Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: Alan Smallbone on June 06, 2017, 10:06:55 am

Title: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Alan Smallbone on June 06, 2017, 10:06:55 am
Serif has released a version of Affinity Photo for the ipad. They say it has the same back end as the desktop version and is optimized for the newer ipads The ipad air2 is the only Apple product I use on occasion, nice to have a really full featured program for the device. It is available at a reduced price for a short time.

Alan
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on June 06, 2017, 11:39:48 am
Serif has released a version of Affinity Photo for the ipad. They say it has the same back end as the desktop version and is optimized for the newer ipads The ipad air2 is the only Apple product I use on occasion, nice to have a really full featured program for the device. It is available at a reduced price for a short time.

I was a bit surprised to see that announcement, if it indeed has the same huge functionality as the laptop/desktop (MacOS/Windows) version. But good news anyway, even if it supports a subset of all the functionality (e.g. due to memory limitations). For myself, an Android version would be preferred. We'll see.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Alan Smallbone on June 06, 2017, 12:07:12 pm
From what I could see it has most everything. Even pano generation, stacking, layers, raw conversion. I only downloaded it last night so have not played with it extensively. It also makes use of cloud storage. I too would prefer and android version, I would update my old tablet to something more modern. As much as I hate to admit it the ipad is pretty good with editing phone photos. There just is not the variety of effects apps available for Android, wish that would change.

Alan
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on June 06, 2017, 12:13:33 pm
From what I could see it has most everything. Even pano generation, stacking, layers, raw conversion. I only downloaded it last night so have not played with it extensively. It also makes use of cloud storage. I too would prefer and android version, I would update my old tablet to something more modern. As much as I hate to admit it the ipad is pretty good with editing phone photos. There just is not the variety of effects apps available for Android, wish that would change.

Another impressive achievement by the folks at Serif.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Peter McLennan on June 06, 2017, 01:18:36 pm
Another impressive achievement by the folks at Serif.

Cheers,
Bart

Indeed.  Serif's commitment to the iPad and Apple's unprecedented promise of a file system in iOS 11 prompted me to place an order for a 13" iPad Pro yesterday. For a Windows user since the early 90s, this is quite a leap of faith.
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: LesPalenik on June 06, 2017, 05:57:54 pm
Indeed.  Serif's commitment to the iPad and Apple's unprecedented promise of a file system in iOS 11 prompted me to place an order for a 13" iPad Pro yesterday. For a Windows user since the early 90s, this is quite a leap of faith.
I'm exactly in the same situation and sentiment, but still trying to decide between the 12.9" and the new 10.5" ipad Pro.
 
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Peter McLennan on June 06, 2017, 07:50:33 pm
I'm exactly in the same situation and sentiment, but still trying to decide between the 12.9" and the new 10.5" ipad Pro.

Les, I've used a 10" Samsung for the last two years.  My wife has the larger version and I've used it frequently. Get the larger version.  Especially for photo editing, you need all the screen space you can get.  Precise pointing with your finger is much easier with the larger screen.

The only downside is weight.  The larger version weighs 1.5lbs.  It's not difficult to hold, especially if it's in a cover of some kind, but holding it with one hand and using the interface with the other (while standing, for example) can get tiring.  Other than that, it's a wonderful instrument.  The pen action is nothing short of magical. By all means, get the pen.

The larger-version screen is nearly exactly the same size as a standard magazine page.  Clever, them Apple people.
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: LesPalenik on June 06, 2017, 11:35:52 pm
Thanks, Peter

I'll make a visit to the Apple Store and compare both tablets. I was thinking before about the larger size, but if the 10.5" ipad Pro is more advanced, that could compensate for the lost real estate. Yes, the Pencil is the main attraction.
 
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Peter McLennan on June 07, 2017, 12:51:54 am
Thanks, Peter

I'll make a visit to the Apple Store and compare both tablets. I was thinking before about the larger size, but if the 10.5" ipad Pro is more advanced, that could compensate for the lost real estate. Yes, the Pencil is the main attraction.
 

My understanding is that the new 13" and 10.5" have more or less identical technology. Same processor, same 120Hz screen refresh, same version of Metal, etc.
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: LesPalenik on June 07, 2017, 01:07:35 am
Thanks again, Peter

I wasn't aware that Apple refreshed also the 12.9" model. As you say, the latest models in both sizes have the same technical specs (of course, except screen size and weight).
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Christopher on June 09, 2017, 05:18:26 pm
The big question for me is how do you use them ? Where do you store your images ?!? The iPad has no real space. Would I need to import them onto the iPad and than back to a harddrive ? Does that even remotely work ?


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Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: luxborealis on June 09, 2017, 05:47:18 pm
The big question for me is how do you use them ? Where do you store your images ?!? The iPad has no real space. Would I need to import them onto the iPad and than back to a harddrive ? Does that even remotely work ?


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This is the limiting factor. I, too, would like to hear of how serious users get around the space issue before committing. I'm using a 64gb Air 2 and am down to my last 5gb (and actively use almost everything on my iPad and have iCloud for photos).
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Peter McLennan on June 09, 2017, 09:42:04 pm
Storage space will be an issue, even with 256GB of drive space. The cloud offers alternatives, but with speed issues and ongoing costs.

I don't see the iPad as a dedicated work machine or a long term storage device, rather as a media consumption tool and a means of operating on images away from a desktop powerhouse.

Also, the pen/touch interface is much more facile than a mouse or even a (Wacom) tablet/pen combination for experimentation. I'm very much looking forward to playing with Affinity Photo and the Topaz plugins with the pen. I'd really like to see a version of Painter...
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: LesPalenik on June 09, 2017, 10:41:56 pm
How about using Seagate Personal Cloud hard drive or Western Digital My Cloud? Or Western Digital My Passport Wireless? Or some other disk that could be attached also to any PC and backed up occasionally to another hard drive. In terms of capacity they can go to several TB.
Would they work with the new ipad Pro?

http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/iphone/best-external-storage-for-iphone-ipad-2017-3579792/
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Peter McLennan on June 10, 2017, 11:24:19 am
Thanks, Les.  There are several interesting alternatives on that site.  Those devices, plus the upcoming file system on iOS 11, promise much better connectivity between the two platforms.

If iOS can communicate with a dedicated hard drive via WiFi, one really has to wonder why it can't communicate with a Windows network the same way.  Perhaps someone will find a way.  It's the iOS lack of file system access that has been the problem up to now.

I just this morning got shipment notification for my new Big iPad Pro.  :)  As a Windows user from way back, I never thought I'd say such a thing.
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Alan Smallbone on June 10, 2017, 11:25:32 am
I just use the ipad for editing phone images, I use a combination of iCloud and Dropbox and store the files there. If you have a fast wireless it is pretty good. My ipad air2 is 128gb but I don't store photos on it per se, just temporary images or partially finished images. Time is a relative factor and when I am doing things on the ipad I expect it to take longer, I sit back and enjoy life instead of wondering why it takes a minute or more to load things. I sip some drink and think about how I want the images to look and think of other ideas. So the speed is not the issue, the final image is the quest. I find it is a lot less stressful this way not being in a big rush. Same with my desktop I do not worry about instant gratification. Life is too short.... :-)

Alan

P.S. The apple ios makes it hard to use a portable drive with the ipad, I hope that improves with a real file system for ios. I am not holding my breath. The Sandisk solution for external usb is pointless.
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Peter McLennan on June 10, 2017, 11:32:39 am
Same with my desktop I do not worry about instant gratification. Life is too short.... :-)

I agree, Alan.  I'm looking forward to image editing at leisure, rather than at my desktop. I have no worries about time wasted shuttling files from the cloud and back, just the workload of keeping track of the versioning.

Quote
The Sandisk solution for external usb is pointless.

Because the current version of iOS has no file system?
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: rdonson on June 10, 2017, 12:49:06 pm
I bought Affinty Pro for my iPad Air 2.  Its pretty amazing what it can do.

As most of you have brought up file sizes and storage are currently a bugaboo for the iPad. iCloud can work but not without some limitations.

I still use Lightroom Mobile on my iPad for a number of things.  Mostly syncing it from my Lightroom desktop gives me photos that I can sort through, rate, do minor editing on, etc.

I don't see the iPad as a serious editing environment though because of screen color calibration and brightness. Do any of you calibrate your iPads? 
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Peter McLennan on June 10, 2017, 01:07:44 pm
Some interesting iPad screen colour info here.
http://www.displaymate.com/iPad_Pro9_ShootOut_1.htm

Apple touts the new iPads as being capable of displaying the new HDR gamut available on high end TVs.  No idea what that means to us.
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: pearlstreet on June 10, 2017, 05:28:48 pm
Do any of you use the USB adapter on your iPad. I'd love to be able to upload photos using a USB card reader.
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Lundberg02 on June 10, 2017, 11:57:46 pm
You get the Camera Card adapter and a 128GB SD. I have the 9.7 and the adapter and the card. I also dl the Affinity yesterday and have not looked at it yet. The 13" apparently remedies the deficiencies between the 12.9 and the 9.7 Pros, so good. The gamut of the Pros is the P3 which is close enough to Adobe98. They claim it's calibrated. I might be able to check that with my i1 but I don't believe you can insert a profile. Wish there was a Krita and/or Rebelle for iOS. iOS 11 isn't really a thriller, there might be some sort of file system access but Apple refuses to allow anything useful like the jailbreak Cydia things such as Folder Enhancer, MultiIconMover, and others, because they access their precious file system and OS. I loved my jailbreak 1st gen iPad until the jailbreak bricked it and I had to do a very painful recovery. Don't think I'll risk it with my new 9.7. I don't see any real  advantage of the 10.5 if iOS 11 is better than 10.
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: TommyWeir on June 11, 2017, 09:03:24 am
Yes, we use the USB card reader,  my daughter uses the family's iPad 4 and it works much as you might expect.  The one downside is the need to have a charged iPad when importing a lot of images, the lightning port is taken up...

The P3 gamut is wider than the standard sRGB associated with most displays, not the same coverage as Adobe RGB, it covers more red/yellow and Adobe RGB covers more blue/green, but it's practically nearly as wide a gamut.   Still for printing, I'd prefer a calibrated Adobe RGB display.   But really I'd be happier with either of them over my current two (very nice but sRGB) NEC monitors. 
Rec. 2020 will hopefully put some form of an end to all this when it arrives down at user level...
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: LesPalenik on June 11, 2017, 03:53:49 pm
Yes, we use the USB card reader,  my daughter uses the family's iPad 4 and it works much as you might expect.  The one downside is the need to have a charged iPad when importing a lot of images, the lightning port is taken up...

The P3 gamut is wider than the standard sRGB associated with most displays, not the same coverage as Adobe RGB, it covers more red/yellow and Adobe RGB covers more blue/green, but it's practically nearly as wide a gamut.   Still for printing, I'd prefer a calibrated Adobe RGB display.   But really I'd be happier with either of them over my current two (very nice but sRGB) NEC monitors. 
Rec. 2020 will hopefully put some form of an end to all this when it arrives down at user level...

Is there an USB adapter that could be used to read and write files on an external USB drive?

Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: TommyWeir on June 12, 2017, 06:22:28 am
It's very limited.  What the Macworld article lists also hold true for larger drives...
http://www.macworld.com/article/2103582/using-a-flash-drive-with-an-ipad.html

I would look at a drive with wifi capabilities like the WD Passport Wireless.  WD have an app for the iPad that lets you load and save back out files.
https://www.wdc.com/products/portable-storage/my-passport-wireless-pro.html

Or use a cloud service, Dropbox or similar.
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Telecaster on June 12, 2017, 04:43:18 pm
iOS most certainly has a file system.  :)  But it's been mostly hidden prior to iOS 11. For photo management I'm not sure the more detailed FS view/access makes any meaningful difference, other than maybe being able to see (and get at) the separate the RAW and JPEG files when you import a RAW+JPEG photo.

Must check out Affinity since Photogene, my fav iPad editor up 'til now, is getting crankier with each iOS update. (Photogene's developer has apparently abandoned it.)

-Dave-
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Lundberg02 on June 12, 2017, 07:36:13 pm
Look into the LaCie Fuel ext HD for iPad.
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: LesPalenik on June 13, 2017, 02:06:51 pm
What would be the most practical size of internal storage in the new ipad pro? (256 or 512GB)
Can Affinity take advantage of all available memory (i.e. for layers, history, etc.)?

Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Telecaster on June 13, 2017, 04:23:19 pm
I expect I'll replace my 3-year-old Air 2 with a 10.5" Pro in a few months. I always opt for the maximum available storage, not so much for photos (I do quite a bit of photo editing on the iPad but it's not my main storage device) as for music (purchased, downloaded and created). The new Pros have 4 gigs of RAM, and I'd be surprised if Affinity doesn't use as much of it as the OS allows.

-Dave-
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: LesPalenik on June 13, 2017, 05:06:49 pm
Yes, 4GB RAM is a good thing on the iPad Pro, but my question was related to the other storage (64GB, 256 or 512GB).
Does Affinity and other graphics programs utilize that storage for certain tasks - i.e. caching, history, layers?
For example, Photoshop will take advantage of all available RAM, and SSD and other disk drives (if you configure them as scratch disks).
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Telecaster on June 14, 2017, 04:51:23 pm
I did note that I always opt for the maximum amount of storage offered (~512GB in this case). At least one of my current iOS photo apps uses SSD caching, and I'd bet Affinity does too given its feature set. I've got Affinity now…just gotta fire it up and explore!

-Dave-
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Peter McLennan on June 18, 2017, 03:47:14 pm
A couple of reviews.  First, Affinity Photo on the iPad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL2Dl0BXdWQ

Second a comparison between the new and old iPad Pro versions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btJsD1Tp4xg

I have about ten hours on my new iPad Pro 12.9 and I must say it's excellent. The new processor really shows its colours. The screen/pen responsiveness is even better than the previous version.

I'm running both Affinity Photo and Procreate on the new tablet and I love both apps.  AP looks to be very full featured, but it's not going to win me off PSCC, my 27" NEC and my Core i7 desktop.  Image I/O on iPad is still going to be a problem until iOS 11 comes out. 

Procreate is an extraordinary value if you want to sketch and paint.

For both programs, the Apple Pencil is a must-have.



Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Christopher on June 20, 2017, 05:34:06 pm
It all sounds great, but I still have the problem how could I sort or edit more images on an iPad. I know the 10x128GB SD cards certainly don't fit.


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Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Peter McLennan on June 20, 2017, 08:26:37 pm
Apple seems to have recently broken one of the best ways to get data onto an iPad.  The Lightning/SD Card reader no longer works with the latest iOS update.

https://www.apple.com/shop/reviews/MJYT2AM/A/lightning-to-sd-card-camera-reader

Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Telecaster on June 21, 2017, 07:30:58 pm
Import from SD card works normally on my iPad, running iOS 10.3.2 (the current released version). Just checked to be sure (attached pic). If you're using an iOS 11 beta then, of course, all bets are off.

-Dave-
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Telecaster on June 21, 2017, 07:47:01 pm
It all sounds great, but I still have the problem how could I sort or edit more images on an iPad. I know the 10x128GB SD cards certainly don't fit.

The long-term solution lies in software that can work with a distributed storage scheme. Then I can keep files in iCloud & Adobe's & Amazon's & whoever's clouds and also my own WiFi storage gizmos and wherever else image data can be stored…and then access it via whatever devices I want to import from, export to or edit with. We'll see how that works out…

-Dave-
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Peter McLennan on June 21, 2017, 10:08:47 pm
Import from SD card works normally on my iPad, running iOS 10.3.2 (the current released version). Just checked to be sure (attached pic). If you're using an iOS 11 beta then, of course, all bets are off.
-Dave-

Good news, Dave.  I don't have the SD card reader. Researching it, I discovered that it didn't work since the latest update. You've proven the Internet wrong.  :)
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Telecaster on July 03, 2017, 05:26:46 pm
I've been playing with Affinity on my iPad (2014 Air 2) over the past few days. Very impressed! And I've only scratched its surface. Way beyond any previous iOS photo app I've used. A couple minor bugs have popped up so far but nothing serious. It does a nice RAW conversion job on Leica M8.2 files. (I'm avoiding the higher-res stuff 'til iOS 11 and an iPad upgrade.)

-Dave-
Title: Re: Affinity Photo for iPad
Post by: Telecaster on July 07, 2017, 02:41:18 pm
Affinity handles Panasonic GX8 RAWs nicely as well. Oddly, though, it appears to null out the EXIF ISO entry in JPEGs it creates from GX8 files. I took the 1st attached pic at ISO 6400. It interprets my M8.2's custom IR white balance properly too: 2nd (IR test) pic taken handheld at ISO 640 and pretty much SOOC.

And I like that the app defaults to an overall gentle touch re. noise.

-Dave-