R C-R

The NIK installer creates & installs a separate set of Aperture plug in files in addition to the Photoshop ones. These are in a different format from the Photoshop plugins because Aperture can't use Photoshop plugins. Aperture is the only app that can use those special versions -- neither Affinity nor Photoshop or any other app that supports Photoshop plugins can use them. From what I can tell, the NIK installer always instal them, whether or not Aperture is installed on the Mac.
 
The Photoshop plugins are different. The NIK installer looks for an installation of Photoshop, Adobe Bridge, etc. -- anything it knows can use the PS versions -- which does not include Affinity -- & automatically installs them in the appropriate locations for those apps. This is why (both) videos mention creating a new folder in the Applications folder prior to running the NIK installer if you do not have any of the known apps (like Photoshop) on your system & adding that folder to the install locations using the plus button shown in the videos.

JPWatkins:
 
What is the creation date of your file named Silver Efex Pro 2.plugin, & of the one named Silver Efex Pro 2.app if you have that as well?
 
It should be March 25, 2016 for these & all the other NIK files. Also, on my system both of these items have a version number of "2.2.24" without the ".10 x64" suffix.
 
If in Get Info windows the creation date shown for any of these files is earlier than March 24 of this year (the date Google released the free version), or they show a version number with more than the three number groups like 2.2.24, then I think this means there is some vestige of an earlier version of some or all of the NIK plugins somewhere on your system.
 
I know you said that you may have installed an early version years ago, but at that time there was no NIK Collection, just the individual plugins. As mentioned in the bottom section of the NIK Collection Uninstalling Help page (same link that MEB mentioned above), to uninstall any of these earlier "uncollected" plugins, you must download from that page the individual installers for each of them & run them prior to running the NIK Collection installer. The current free NIK Collection installer will not remove any of these old versions.
 
I never installed any of the older plugins but just to see what would happen, I downloaded the Viveza ones from that page & ran them (there are three in the download, one each for Aperture, Lightroom, & Photoshop). That had no effect on the Viveza 2 files on my system, a pretty good indirect indication that the NIK Collection installer does not touch any of the older plugin files, either during the install or uninstall process.
 
If you have not already tried running these uninstallers, I suggest you (once again) run the NIK Collection installer app to uninstall the new versions & then download & run each of these. Only after doing that, try running the NIK Collection installer app to install the new free plugins. This is the only way I know to guarantee that there will be no interference from any of the older files that might trigger the "free trial" warning.
 
Also, earlier you asked which plugins I had working on my Mac. What works for me with AP version 1.4.2 is exactly the same as MEB described on his Affinity Photo: Plug-Ins Support page. (Be sure to click on each plugin listed on that page to see the details.) All of the stand alone application versions also work.

It might help if you would post a screen shot of your AP Preferences > Photoshop Plugins window. To do that, first open the preference to that item, press CMD+SHIFT+4, hover the pointer over the window, press the spacebar & then click. This will create the screen shot of that window.
 
To add it to a post, click the More Reply Options button at the bottom of the reply window, click the Choose File button, & choose the screen shot you just made. Then click the Attach This File button.
 
Also, can you confirm that the stand alone apps work OK, without showing any splash screens, trial version notices with demo buttons, or anything like that?
 
Is it still true that you have a Macintosh HD/Applications/Photoshop Plugins/Google/ folder, & in it are the plugins & config files? As MEB mentioned, does that folder appear in the preferences Photoshop plug-ins section, Plugin Search Folders list?

I agree with JP, this is a real problem, & it has nothing to do with "modern applications."
 
I use a 27" non-retina iMac & I often have to squint to see certain UI elements, not just in Affinity but also in several other apps that use a "grey on grey" UI style & have tiny little icons for status indicators, tool palettes, & such.
 
What I find somewhat helpful is to enable the System Preferences > Accessibility > Display options to Differentiate without color, & particularly the Increase Contrast & Reduce Transparency ones. Somewhat ironically, enabling Increase Contrast causes the expand/collapse indicators in the Affinity Layers panel to go dark (a bug I reported long ago) but that isn't too big a problem.
 
What is a big problem in Affinity is the low contrast difference between a selected & unselected tool in the tools palette, & only turning up the UI Gamma to near maximum makes it reasonably obvious which one is selected. 

Not sure why mac_heibu questions you on this, it's a real problem. Apple's has been distracted for several years from their efforts toward a resolution independent OS (but I don't think anyone else is there yet either.)
 
All you can do in the OS, once you have settled on a screen resolution, is make adjustments in
System Preferences> General,
and
Finder> View> Show view options
(I may have forgotten somewhere else, but these are the biggies. This is sufficient for smaller displays and up close work, but if you have a big display and sit further away from it you do a lot of squinting. You will also want to learn to zoom in and out quickly using keyboard and mouse shortcuts. This is enabled in System Preferences> Accessability> Zoom. I have no idea what the default settings are, but I check "use keyboard shortcuts to zoom" and "use scroll gesture with keyboard modifiers to zoom" using "command" as the modifier. This is just what I'm used to. It really all depends on taste and the type of pointing device (trackpad, mouse, Waccom, etc that you use. (BTW, I have to have the mouse setting "scroll direction natural" checked, which strangely is not apple's default, or I go completely insane!)
 
Most software (Affinity included) also has some options that are helpful. In Affinity Photo go to
Affinity Photo> Preferences> Interface
where you can make some interface size adjustments if you want.

In the beta 9 release notes MattP said "Hopefully resolved file save/restore issues seen when starting from a 'recovery file.'"
 
I am still seeing what I think is that bug in the beta 10 release, but I cannot pin down exactly what triggers it. What I sometimes see is the 'file in use by another app' notice when I try to reopen an AD file when no other app has it open.
 
As best as I can tell, this occurs only if I make some change in the AD file & then close it with the 'Don't save changes' option. But that alone doesn't trigger the notice when I try to reopen the file -- there has to be some other step(s) between closing the file with unsaved changes & opening it again.
 
I know this is a bug & that no other app is using the file because simply quitting & restarting AD beta 10 eliminates the notice & I can reopen the file without problems.

Just to add a tiny bit to what MBd already said for newcomers here: if you have used other software makers' support sites for help with their products, prepare to be blown away by how much better the support you can get here from the Affinity team is than anything else you likely have seen from anybody else.
 
Here, you won't find any of those annoying scripted "boilerplate" answers that are not relevant to whatever you ask about & make you wonder about the support person's reading comprehension skills.
 
This is support done right!

Just to add a tiny bit to what MBd already said for newcomers here: if you have used other software makers' support sites for help with their products, prepare to be blown away by how much better the support you can get here from the Affinity team is than anything else you likely have seen from anybody else.
 
Here, you won't find any of those annoying scripted "boilerplate" answers that are not relevant to whatever you ask about & make you wonder about the support person's reading comprehension skills.
 
This is support done right!

Just to add a tiny bit to what MBd already said for newcomers here: if you have used other software makers' support sites for help with their products, prepare to be blown away by how much better the support you can get here from the Affinity team is than anything else you likely have seen from anybody else.
 
Here, you won't find any of those annoying scripted "boilerplate" answers that are not relevant to whatever you ask about & make you wonder about the support person's reading comprehension skills.
 
This is support done right!

Just to add a tiny bit to what MBd already said for newcomers here: if you have used other software makers' support sites for help with their products, prepare to be blown away by how much better the support you can get here from the Affinity team is than anything else you likely have seen from anybody else.
 
Here, you won't find any of those annoying scripted "boilerplate" answers that are not relevant to whatever you ask about & make you wonder about the support person's reading comprehension skills.
 
This is support done right!

Just to add a tiny bit to what MBd already said for newcomers here: if you have used other software makers' support sites for help with their products, prepare to be blown away by how much better the support you can get here from the Affinity team is than anything else you likely have seen from anybody else.
 
Here, you won't find any of those annoying scripted "boilerplate" answers that are not relevant to whatever you ask about & make you wonder about the support person's reading comprehension skills.
 
This is support done right!

Ian,
 
I have now seen the 'open recovery file' issue happen even when after launching Beta 10, I just opened, modified, saved, & closed an existing 1.5 format document, & then tried to open it about 10 minutes layer. So it appears that sometimes just my steps 1 & 2 are enough to trigger it.
 
I did not have either MAS Affinity app open at the time. I have seen this problem regardless of how I try to open a document -- double-clicking on it or using the Open or Open Recent menu items all have, at one time or another, triggered it.
 
I have noticed one thing that might be related to whatever is causing this. I started monitoring the ~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner.beta/Data/Library/Application Support/autosave folder when I opened & closed files. What should happen is a temp file is created there each time a document is opened & the file should be deleted when it is closed. What I just saw a few minutes ago was when I closed a newly created & saved file, its temp file was not deleted.
 
When I then tried to open it again less than a minute later, I got the 'open recovery file?' dialog. Clicking on the 'don't use' button deleted the temp file from the autosave folder, but the file still would not open, generating the 'file in use' error when I tried to open it again.
 
It is too early to tell if this always happens when a file is erroneously identified as in use, but I am going to continue to monitor that folder to see if it does. If so, hopefully this will provide a clue for the programmers about the cause.

No special permissions need to be set. See MEB's page here for info about which NIK (& other) plugins work with Affinity Photo (which currently is only available for OS X so there is no separate Windows version to be confused about).
 
MEB's post here explains how to set AP's plugin preferences for use with the NIK collection -- but note that the Plug-in Search Folders path will vary depending on if you have Photoshop installed or not.
 
This YouTube video explains how to run the installer & set up the AP preferences. It is for a slightly older version of AP but the important parts are the same.
 
EDIT: More stuff I forgot to mention:
 
• The NIK plugins are destructive so it is a good idea to duplicate the layer before using one of them.
• If you are still having problems getting them to work after checking out all of the above, please tell us if you have any version of Photoshop installed & if so, which one -- this makes a big difference in the install & setup procedure.
• Depending on if you create an extra install location, you may have installed standalone versions of each of the plugins -- these are apps that can you can run like any other app (independently of Affinity Photo or any other graphics app). This can be very useful if you want to apply any of the NIK plugin effects that don't work in AP.

In the beta 9 release notes MattP said "Hopefully resolved file save/restore issues seen when starting from a 'recovery file.'"
 
I am still seeing what I think is that bug in the beta 10 release, but I cannot pin down exactly what triggers it. What I sometimes see is the 'file in use by another app' notice when I try to reopen an AD file when no other app has it open.
 
As best as I can tell, this occurs only if I make some change in the AD file & then close it with the 'Don't save changes' option. But that alone doesn't trigger the notice when I try to reopen the file -- there has to be some other step(s) between closing the file with unsaved changes & opening it again.
 
I know this is a bug & that no other app is using the file because simply quitting & restarting AD beta 10 eliminates the notice & I can reopen the file without problems.

It can be more than a little confusing, but it should help if you keep in mind that currently there are five different Affinity apps:
 
• Affinity Designer for Mac (a retail product for sale only in the Mac App Store)
• Affinity Photo for Mac (a retail product for sale only in the Mac App Store)
• Affinity Designer Beta for Mac (intended only for testing, a free download that requires the retail version be installed to run)
• Affinity Photo Beta for Mac (intended only for testing, a free download that requires the retail version be installed to run)
• Affinity Designer Beta for Windows (intended only for testing, a free download that will expire when the retail version is released)

I may have found a way to reproduce this issue. I am not sure if all the steps or prerequisites are necessary but this is what seems to trigger it:
 
1. Launch the Designer beta & open an existing 1.5 format document. (I have only tested with ones that were copies of the older format created using the warning notice when opening an older format document, but I don't know if that is a prerequisite.)
 
2. Make some changes in the document, do a save (optional?), & close it.
 
3. Create a new document. Add some objects to it. Close it without saving it. (This seems to be the critical step.)
 
4. Try to reopen the document from step 1. When I do this, I get the Open Recovery File? notification popup & regardless of which button I choose in that, I get the failed notification saying the file is already open in another app.
 
Examples of the popup notifications:

 
I would be very interested in hearing if anyone else can duplicate this behavior.

In the beta 9 release notes MattP said "Hopefully resolved file save/restore issues seen when starting from a 'recovery file.'"
 
I am still seeing what I think is that bug in the beta 10 release, but I cannot pin down exactly what triggers it. What I sometimes see is the 'file in use by another app' notice when I try to reopen an AD file when no other app has it open.
 
As best as I can tell, this occurs only if I make some change in the AD file & then close it with the 'Don't save changes' option. But that alone doesn't trigger the notice when I try to reopen the file -- there has to be some other step(s) between closing the file with unsaved changes & opening it again.
 
I know this is a bug & that no other app is using the file because simply quitting & restarting AD beta 10 eliminates the notice & I can reopen the file without problems.

No special permissions need to be set. See MEB's page here for info about which NIK (& other) plugins work with Affinity Photo (which currently is only available for OS X so there is no separate Windows version to be confused about).
 
MEB's post here explains how to set AP's plugin preferences for use with the NIK collection -- but note that the Plug-in Search Folders path will vary depending on if you have Photoshop installed or not.
 
This YouTube video explains how to run the installer & set up the AP preferences. It is for a slightly older version of AP but the important parts are the same.
 
EDIT: More stuff I forgot to mention:
 
• The NIK plugins are destructive so it is a good idea to duplicate the layer before using one of them.
• If you are still having problems getting them to work after checking out all of the above, please tell us if you have any version of Photoshop installed & if so, which one -- this makes a big difference in the install & setup procedure.
• Depending on if you create an extra install location, you may have installed standalone versions of each of the plugins -- these are apps that can you can run like any other app (independently of Affinity Photo or any other graphics app). This can be very useful if you want to apply any of the NIK plugin effects that don't work in AP.

No special permissions need to be set. See MEB's page here for info about which NIK (& other) plugins work with Affinity Photo (which currently is only available for OS X so there is no separate Windows version to be confused about).
 
MEB's post here explains how to set AP's plugin preferences for use with the NIK collection -- but note that the Plug-in Search Folders path will vary depending on if you have Photoshop installed or not.
 
This YouTube video explains how to run the installer & set up the AP preferences. It is for a slightly older version of AP but the important parts are the same.
 
EDIT: More stuff I forgot to mention:
 
• The NIK plugins are destructive so it is a good idea to duplicate the layer before using one of them.
• If you are still having problems getting them to work after checking out all of the above, please tell us if you have any version of Photoshop installed & if so, which one -- this makes a big difference in the install & setup procedure.
• Depending on if you create an extra install location, you may have installed standalone versions of each of the plugins -- these are apps that can you can run like any other app (independently of Affinity Photo or any other graphics app). This can be very useful if you want to apply any of the NIK plugin effects that don't work in AP.

The most current release is Affinity Designer Public Beta - 1.5.0.12 (Windows). It is the Windows counterpart to the Mac version of Affinity Designer. The Windows version of Affinity Photo is still in development & has not yet reached the beta stage.

Opens fine here, too.
 
However it is a tiny file, only 21.1 px x 14.8 px. Drew, have you tried "Zoom to fit" from the View menu? Is it possible you are just at some zoom level that makes it difficult to see it?

Found on the web, white text made more <ahem> impactful with Affinity Photo: