certainly isn't correct however. I've tested this here with multiple RAW image files and I'm yet to find one I cannot rotate. With an image opened in the develop persona you should find Rotate Clockwise and Rotate Anticlockwise on the Toolbar, do these work as expected for you? 

Nope, those buttons are missing on my screen. Image attached.

DSC00282.ARW

[Dan C]

Thanks for confirming that, I've opened your RAW file and these rotate buttons function as expected.

To return these to your Toolbar please open Affinity in the Develop Persona, then go to View>Customise Toolbar. In the window that opens you should see the default Toolbar set at the bottom, simply drag and drop this default set into place on the Toolbar, then press close. You should now find these options available when developing your images!

[Anonymouse]

5 hours ago, Dan C said:

Thanks for confirming that, I've opened your RAW file and these rotate buttons function as expected.

To return these to your Toolbar please open Affinity in the Develop Persona, then go to View>Customise Toolbar. In the window that opens you should see the default Toolbar set at the bottom, simply drag and drop this default set into place on the Toolbar, then press close. You should now find these options available when developing your images!

Hi,

Thank you for that, the toolbar must have got messed up somehow. I can now rotate the image, but that also crops it, with a white bar top and bottom. That's not really what I wanted, see image:

In fact, the image from the camera is always landscape as is the camera sensor. So I don't actually need to change the image map, but the perceived orientation as set by the EXIF data.

Affinity steadfastly refuses to see this as anything other than a portrait image, but I intend for it to be landscape. This should be much easier to do than it is...

 

[Dan C]

13 hours ago, Anonymouse said:

I can now rotate the image, but that also crops it, with a white bar top and bottom.

Apologies, this is how rotation works in the develop persona - you can use the crop tool to expand the canvas to include the side of the image.

Alternatively you can develop the image in landscape, then in the Photo Persona you can use Document>Rotate 90° Clockwise/Anti-Clockwise.

13 hours ago, Anonymouse said:

In fact, the image from the camera is always landscape as is the camera sensor. So I don't actually need to change the image map, but the perceived orientation as set by the EXIF data.

I can see the EXIF Orientation is recorded as 'Right top', as can be seen here this translates to Orientation Flag 6 - which displays the embedded JPEG in landscape, whereas the RAW file itself is in portrait.

For this reason, Affinity is reading the RAW file and EXIF data correctly, so I'd recommend developing the image in portrait mode then use the aforementioned Document command to change this  

[R C-R]

18 hours ago, Anonymouse said:

 Raw files are also bitmaps, just with more bits per pixel.

Not true. RAW files are a collection of minimally processed (thus "raw") image sensor data plus assorted metadata that varies not just from camera maker to camera maker but also often from camera model to camera model from the same maker. There may also be a preview raster (bitmap) image included in the file, usually a lower resolution JPEG image created by the camera's processor, which uses the camera settings to approximate what the image sensor data would look like if developed using all or most of the settings metadata.