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> Is Photoshop better than Photo? Yes, but not by much.

Everyone keeps repeating this meme every 2 months or so on HN and I have to keep coming back to point out that Affinity's lack of support for Photoshop's generated XMP sidecar files is on its own a dealbreaker for photographers that have those files.

(Then as soon as I say this everyone here jumps to Affinity's defense. I'm not trying to attack Affinity or something. I'm just pointing out the reality users face is very different from the meme that goes around on HN. Defending Affinity all day long won't solve the problems users face.)

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I'm a hobbyist photographer and my dad's a professional. This is the first time I've ever heard of these files, so what do people use them for and why are they deal-breakers? As far as I've seen them work, professional photographers spend nearly all of their time in Lightroom, it's pretty rare to see someone reach for Photoshop.

Do you shoot RAW? If you're not seeing them (AFAIK Lightroom uses them too) then you're either not shooting RAW, or you're probably not loading/postprocessing your camera's RAW files (CR2, ARW, etc.) directly -- perhaps you're converting them to DNGs first. The XMP files hold all the postprocessing information for those files, since Photoshop/Lightroom don't alter RAW files in-place.

Note: Even if Photoshop/Lightroom did embed these in the RAW files, the problem of actually loading the embedded information would still be there for Affinity. So the point here isn't the file separation; the point is Affinity doesn't understand the postprocessing Photoshop has already done on the photo.

The feature has been requested a lot; see for example https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/113871-use... and https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/45772-can-...

I think I see the confusion. If my google-fu is correct, modern Lightroom doesn't store this data in XMP files by default, but instead internally in the catalog (with a settings toggle if you want to use files instead). Lightroom Classic does use XMP files out of the box. So if you use modern Lightroom and never need to take the metadata out of the Adobe suite you wouldn't really run into this.

> So if you use modern Lightroom and never need to take the metadata out of the Adobe suite you wouldn't really run into this.

You're very confused, catalog vs. XMP (or classic vs. modern) is entirely irrelevant. Heck, the catalog is objectively worse. You're switching software and want to still be able to use the post-processing you've applied to your photos. Which Affinity can't do. It's irrelevant where or how that information was stored.

The only one who is confused here is you. You're trying to make it sound like this is somehow a big issue or a dealbreaker, when in fact pretty much no one who does actual work with these programs cares. You can hate on one application or another, I couldn't care less, but your whole argument is frankly ridiculous.

> The only one who is confused here is you. You're trying to make it sound like this is somehow a big issue or a dealbreaker, when in fact pretty much no one who does actual work with these programs cares

Seriously? You don't feel it's ridiculous to say this when just above I posted links to people begging for this feature on the forums since at least 2017?

> You can hate on one application or another

I'm not hating on it - if I hated Affinity I wouldn't even be wasting my time to point it out. I love Affinity and want it to succeed, hence all this.

A loud minority requesting a feature doesn't mean it's a deal-breaker for other users. Clearly the company behind the product agrees, otherwise they would've implemented it.

> A loud minority requesting a feature

First, thanks for acknowledging that it's not "just me". That kind of nonsensical hyperbole doesn't help the discussion.

Second: You have no idea if it's a minority of the market that actually wants this. The majority of users obviously use Adobe, that should tell you more than how many people are voicing their opinions in a forum. Not every user goes out of their way to re-request a feature that's already been requested years ago.

> doesn't mean it's a deal-breaker for other users.

Nobody said it's a deal breaker for "other users".

> Clearly the company behind the product agrees, otherwise they would've implemented it.

Because there's no other possible reason we could fathom as to why they wouldn't have implemented this already, right?

This is such a silly stance to take. Just because something is important or painful for you doesn't make it universal, no matter which way you try to frame it. Just like you won't see the users who don't rerequest a feature, you won't see all the users who don't even remotely care about it.

> Just because something is important or painful for you doesn't make it universal,

Again: nobody said it was "universal", but again: it's not about me, either. It's ridiculous that you're still insisting it's just me when you literally see other people complaining about it. You clearly aren't interested in having a reasonable conversation so there's no point in continuing to engage.

I think some clarity that has been missing to your point is that this isn't an issue that Affinity can't edit raw photos, but more that if you switched from Lightroom to Affinity you're going to be missing all your edits for all your photos, which makes it a non-starter for anyone who doesn't want to or can't redit all of their RAW files.

Yup, thanks. Hope that clarifies it for anyone who was confused by that.

You can google it, but it's putting EXIF data modifications and additions into an external XML file. It's a way to avoid modifying the master file directly.

I feel like it's a bit unfair to bring up vendor lock-in, although it is a miss for Affinity, for sure.

I actually disagree on both whether this is truly vendor lock-in and on whether this is fair to bring up, but honestly, it wouldn't change anything regardless. The reality is that solving people's problems is what wins you customers, not pleading for fairness. As unfair as it might be, that's the reality of the situation. If we want Adobe's hold on the market to be released, we (and they) need to deal with the reality of the situation.

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