SERIF AFFINITY PHOTO

[MGBJAY]

Hello. I am a SERIF AFFINITY PHOTO user and have read all manner of answers to the following question: Does IMATCH recognize *.afphoto native files, and does IMATCH display that file type image, or does it display the AFFINITY PHOTO logo as so many other DAM software products do?

I have read a good bit about the IMATCH software, and would like to try it, however, I do not like to install software before knowing some basic features. I have been using ADOBE BRIDGE for asset management so far, and IT does not display AFFINITY native formatted images properly. It only displays the AFFINITY logo, very irritating.

Thanks for your feedback:
MGBJAY

[Mario]

The Affinity Photo format (and the Designer format) are closed and proprietary file formats. Serif has no intention to provide documentation about the file format or support to developers. This was discussed in the Serif boards when Designer and Photo were released. It comes up from time to time, with the same results.

But usually IMatch has no problems displaying previews and thumbnails for these files when you run it on a computer were Designer / Photo is installed. Serif installs a thumbnail handler shell extension to allow Windows /(Explorer) to display thumbnails, and IMatch can use that as well. This is how Affinity Photo files look on my PC in IMatch:



Note that the official Serif shell extension does not produce really large previews, unfortunately. This is totally under the control of Serif and you may want to ask their support. It seems the maximum size is 512 pixels.

ExifTool also does not support Serif file formats at this time so you cannot update metadata embedded in AFPHOTO or AFDESIGN files. XMP data is stored in a external sidecar file by IMatch so everything related to Metadata and XMP works fine.

These are the side-effects of using undocumented file formats and when the company creating the format does not provide any support for developers. From a long-term archival standpoint, I recommend to store your files also in a non-proprietary format like TIFF or DNG or JPEG.