I haven’t updated PhotoLab in quite a long time, but with the recent improvements in masking I am seriously considering this. I typically use Affinity for most of my photo editing, but prefer using a third party app for raw processing.
It is really nice that DxO has a dedicated option to export to, and open directly in, Affinity. What I have not seen is any indication that what is passed to Affinity is anything more than a flat file. It would be best (for me, that is!) if Local Edits done in PhotoLab could be passed to Affinity either as separate layers or as alpha channels. Raw editing done in Capture One recently started allowing the export of masks as alpha channels embedded in PSD files, and this has been helpful for continuing my edits in Affinity. A similar facility in PhotoLab would be great.
Word has it that additional features regarding the export to Affinity will be forthcoming later this year. Any chance that some method for transferring masks from DxO to Affinity is planned?
This is a user forum so all we can do is speculate. DxO are extremely unlikely to comment.
mwsilvers
(Mark - New Jersey, USA, Win10, RTX 4060, PL9, FP8, VP5, Nikon Zf )
3
As @stuck indicated we can only speculate. However, based on my long experience here with both PhotoLab and DxO, I feel comfortable suggesting that a method for transferring masks is extremely unlikely to be available anytime in the foreseeable future.
Yes it would be great to be able to output masks and/or layers in a single file ! Masks would produce less heavy files and would probably suit more workflows. This would be compatible with lot of apps, not only affinity. I think tiff would be the way since DxO already uses it.
This would open up a whole new range of possibilities, and the development required to achieve this would be minimal given the benefits it would bring.
Indeed, but if those benefits do not first and foremost benefit DxO’s finances both rapidly and in the long term, then they are not likely to put in even a minimal development effort.
I have to agree, being able to get your shots from PL into other software and work on them further is indeed a selling point.
Especially when that software doesn’t directly threaten DxO’s suite. Although Affinity does offer photo editing capabilities, it’s nowhere near as powerful or feature-rich as PhotoLab is.
Being able to get your shots from PL in to Affinity to harness its pixel editor etc. would be useful, though!
The export to applications button exist since lot of PL releases. And you can put “any” (I think, I have several) - application in the list (affinity has been one of them for a long time).
yep me to I really cant see how they are making such a bit deal of this. I first thought they were going to do something like photoshop and smart layers so they would talk to each other. So you could tweak something in PL and it would then update what is in AF.
So all they have done is put a fancy button to export the file and thats it. Not what I would call a great selling point.
.af files cannot be opened in DxO PhotoLab. Support for opening .af files is planned for a future update.
The exported document carries no Exif or XMP metadata and no colour profile: colours may not match between PhotoLab and Affinity. Metadata and colour profile support are planned for a future update.
So looks like this is for PL10 (they say update, not upgrade).
I’m curious to see what they will allow to get into photolab from an affinity file.
And :
If the exported image is already open in Affinity, re-exporting it does not refresh the document: Affinity keeps the image in memory and does not reload it from disk. Close the document in Affinity before exporting again, or export under a different file name to open it as a new document.
I think cleanly solve this last point is on the affinity side. (or with a “kill affinity and open it again with the new image” command … ??? !!!)
Is this the end of the biggest last refuge for those who champion the right to privacy of personal information and full ownership of artistic work ?
What Canva collects via your account :
By accepting Canva’s privacy policy (which is required as part of the login process), you agree to the following :
Collection of usage data : analytics, clickstream, device data, location — enabled by default.
AI training : by default, Canva may use your ‘fonts, colours and search queries’ to train its models. Your files/designs are not included (they remain stored locally), but the default settings are opt-out, not opt-in.
Sharing with third parties : advertising partners (Facebook, Google, Samsung TVs), service providers, and Canva affiliates.
International transfers : data is stored and processed in the US, Australia, Singapore, the EU, the UK, the Philippines and New Zealand.
I think you are going “one bridge too far”. Adobe was far stronger than Canva and yet it didn’t took over DxO when DeepPRIME appeared. Denoising was one of the poor things in Lr/Ps for a long time. But as they sing, “the times, they are changing”.
Affinity is simply the only pixel editor to go with for DxO. DxO tries to keep RAW development as ergonomic and simple as possible, while providing good quality in reasonable time. On the other hand, advanced RGB editing is too complex to fit into that landscape, and Nik Collection is too special for general purpose RGB. Choose whatever suits you. For my purpose, I had some good time learning Affinity suite, liked some layer merging features, but it all turned out of little practical use to me. YMMV. But I still use it for collage type of work (v2.6.5, so not yet Canva). I use Nik is to get that special climate for few photos deserving it.
I know I had my tongue in my cheek when I suggested the idea but buying DxO would give Canva the high-end RAW processor that Affinity lacks. it would also give them NIK Collection. It makes perfect sense for them to aspire to closing such a deal.
Sounds logical. But what deal do you mean?
It’s just DxO and Canva exchanging some info. How deep it will go in the future, I have no idea. As some joke says “I’m not worried, I have cancer”.