Capture One and Affinity

[AgentOrange76]

Any one using both together?

I have the Full Fuji only version and there are a few things like focus stacking that it cant do.
With Affinity only being £24 at the moment it seems a bargain.

I have downloaded the trial and have a Couple of questions.

If I open an image in capture one then select Edit with Affinity i can chose a Tiff or PSD file option. As I understand it a PSD will allow layers to remain as a layers where as a TIFF will combine them?

It seems that if I then carry out some editing and save the image I can get it to overwrite the PSD file which can then be reopened in Capture One

With Focus stacking I am having to open the required images in Affinity, stack them and then if I save I can only save as an Affinity file which Capture One cant view.
It seems I need to export the file as a TIFF or PSD which I can then open back in Capture One.

Is there another way im yet to find and does this exporting loose anything or create potential issues Im not aware of? I generally only export JPEGS which naturally are compressed and or low resolution.

 

[Brian G]

I have Affinity Photo (but I'm not using it with C1, I use On1) and although I haven't explored all the areas you are asking about, but I'll pass on what I know.

Any one using both together?

I have the Full Fuji only version and there are a few things like focus stacking that it cant do.
With Affinity only being £24 at the moment it seems a bargain.

I have downloaded the trial and have a Couple of questions.

If I open an image in capture one then select Edit with Affinity i can chose a Tiff or PSD file option. As I understand it a PSD will allow layers to remain as a layers where as a TIFF will combine them?

I think you are sending your file to Affinity incorrectly.
Within Affinity you have several "Open File" options, one of which is "New Focus Merge" If you click that, a new import dialog opens which enables you to select the files you wish to merge. These can be raw, TIFF or jpeg files.
Once you have imported the files you want to merge you simply hit the "OK" button and Affinity then does it's thing, which can take several minutes, depending on the number of images you wish to merge.
Once the Merge has completed you see the resulting image.
You can then "Save" in which case it saves as an Affinity .afphoto file (I'm not sure if this includes layers, but it's a large file) or you can "Export" in the normal range of file formats, including layered .TIFF or editable layered .PSD

It seems that if I then carry out some editing and save the image I can get it to overwrite the PSD file which can then be reopened in Capture One

With Focus stacking I am having to open the required images in Affinity, stack them and then if I save I can only save as an Affinity file which Capture One cant view.
It seems I need to export the file as a TIFF or PSD which I can then open back in Capture One.

Is there another way im yet to find and does this exporting loose anything or create potential issues Im not aware of? I generally only export JPEGS which naturally are compressed and or low resolution.

It sounds like you are opening the files into Affinity wrongly.
If you are focus merging you should be opening the files into Affinity using the method I've outlined above, i.e. using the "New Focus Merge" dialog.
You do not select "Send to Affinity" from within your raw program.

 

[AgentOrange76]

Ok I think i asked too many questions in one go and confused the issue

If we look at the Focus merge - yes open Affintity chose New focus Merge and select the images to combine. Im fine with that.
My question here was is there away to save the file in another format other than .afphoto. So it seems not.

Second part was then if I have to export which of the formats is best. TIFF if i understand it correctly is lossless but doesnt keep the layers seperate? where as PSD is lossless but will keep the layers seperate? Is there anything else I should be aware of with these formats?


On a seperate front it seems that if I chose Edit With from capture one on a single image i cant activate the clone repair or dodge and burn tools. I can select them but they have no effect on the image.
There are times when I should just shoot JPEG or pay for lightroom

 

[Brian G]

Ok I think i asked too many questions in one go and confused the issue

If we look at the Focus merge - yes open Affintity chose New focus Merge and select the images to combine. Im fine with that.
My question here was is there away to save the file in another format other than .afphoto. So it seems not.

Second part was then if I have to export which of the formats is best. TIFF if i understand it correctly is lossless but doesnt keep the layers seperate? where as PSD is lossless but will keep the layers seperate? Is there anything else I should be aware of with these formats?


On a seperate front it seems that if I chose Edit With from capture one on a single image i cant activate the clone repair or dodge and burn tools. I can select them but they have no effect on the image.
There are times when I should just shoot JPEG or pay for lightroom

If you select "Save" it will save in .afphoto format.
If you want to save in a different format then you "Export", which gives the choice of jpeg, TIFF, PSD, PNG etc.
As I said, within the export dialog there are options depending on the format you choose.
Why don't you try it and see? I don't see anything confusing.
What editing do you propose once you have Focus Merged?
I would do all my adjustments to my raw file before sending to Focus Merge.
Once you've done the Merge and exported the image, the only things that you might need to do is crop and maybe curves.
I tend to keep all my images as 16-bit TIFFs and only generate jpegs for external display or printing.

I don't know of anything that Lightroom can do that you can't do in C1, but as I said, I don't use either of those any more.
If you want to edit jpeg you may as well do everything in Affinity, it has all the tools you need.

 

[AgentOrange76]

Thanks Brian
think I have it sorted. Both programs are miss behaving. The latest issue Capture one was refusing to export an unedited Fuji .RAF file keeps throwing up an error saying unsupported file. Closed and reopend Capture One and the same file works fine.

My main concern if you can call it that is lack of knowledge on TIFF and PSD files as I havent worked with these before not having a need. Im the first to try it first then consult a manual (or youtube) when i cant get it to work, thought I would ask here first.

 

[Brian G]

Thanks Brian
think I have it sorted. Both programs are miss behaving. The latest issue Capture one was refusing to export an unedited Fuji .RAF file keeps throwing up an error saying unsupported file. Closed and reopend Capture One and the same file works fine.

My main concern if you can call it that is lack of knowledge on TIFF and PSD files as I havent worked with these before not having a need. Im the first to try it first then consult a manual (or youtube) when i cant get it to work, thought I would ask here first.

There's nothing to be scared of - you can't break anything by experimenting with different file formats, and you can always delete those that don't interest you.
There is lots of information available on the interweb about different picture file formats, so why not read up on them?
Personally, I no longer use any Adobe products, so being an Adobe format .PSD files have no interest to me.
I've saved from Affinity in .afphoto format and also as layered TIFF files, and they both seem to work fine.
I would think that sticking to a TIFF would be the best approach, since it is an uncompressed format and can be opened by most editing programs, which is not always the case with PSD format files.
TIFF should give the best quality and maximum compatibility, and can also have layers if you need them.
If you are going to continue editing with Affinity then it would make sense to keep to the native (.afphoto) format and only export to another format if you know you want to do further work on them using C1 or another editing program. .afphoto files are quite large, but layered TIFFs are even larger.

 

[Dangerous]

What editing do you propose once you have Focus Merged?
I would do all my adjustments to my raw file before sending to Focus Merge.
Once you've done the Merge and exported the image, the only things that you might need to do is crop and maybe curves.

I do focus merging (focus stacking as called in PS) and always stack first then edit afterwards.

I read you do most of your editing before stacking/merging. Surely when stacking/merging 15-25 images you wouldn't edit everyone separately or edit one then apply the same steps to the rest before doing the merge would you?

 

[Brian G]

I do focus merging (focus stacking as called in PS) and always stack first then edit afterwards.

I read you do most of your editing before stacking/merging. Surely when stacking/merging 15-25 images you wouldn't edit everyone separately or edit one then apply the same steps to the rest before doing the merge would you?

That's what the "Sync" button is for.
Edit one and then apply the same edit to all.

 

[Dangerous]

That's what the "Sync" button is for.
Edit one and then apply the same edit to all.

I know you you can edit one and apply to all (not seen the sync button as yet). Does that work better than merge all images then edit the resulting image, I've not done it that way in PS so this is a genuine question to help me understand your method.

 

[Brian G]

I know you you can edit one and apply to all (not seen the sync button as yet). Does that work better than merge all images then edit the resulting image, I've not done it that way in PS so this is a genuine question to help me understand your method.

I use On1 and it has a "Sync" button that allows you to process multiple images with the same edit.

As I've said, I'm a beginner at this macro stacking lark, so I wouldn't presume to say I'm doing it any better than anyone else.
To me, it just seemed to be one way of doing it, and I'm not going to claim it's any better than any other way.

 

[Dangerous]

I use On1 and it has a "Sync" button that allows you to process multiple images with the same edit.

As I've said, I'm a beginner at this macro stacking lark, so I wouldn't presume to say I'm doing it any better than anyone else.
To me, it just seemed to be one way of doing it, and I'm not going to claim it's any better than any other way.

OK, thanks for the reply. To me it seemed to make sense to merge the images first then once that was complete then do the editing just in case the blending messed up the edits.. As I say it's worked fine for me for a couple of years with PS & LR.


I think (for what I've seen in videos up to now) to 'sync' edits across several images in Affinity, you create a macro and apply it to each but there may be a better way. I don't know much about it at the mo.