Affinity Photo any thoughts on this program?

Marturo

Senior Member
I have only used this program for a short while yet it just seems so easy to work in.
I took my first RAW photo into & did a little PP then made a JPEG to share.

I am curious as to how others who are new to PP like or dislike this PP program.

Below: A cropped photo I took from raw & did a little PP then made some jpegs.


DSC_2777.jpg
 

nikonbill

Senior Member
Contributor
Marturo, I just saw your thread (been outside a lot as the weather is good here). I have had affinity for over a year and I like it a lot. My workflow goes like this, I have been shooting RAW only for a while and use Nikon Capture first and batch my sessions. When I have a shot needing extra/desired work I will use Affinity for that. I find the tutorials awesome and easy to follow. The software is very reasonably priced and I just installed another update this morning (great support on the product!). I have included a photo where I used Affinity to adjust the sky and exposure for an effect I wanted (very first photo uploaded, I hope I sized it properly).

I tried Affinity when I got my D7200 as my edition of Photo shop elements was too old to support RAW for that camera, very glad I did.

BS lake daylight.jpg



Enjoy -- Bill

Edit -- second try on the photo.............I did something weird on the first one :confused:
 

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Marturo

Senior Member
Thanks Bill I like it a lot so far, I tried every free PP I could find & none of them were as understandable.
I can follow the U Toob videos they are easy to follow & understand.

Was shooting my 2 FEs up until I got my first d body & shortly after & started shooting RAW I &
working with Affinity. I take it slow & try to understand what the adjustments do to my photo
then convert my raw files into jpegs as I need them.

I see the difference in Pic 1 & 2 don't know what you did however learning & using PhotoShop back
in 2002 to repair old slides & negs. I see how they use Affinity to just remove objects you
do not want in your photos to me it's plain Majik.

Bill which of the above photos look most like what you saw as you shot your shot?
I would like to shoot the best photo & take less PP yet I see how Full RAW files & and wonder
about the possibilities. I would also like to give digital art a try it looks like a new chapter in
my photographic journey.

I am hoping to learn more about Affinity the other free programs mostly confuse me now.

Thanks for you kind reply Bill.
Mike
 

nikonbill

Senior Member
Contributor
Marturo,

Due to my first try including the photo I resized the first try too small (I guessed) I then found the forum recommendations and that is the non-wavy version. Below is the "as shot" development in Affinity so you can see my adjustments (hopefully).

At least I will learn how to post photos (hopefully) I am puzzled why my meta data is not showing in post.

View attachment 345683BS lake untouched.jpg
 
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Marturo

Senior Member
LOL I know.
Bill said: At least I will learn how to post photos (hopefully) I am puzzled why my meta data is not showing in post.

I belong to nikionians.org, UHH.com & here all have different sizes they will allow so I have just been exporting my JPEGS as Medium from Affinity.
So far so good but adding Meta data I see sometimes where it ask if you want it attached to your photo & I just check yes.
All this I am just trying to learn 1 thing at a time ,& hope I remember it later :)
I see the correction you made to your photo, I just don't get quite how you did it but I am learning new tricks everyday.


I do see that my photo above has the MD exported with the photo, I just checked yes export with photo where it said to in Affinity.
 
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nikonbill

Senior Member
Contributor
I mainly used the selection brush tool to separate the photo into foreground and sky. No small task as I had to really get used to how to "select" all this small portions of the sky through the trees and get the branches in the lower selection. Then I worked normal exposure controls to get the sky a bit more blue and the shadows more as I remembered them when I took the shot.

Your approach is spot on, find something you wish to do and watch tutorials on that.

I am far from an expert on Affinity photo, but glad to share anything I can. I find the Nikon Capture and Affinity seem have similar controls in many areas it is easy to "go" to Affinity for the more in depth edits. I have set up Capture's context menu to allow me to quickly open a RAW file in Affinity.

Note: I re-uploaded my as shot photo and now the MD shows (same file as before).
 

Marturo

Senior Member
Hello Bill
I DL a Nikon program that opens raw files in windows photo I know before Win photo would not preview RAW.
Must get used to a program besides Picassa to take my files from my card.
Too many programs Picassa, Google photos, Windows photos, Argggh to many.

I wonder if I stop the other programs I could just let affinity down load from my card.
 

nikonbill

Senior Member
Contributor
Hi Mike,

What computer operating system do you use? I would be glad to share what I do here, but if you are running another operating system it may not make sense.

Short version: I run windows 10 and use a card reader to "copy" RAW files to the PC in a folder. I use the Nikon free software View NX-i and Capture NX-D (Also available for MAC) located on the Nikon web site.

View NX-i has a nice file browser where you can view, delete, save, group, make new folders all while working with RAW files. Capture is for processing (like affinity) but allows for you to quickly process RAW files (and batches of files) the standard way your camera would process a jpeg if your were shooting jpeg. I find this handy when I don't want to change much.

I may be a bit lost on a MAC, but if you are running windows I can help get things to work like you are indicating above with Affinity (or help with the Nikon software if you would like to try that). -- Bill
 

Marturo

Senior Member
Hi Mike,

What computer operating system do you use? I would be glad to share what I do here, but if you are running another operating system it may not make sense.

Short version: I run windows 10 and use a card reader to "copy" RAW files to the PC in a folder. I use the Nikon free software View NX-i and Capture NX-D (Also available for MAC) located on the Nikon web site.

View NX-i has a nice file browser where you can view, delete, save, group, make new folders all while working with RAW files. Capture is for processing (like affinity) but allows for you to quickly process RAW files (and batches of files) the standard way your camera would process a jpeg if your were shooting jpeg. I find this handy when I don't want to change much.

I may be a bit lost on a MAC, but if you are running windows I can help get things to work like you are indicating above with Affinity (or help with the Nikon software if you would like to try that). -- Bill

I am running win 10. I have a card reader & now Picasa reads the card in raw then I import the Raw into Affinity for some PP & conversion to Jpegs when I need them.
I need to check the Nikon programs I have, the first was on the CD that came with the used D7100 & could not read Raw at all. I have others one I DL the other day said it would let Windows Photo read Nikon RAW files. I do see Raw files shown in the Windows Photos now. I just have too much going on I need to simplify my operation. :)
 

BF Hammer

Senior Member
Marturo, I too used Picasa for years to import and catalog my photos. Did my post-processing too when I was only shooting JPG files. But in time I started to shoot RAW + JPG, and began using the RAW files almost exclusively. I stopped using Picasa for the editing anymore, but continued to use it for importing and cataloging. But it is old and unsupported now.

I am a thrifty person, so I look for free and open-source software solutions first. I have changed to using the Nikon View-NX and Capture NX-D for the import and cataloging. True it is not an all-in-one setup like Picasa. But the price is right, and they link to each other so you can be viewing photos and click on the button for importing. I do not use Affinity, but have heard some good things. I do my post-processing mostly with RawTherapee (open-source software) and I have learned to navigate it reasonably well. Not for a novice user at all though. I did recently buy Luminar 4 and am using it more regularly. Luminar does have a simple interface, I almost consider it too simple. But I find the AI does a better job making adjustments than my manual attempts in RawTherapee. They are releasing a new version later this year, it could pay to wait for that before testing out.
 

nikonbill

Senior Member
Contributor
Mike, The current version of windows 10 will "display" .nef files in file explorer.

You could copy the files on your card and paste them into a folder named for the photos it will house.

You could then use the open command while in Affinity, navigate to the folder you made (or your card) to work on the photo.

You could also use windows right click context menu and chose "Open with" and select Affinity from the list. With this method you can open more than one photo by holding the ctrl key (control key) after your first selection and you can select multiple out of order photos to "open".

You could even set up easily for Windows to open any .NEF file in Affinity if you double click it while viewing it in file explorer (you can change it back or to something else at any time).

If you are game I would go to Nikon USA web site look under support then scroll down to Download center then click on software from the list chose View NXi and Captuer NX-D

This will give you the latest version and you will be able to see even the latest .nef files -- You can set up the Nikon software to open a file you are looking at in Affinity (or any program you like).

View NX-i is nice for organizing photos on your PC, you can even do adjustments there if you want to, see your shooting info as well.
 

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
I haven't been posting much, so I just saw this thread. I use Affinity. It does what I need it to. I know Photoshop has a few things that Affinity doesn't, but for the price difference, I can live without an oil paint filter and luminosity masking (or whatever it is called), so I dumped it.
 
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