How to Edit RAW Photos in Affinity Photo | Develop Persona for Beginners 

I have a gift for you! 😊 It's a free Affinity Photo course that will teach you 10 simple steps to make any photo amazing. I hope you love it! affinity.sale/10-steps

I really appreciate the time you take to show all of us these great features and abilities of Affinity Photo. So glad I switched and hope to be a customer for life.

Thanks for a great informative video. I have watched many Affinity videos - the more I watch the more confused I get - this was simple and logical without jumping around and losing your viewer. Great job!

Thank you. It's great to see your workflow and thought processes for an image. More of this please! I didn't know you can just invert a layer, I've always added a mask and then inverted that. Great tip.

Thanks Ally - these tutorials always have something interesting to learn. Your use of Brightness vs Highlights was fascinating.

Very good. Straight forward and to the point. Thanks for another excellent tutorial.

Great tutorial! You make it so simple. This really opened Affinity even better. Keep these coming!

I'm so happy to have discovered you, Ally. Your tutorials and courses are excellent. Highly recommended.

Realy good. Especially your explanations at the beginning the working of the sliders exposure and brightness.

As usual another simple yet useful lesson, thanks Ally!

Good - as always. A nice presentation of the basic adjustments that can be applied in the Develop Persona plus a couple of twiddles as a follow-up in the main workspace - i.e. the Photo Persona. All of Ally and her hubby's stuff goes into the making of an excellent starter kit for getting to grips on the overwhelming complexity of Affinity. A sort of Dragon Alley show-casing all of Affinity's magic wands to us novices along with a charming helping hand to get us safely 'cross the cobbles. 😊

Wow, this was a great tutorial! Thanks a ton, you really explained each step in an approachable way and helped me understand the RAW Development Persona better.

Excellent thanks for this. The colour balance layer effect was really interesting to see, will have to try that

Thanks Ally, another good video. I have bought a number of courses from Affinity Revolution, and have found them to be excellent

I've been shooting in RAW for the past few months but didn't really understand how to edit them. I do now! Thanks for a great tutorial.

Thanks for making this video. Everything is explained really well and it really helped make the daunting task of getting into photo editing a lot less intimidating for me.

Great video: simple to follow with advanced results.

Yay! Now I know what I’m doing!

Thank you - great tutorial.

Thank you Ally, excellent tutorial, very helpful 👌👌

Another great tutorial, Ally!, thanks much.

Best tutorial for beginners. Thanks!

Thank you for your tutorials !!! You are very professional, your way of explaining so precise, it helps a lot to understand what you are doing.It would be interesting to see some tutorials on landscaping in the future, such as luminance masks ... THANKS AND CONGRATULATIONS !!!!

As usual, very helpful - thanks so much. 👍👍👍

Another great tutorial, looking forward to the next one where you show us the use of the other tools in the Devlop persona,

You gys are a gift to us. Thanks again.

Fantastic! Great for a beginner Affinity editor such as myself.

Nicely done and well explained. Thank you.

Wow ihave learned more here than any other video! Thank you!

Wow 10 minutes of improved beauty and transformation.

Thanks for this! I'm looking into Affinity photo, possibly moving from Luminar. I'll definitely check out your 10 steps course.

Awesome video..keep them coming!

Great video! Thank you!

So helpful - thank you!

this helped me so much!!! thank you

Thank you!

Best tutorial on editing raw photos in Affinity! I would suggest, instead of reducing the highlights on Develop mode, applying the Shadows & Highlight filter on Photo mode. Then inverting the filter mask, and brushing white on the model cloth. That way the bright on her face is not affected.

Thanks so much this was very informative ❤

Useful video, thank you.

Another great lesson.

A great tutorial thank you

brilliant, thank you!

Woh, thanks. Beginning to end, but nothing too crazy for a beginner.

A great video as usual, I have stuck to my older version of Lightroom to edited my RAW because I didn't find it very easy to switch to Affinity for this but must try again

Switched from adobe suite to your app, Thanks

Nice tutorial

Great tutoria!

Thank you

Looks Nice!

Thanks a very clear description of the Develop process. Would you typically also sharpen a RAW photo, and if so how do you decide how much to sharpen it?

For anyone who hasn't worked with RAW files before, RAW can be thought of (kinda) a bit like watching a time-lapse video -- where you can go back and use any of the frames before the video ends. As a camera exposes an image the sensor is recording the "what happened". The exposure slider allows you to bring back lost detail --blown-out highlights or crushed shadows can be recovered into the image. If you raise the exposure slider you'll notice an increase in shadow detail but a decrease in highlight detail, if you lower the exposure you get great detail on the dress but crushed shadow. Exposure seems a bit like contrast/brightness but really is far more fundamental to the image quality. The guys have created an HDR tutorial which how you can (try) to get better detail across an image. Hope this helps! I should add. The jpeg your camera/phone outputs is like "one frame" of the data the camera saw with Special Sauce applied to make it look nice (not necessarily accurate), Phones take this to an extreme..

You are awesome

I was hardly using Affinity's fullest power until I watched this. This will take my editing to new levels. Amazing and thank you!!!

Hello, Ally. Do you have a "limit" as to how much adjusting you do in Develop mode? My typical workflow during my Photoshop days was to equalize the image to what I think looks good (basically what you did in the video in Develop mode) and then drop out of raw and into Photoshop itself to do anything else. I practice this same workflow with Affinity Photo. What do you recommend?

Very nice Ally. Do you ever use the Develop Persona to use the lens distortion corrections on a JPEG or TIFF photo? Sometimes those tools are often more helpful than the Perspective Tool. How about just using the Develop Persona for the other tools on JPEGs or non-RAW photos. Just curious.

Hi Allie. I always learn more from your tutorials. Thank you for explaining how sensitive and effective the tools are. You have shortened my trial and error learning curve ;-) thanks.

I would add anyone using a DSLR camera look at the "Lens" tab next to "Basic" in the Develop Persona! It has lens correction profiles for your Sony, Canon, Nikon devices.

This is particularly interesting - have to admit after many years I have not tackled anything with RAW images. Thanks for another great mine of information Ally. :)

Hi, very compliments for the video clarity and useful. One question off topic if possible. How do you put two images side by side to comparative and display together ? Thanks....sorry for my English

How does AF do with Apple ProRaw? I understand they are different from other raw formats. I am considering iphone 14 pro, but have no experience with ProRaw

Never knew about the "Apply Tone Curve" option - isn't the point to RAW to start it without any edits?

When I export my image it doesn't retain the adjustments made in the develop persona. There a setting I'm missing on export to keep those changes?

Is there a way to later change the RAW develop settings? It seems like once it's developed, it's converted to a pixel layer and that's it. You can develop the pixel layer but it starts from the developed state (with any other changes, too). But if I decide that maybe I brought up the exposure or shadows too much, is there an easy way to go back into develop mode and tweak my develop settings?

I've got a little question: To have "full" control isn't it better to turn the colour dept up to 32 Bit? 65k colour are photo realistic?

Is there any chance that develop persona will recognize nikon color profile (from picture control)? I'm doing in FL (flat) mode. But develop persona still import image without it. Why? other programs don't have this problem

What happens with the raw image once you push develop? Do you loose all the extra data to work with like a jpg?

Can anyone help… I’m using the Affinity app on iPad, is there a way to edit one RAW photo and copy the same edits over to the rest of my photos from the series while in the develop persona? I think that’s what it’s called…I’m still a bit new. When I tried the Adobe Lightroom trial that came with a hard drive I purchased there was a simple 1 click option to copy edits from previous photo option and it would copy all my raw edits and adjustments over to the new photo I had opened and then I could just make small tweaks if necessary. Basically trying to find a way in Affinity to process RAW photos quicker that are all in the same set or environment. Thanks for any help….even if the answer is “no it’s not possible”. Do I need to buy the desktop version in order to do this and maybe use Macros? I don’t even know if that would accomplish what I want.

raw often has very fuzzy photos - don't you sharpen the photos first? (in the detail menu?)

Very nice an useful tutorial. The only concern I have is that all the adjustments you make in the develop persona are destructive. Thank you very much.

Hi Ally.(i hope i spelt your name correct)..I have been using Affinity for years now & this has been bugging me for a while...i just like to ask......why is there no 'picker' for the white balance...and also....why is there no 'picker' for the de-fringe.....it is so difficult to defringe in the develop module without a 'picker'...& yet once you move into the photo persona the 'pickers' are there...it doesnt make a whole lot of sense.

Allie...I love these tutorials. Having been a PS user since the 90s I'm no expert but have enough experience to be dangerous. I use it more for creative projects than photos. My experience, so far with Affinity has been enhanced by your vids and course...still is it me, or is the learning curve in Affinity a bit steep...I mean so much of what you show is very detailed and almost "advanced" to me. I purchased Affinity a few years ago as a PS replacement. I still want to do that so keep 'em coming so I can break the chains of Adobe for good.

Great tutorial as always Ally. Thank you. Would you could you put a .jpg through this system?

Another nice video by Affinity Revolution. When opening up an adjustment layer, like contrast for example it's easier just to place the mouse pointer on the digit "click on it" box and use the scroll wheel to make adjustments by scrolling up or scrolling down while the pointer is still inside the digit box, easier and more precise than using the slider. The only adjustment layer I don't use this method is the brightness adjustment layer, I just point my mouse pointer on the digit box and add the values manually, it's much easier to make micro adjustments.

A nice straight forward video, but you didn't go through all the Tabs in Develop Persona. There is still Details (Detail Refinement, Noise Reduction), Tones (Curves), Overlays (Brush Overlay Gradient Overlay) & Lens - what about those please?

Great vid. As there is some much useful content out there in the desktop version, I notice however videos like this are lacking in the iPad version. Understanding that the procedure is the same, the interface is different. Thoughts?

This channel has gotten me to ditch photoshop. While it wasn’t an immediate switch (I’ve been using PS since the mid-2000’s), it was much quicker than it would have been otherwise!

probably a dumb question, i know that all raw files open in the develop persona and you need to hit develop to change it to an AF file for further editing, but if you are going to work on an image in the photo persona anyway, ( adjust/ remove flaws etc,) why do anything in the develop persona at all? why not just open the raw file and immediately hit develop, then do all adjustments, cropping, removal etc etc in photo persona? The develop persona seems to me to be a smaller tool than the photo persona, so why do anything with it. not trying to be a wiseass, I just don't get it.

A very helpful lesson for me, a beginner in Affinity. I was easily able to follow what you were doing, until inverting the layer and painting with a brush. Although I might be able to follow what you did successfully, I just didn't didn't understand what was going on.

Thanks a lot for the tutorial. I'm planning to cancel my Adobe sub and switch to Affinity. One question - can you export edited files without clicking "Develop"? I often don't do local adjustments (Photoshop like), only basic adjustments like in this first persona (Lightroom like).

How do you save a preset for the raw editor?

Why do the first changes in Develop persona when you can do it in Photo persona undestructively? What should the benefits be?

I’m imagining you are going to have a lot of new comments on these older videos, so I may as well be the one to kick it off. Question on the strategy of making adjustments to the original raw photo before switching to making the more specific adjustments; what’s the thought behind the strategy? I ask because my current strategy is to never adjust the original, and always do an immediate “Save as” as soon as I open it. Then make all adjustments I want all at once. The strategy here is that I’m always keeping the original in place in case I decide later that I didn’t like my adjustments and I can go back and do them again. Even under my old Adobe strategy, I never used Lightroom. It seems like a waste of time, but perhaps there’s a strategy I’m just not seeing. Thanks in advance for feedback and awesome content by the way!

i dont know why my affinity photo doesnt show the basic option to adjust

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I don’t like the program. I have purchased the licenses for ipad and most recently v2 for pc. I had high hopes as this is one of two third party softwares that see’s sigma sd1 images. First negative is the way of adding pictures which is to many clicks away. Dxo and few other programs have simple preview window where you can browse folders and see whats in them. Affinity will let you choose the file in open file section, some files like tiff have no thumbnails so if you pick the wrong one, you have to close current file and go back. At least this is what happens when trying to edit files from sd1. Secondarily, colour interpretation that affinity does to sigma raw files is killing the nature of foveon sensor. It is far easier to work as there are sliders that are not present in sigma photo pro (which is software most likely designed by a madman) but images in affinity seem like lifeless vs spp. I’m sorry that I’ve shared this negative input. I know you’re working hard.

So much easier than Lightroom and faster. Regardless what people use nobody can look at a picture and determine what you used to edit them. Not sure why other photographers care. Photography at the end of the day is art. I use Lightroom but am going to start using this. It’s essentially the same thing. PS is great if you can use it fast. I can’t so I try to get the picture right so I don’t have too. Again. My brush techniques aren’t the same a Warhol.

Very useful video, thank you.