Hello,
this feature request is to give the users the option to modify the original files of the pictures.
[Background idea]
For my use case, Aspect is my tool for culling and managing my library. Editing is done by using other editing software.
If I make any modifications to my images from Aspect, is not in order to modify the picture but instead to organize it.
[Metadata]
Let’s take for example metadata. Let’s say I rank a picture with 5 star within an event.
If I open the event folder with another software, I want my picture to be easily recognizable because I gave it 5 star in Aspect
[Edit picture]
When it comes to open a picture in a different editing software, instead, currently in Aspect there are two options:
“Edit a Copy
Develop Raw”
I find it rather confusing and I am honestly not quite sure on what to expect when I click on these options. (will a copy of the picture be created? will a sidecar file be created?)
This is just my two cents, but from my perspective what I would like to see is “edit jpg” “edit raw” options. Then the editing software is going to be responsible of how the image files are going to be treated. No need for Aspect to create a copy of the file (at least in my personal use case).
Edit a Copy will create a copy of the image in a format that the editor application supports (e.g. some editors don’t support high bit-depth images, or cannot read RAW files directly) and expects the application to simply overwrite the copy once it’s done.
Develop RAW is only available for applications that support reading RAW files directly and will mostly just open the RAW file directly (plus generate an XMP document ID if necessary, see below).
We currently only show the additional Open For Editing option for non-original images, but if there is a good argument to make that available for originals as well, it would be technically easy to do, but it would come with some caveats:
Not modifying originals is a fundamental safety approach to avoid the potential for accidental unrecoverable losses, in various possible forms — actually corrupting the image due to a software bug being one of them, but also introducing creeping degradation due to lossy re-compression, or simply losing the possibility to start from scratch.
Keeping track of the edit history: We use the standard XMP fields for keeping track of edited variants and things like panorama source images (xmpMM:DocumentID et al.). Since only a few programs handle those fields correctly, we usually have to handle them instead. And because there is no reliable way to tell the source of a newly appearing image after the fact, the fields either need to be set up up front (assuming that the editor application will retain metadata), or the output file needs to be known in advance, so that the fields can be added after the editing is done.
Let’s take for example metadata. Let’s say I rank a picture with 5 star within an event.
If I open the event folder with another software, I want my picture to be easily recognizable because I gave it 5 star in Aspect
This depends on whether the software can handle XMP sidecar files, if it does, it should show the star rating. There is also the possibility to merge the sidecar into the file itself Image → Write Metadata Into File, but this is currently only implemented for JPEG and it’s also a manual step. Providing the option to always directly write into the file would be something to consider in the future, at least for some common file formats.
We currently only show the additional Open For Editing option for non-original images, but if there is a good argument to make that available for originals as well, it would be technically easy to do, but it would come with some caveats:
Not modifying originals is a fundamental safety approach to avoid the potential for accidental unrecoverable losses, […]
I see your point, thanks for sharing.
As I am currently using ON1 as photo editor, which creates sidecar files (.on1 files) when the user makes modifications, I thought that it would be redundant to create a copy. But I understand that not all editing software might follow the same approach.
There is also the possibility to merge the sidecar into the file itself Image → Write Metadata Into File , but this is currently only implemented for JPEG and it’s also a manual step. Providing the option to always directly write into the file would be something to consider in the future, at least for some common file formats.
Understood, thank you for your continuous support!
I’ve taken a closer look at how ON1 Photo RAW handles saving of edits and edit results and it’s a bit unfortunate that they don’ handle metadata very well at all when writing the result image file. From what I can see, there are two modes that work decently:
Open the file directly for editing and don’t ever hit the button in ON1, so that only the .on1 sidecar gets generated. This works, but has the drawbacks of the result not being visible outside of ON1 and not allowing to make multiple edits of the same file.
Use the “edit a copy” way of editing an image and overwriting the .tif file when saving the result. The drawback here is that layers are not supported when saving as .tif instead of .psd and there is no control over the image compression settings, but multiple edits are possible and the results will be visible inside Aspect.
The approach that doesn’t work well at all is opening the original and then saving the result to a new file. ON1 strips the metadata apart from a few fields and screws up time zones (maybe this is just a bug, though) and in particular won’t write the xmpMM: fields required for associating the edited file with the original one.
I think it shouldn’t hurt though to add a per-editor option to allow opening originals directly for editors that by default won’t overwrite the original anyway (e.g. only “save” to their own format and require an explicit “export” with an explicit choice overwrite the original). ON1 mostly qualifies here as it defaults to .psd when saving and also asks before overwriting the original.
What I’ve noticed is that the save dialog only appears when using the option to edit a single image from the menu or when passing the image through the command line. When using the built-in browser on the other hand, only the .on1 sidecar file is stored. It would be nice to be able to avoid the save dialog when opening an original.
I’ve implemented this for the next update, so that some of the auto-detected apps will allow opening originals directly (Photo Raw, Photoshop and Gimp for now).
Do you mean here going into ON1 and then browsing to the folder there to open it?
In that case, this is what I also observed. I only got into the problematic case when opening it from another application (e.g. from Explorer or from Aspect), or when using the File → Edit Single Photo… menu entry.
Do you mean here going into ON1 and then browsing to the folder there to open it?
In that case, this is what I also observed. I only got into the problematic case when opening it from another application (e.g. from Explorer or from Aspect)
I tried both (Windows 10, ON1 2024).
(1) opening ON1, then from ON1 browsing to the folder with <img.jpg>
(2) open the folder with <img.jpg> from explorer. Then “Open With > ON1”. ON1 automatically opens in the Browse mode, with the folder open where <img.jpg> is stored.
Basically same result with both methods (1) and (2).
Please note: I am using ON1 Photo Raw here, it might be different if ON1 Effects is being tested, as that is more of an editing application, I think.
button in ON1, so that only the .on1 sidecar gets generated. This works, but has the drawbacks of the result not being visible outside of ON1 and not allowing to make multiple edits of the same file.