Pixel editing and raw development

SsSsSsSsSnake

SsSsSsSsSnake

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After watching a live James Ritson YouTube event I now realise I know sweet fk all about post processing, he virtually does nothing in the Affinity photo develop persona and uses layer masks and all the other photoshop type jobs to edit his photos, I now realise that LR and other use non destructive raw editing versus the way AP works and I’m clueless on why and how. Can someone simply explain the differences and why you would choose one over the other?
 
Non destructive editing allows multiple re-ediits, doesn't change the original image and allows you to step back to any point in the editing process at a later date. The other kind doesn't.

Lightroom, On1 etc also use masks and so on, but allow for changes.
 
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Affinity photo works like the LR/ACR to PS workflow does. When a raw file leaves LR all of the edits are applied and baked in, and those edits are no longer non-destructive to the image you are working with/on; but you still have the original raw file and the raw edits available separately (in a database/sidecar file). The new file LR/ACR creates can then be edited using layers; and using layers is non-destructive as long as you keep the image in a suitable format and retain those layers (e.g. Tiff). But then if you output that tiff as a jpeg for use on the web, it is again destructive.

The only difference w/ Affinity photo is that you don't get to keep your raw edits separate from the raw file... you either apply (develop) them and the image opens in the Photo persona (the LR/ACR > PS step), or you discard the raw edits.
 
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SsSsSsSsSnake said:
After watching a live James Ritson YouTube event I now realise I know sweet fk all about post processing, he virtually does nothing in the Affinity photo develop persona and uses layer masks and all the other photoshop type jobs to edit his photos, I now realise that LR and other use non destructive raw editing versus the way AP works and I’m clueless on why and how. Can someone simply explain the differences and why you would choose one over the other?
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It's personal preference.

But you can do things using layers and layer masks that you cannot do using a RAW convertor.
 
SsSsSsSsSnake said:
After watching a live James Ritson YouTube event I now realise I know sweet fk all about post processing, he virtually does nothing in the Affinity photo develop persona and uses layer masks and all the other photoshop type jobs to edit his photos, I now realise that LR and other use non destructive raw editing versus the way AP works and I’m clueless on why and how. Can someone simply explain the differences and why you would choose one over the other?
Click to expand...

Non-destructive editing does nothing to the original file.

How something LR works at a basic level is when you edit the Raw file, it generates another, very small XMP text file that tells LR what edits to apply to the Raw file before displaying it. When you export from LR as a JPEG the software then bakes these changes into the exported .jpg file but your original never changes.

Certainly in older versions of LR it just placed the XMP file in the same folder as your Raw and you could read the contents in a web browser or notepad. When you move the sliders in LR you're just writing things to this XMP file rather than the image itself. This is how all the Creative cloud syncing works for LR. All the software needs to do is send a few lines of text up to the cloud, and then the edits you make on your laptop appear in seconds on your phone as there's only tiny amounts of data moving around.

Affinity, Photoshop etc are much more complex and you can do much, much more in-depth editing with them, but they bake the changes into your original file rather than doing it non-destructively.

Edit: It's all stored in the .lrcat Lightroom Catalogue file now. I've just opened my catalogue in Notepad and this is what turns up. So the below is a list of all the edits made to a certain image in my catalogue. As you can see, the names in the catalogue file correspond with the sliders in LR. When you move the sliders, you're writing to this file, rather than changing the image itself:

Ñ÷‹m›£: MU–97ef06d405668b618983bae8877ff3d7b?ð FA5DDDE2-05FF-4080-BE96-56D113FB63AFs = { AutoGrayscaleMix = true,
AutoLateralCA = 0,
AutoWhiteVersion = 134348800,
Blacks2012 = -4,
Brightness = 50,
CameraProfile = "ACR 4.4",
Clarity2012 = 63,
Contrast = 25,
Contrast2012 = 12,
ConvertToGrayscale = false,
DefringeGreenAmount = 0,
DefringeGreenHueHi = 60,
DefringeGreenHueLo = 40,
DefringePurpleAmount = 0,
DefringePurpleHueHi = 70,
DefringePurpleHueLo = 30,
Exposure = 0,
Exposure2012 = 0,
GrainSize = 25,
Highlights2012 = 0,
LensManualDistortionAmount = 0,
LensProfileEnable = 0,
LensProfileSetup = "LensDefaults",
LuminanceNoiseReductionContrast = 0,
PerspectiveHorizontal = 0,
PerspectiveRotate = 0,
PerspectiveScale = 100,
PerspectiveVertical = 0,
PostCropVignetteFeather = 95,
PostCropVignetteMidpoint = 15,
ProcessVersion = "6.7",
RedEyeInfo = { },
RetouchInfo = { },
Saturation = 14,
Shadows = 5,
Shadows2012 = 11,
SharpenDetail = 38,
SharpenEdgeMasking = 11,
SharpenRadius = 1,
Sharpness = 80,
Temperature = 4600,
Tint = 2,
ToneCurve = { 0,
0,
32,
22,
64,
56,
128,
128,
192,
196,
255,
255 },
ToneCurveBlue = { 0,
0,
255,
255 },
ToneCurveGreen = { 0,
0,
255,
255 },
ToneCurveName = "Medium Contrast",
ToneCurveName2012 = "Linear",
ToneCurvePV2012 = { 0,
0,
255,
255 },
ToneCurvePV2012Blue = { 0,
0,
255,
255 },
ToneCurvePV2012Green = { 0,
0,
255,
255 },
ToneCurvePV2012Red = { 0,
0,
255,
255 },
ToneCurveRed = { 0,
0,
255,
255 },
Version = "9.5",
Vibrance = 16,
WhiteBalance = "As Shot",
Whites2012 = 0 }
ѹ
 
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Rather as Stephen said above - AFP will allow you to develop your raw file non-destructively up to the point of export - it will then allow you to export / save it out as a tif, jpg etc with the adjustments made to the raw baked into them at that point. But the raw remains on-screen (in the develop module) alongside the exported file (in the photo module / 'persona'), & you can then close the raw discarding your changes, so it remains un-altered. That is non-destructive, but you have no record of your changes. With other raw processors, the changes are saved and referenced to the raw file, which itself remains un-altered.

In the photo persona of AFP, as with Photoshop, you can work on an opened tif, jpg etc file using layers including adjustment layers, and this is non-destructive up to the point of exporting / saving as another tif, jpg etc, which can overwrite your original or be given another name.
 
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SsSsSsSsSnake said:
I now realise that LR and other use non destructive raw editing versus the way AP works and I’m clueless on why and how. Can someone simply explain the differences and why you would choose one over the other?
Click to expand...

I might as well have a go at this :-)

The raw file from the camera is rows of numerical data. When you open this file in a Raw convertor the software applies a default set of instructions on how those numbers should be turned into the image you see on the screen. When you edit the photograph in the raw convertor, you are editing these instructions. You never edit, or indeed see, the raw file.

The instructions are then saved inside a catalogue, or in a sidecar file and linked to the original raw file. When you re-open the raw file, the software looks for the linked instruction file so it knows how you want the file displayed.

As you make more and more complex edits the number of instructions needed, and the computer power needed to apply them gets greater and greater. Eventually you reach a stage when this sort of "parametric" editing simply becomes impractical, and raw convertors run out of editing tools, or tools become so clunky they aren't that pleasant to use.

But the raw file is never touched and because you are always reading the raw data, you ensure you have a starting point with the maximum amount of information available. If you want to see the image as a stand alone image, ie not one that relies on software that needs access to the editing instruction file, you need to save the file as a raster file such as a PSD, Tiff or Jpeg. You also need a PSD or TIFF file for editing in a pixel editor (photoshop or affinity photo). Pixel editors don't work with raw files.

When you save a file as a TIFF or PSD from your raw convertor in preparation for further editing in AP or PS, you lose some flexibility as you no longer have access to the raw file data e.g you have reduced control over dynamic range and white balance. But you have access to other, more powerful editing features e.g. compositing, subtle retouching etc

As "pixel" editors like Photoshop and Affinity Photo don't work with raw files but with raster files when you make an edit you don't change a line in a set of instructions, you physically change the pixels in the raster file you are working on. So changes are baked into the working file, hence the destructive label for pixel editors.

However, the destructive/non-destructive isn't straight forward, and different people seem have different definitions. Destructive editing doesn't destroy your raw file, as pixel editors never see your raw file, and if you use layers for editing in a pixel editor, the layers don't directly affect the underlying PSD or TIFF, so it's easy to undo most changes you make.

Once upon a time raw editors only did a simple raw to raster conversion, and you quickly moved onto using a pixel editor. But as computers have become more powerful, raw editors have become more and more capable and the need for a pixel editors has declined. But some things can only be done in a pixel editor, and some things are easier to do in a pixel editor.

A potential major benefit of raw processor/parametric editors is that the instruction file is always very small, with a pixel editor where you are creating new pixel data while editing, the file gets bigger and bigger.

Personally, I like having access to both. Capture One and Photoshop in my case, but I also use Lightroom and Affinity Photo on occasions.
 
Say what you want about the way Adobe do things financially, but the way Lightroom and Camera Raw interact with Photoshop can really give the best of both world when it comes to editing non destructively.

I mainly use Camera Raw to apply a calibrated camera profile, lens corrections and processing to Raw files, and most of the times that is all that is needed. There are times when more needs to be 'done' to the image, and this is when I open as a Smart Object in Photoshop. You can use layers to make changes on top of the imported image. Up until certain edits, cropping mainly, you can double click on the Smart Object to re-open the original 'image' in Camera Raw to change something of the initial processing, and then come back to Photoshop with all the previous edits/layers still in place, but with the new changes (to the Raw file) underneath it all.

I'm not aware of any other combination of Raw processor and Pixel editor working together in a similar way.
 
From a practical point of view, every time you work on a raw file in Affinity's Develop persona, you are starting from scratch. The edits you make are baked in when you hit Develop, so you can't then revert any specific edit selectively, you can only return to the raw file in its original state (which is of course never touched). This is different to 'non-destructive' raw developers like Lightroom, Capture One or Nikon's NX Studio. With these, you don't have to go back to the original state of the raw file, because your previous edits are stored as metadata in a sidecar file or database, and you can return to them the next time you open that raw file, tweaking the settings as required.

Once you are in Affinity's Photo persona, things are different - you can revisit specific edits you make from that point on in the History panel, and if you remember to tick 'File: Save History With Document' and save in Affinity's native format before closing your work, these edits will be preserved as entries in your History and can be changed later when you re-open the file.
 
Retune said:
From a practical point of view, every time you work on a raw file in Affinity's Develop persona, you are starting from scratch. The edits you make are baked in when you hit Develop, so you can't then revert any specific edit selectively, you can only return to the raw file in its original state (which is of course never touched). This is different to 'non-destructive' raw developers like Lightroom, Capture One or Nikon's NX Studio. With these, you don't have to go back to the original state of the raw file, because your previous edits are stored as metadata in a sidecar file or database, and you can return to them the next time you open that raw file, tweaking the settings as required.

Once you are in Affinity's Photo persona, things are different - you can revisit specific edits you make from that point on in the History panel, and if you remember to tick 'File: Save History With Document' and save in Affinity's native format before closing your work, these edits will be preserved as entries in your History and can be changed later when you re-open the file.
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That's lucid, & you're a step ahead of me in what AFP does!

SsSsSsSsSnake said:
......
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How're you doing now with this? And where do you think you're headed?
 
sk66 said:
Affinity photo works like the LR/ACR to PS workflow does. When a raw file leaves LR all of the edits are applied and baked in, and those edits are no longer non-destructive to the image you are working with/on; but you still have the original raw file and the raw edits available separately (in a database/sidecar file). The new file LR/ACR creates can then be edited using layers; and using layers is non-destructive as long as you keep the image in a suitable format and retain those layers (e.g. Tiff). But then if you output that tiff as a jpeg for use on the web, it is again destructive.

The only difference w/ Affinity photo is that you don't get to keep your raw edits separate from the raw file... you either apply (develop) them and the image opens in the Photo persona (the LR/ACR > PS step), or you discard the raw edits.
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Thankyou
droj said:
That's lucid, & you're a step ahead of me in what AFP does!


How're you doing now with this? And where do you think you're headed?
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if you mean me Droj,some great explanations. I think AP will be ok if I take my time and don’t rush it.
 
If Apple photos did lens corrections and a proper healing brush then I’d probably be happy using that, my needs are simple
 
Just sent in an image to AP with time map off and basically developed it then edited using layer adjustments and exported to Apple photos then edited same raw in photos and I’m sure may have been able to get something similar with a bit more messing but I like the flexibility of the AP layers and did prefer the result,
 
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