Affinity Photo claims exclusive access to .CR3 files

[ourisman]

I am a user of Capture One + Affinity Photo.

I made the mistake of directly importing a .CR3 file from my Canon EOS into Affinity. I say it was a mistake as any new .CR3 file on the computer can only be opened with Affinity Photo and not Capture One, even if I import from the SD card into Capture One.

How can I get Affinity Photo to release its death grip on .CR3 files? If the answer is to wipe Affinity Photo from my computer and never use it again, so be it ... but I hope there's a less drastic solution.

[DWright]

To reassign the file association for your .CR3 file please do the following

On a Mac

1.  Locate a .CR3 file Finder or on your desktop then control + click).

2.  Pick “Get info” from the menu

3.  Expand the “Open with” menu and select Capture One. If the program is not in the pull-down menu, find it in “Other”

4. Hit “Change All…” if you want all files of that type to be associate with that program, not just that single file.

On a PC

1. Click on Notifications in the bottom right hand of the screen

2.. Click on the All Settings tile

3. Click on the Apps tile then click default apps

4. At the bottom of the screen click on Choose default applications by file type

5. Scroll down the list until you find  .CR3 then click on the Capture Affinity Photo icon and from the drop down list select Capture One

6. Close all the open windows

The .CR3 file will now be associated with Capture One

[R C-R]

Hi @ourisman. Welcome to the forums! 

For future reference, as @DWright mentioned what you described as a "death grip" is  just the file association you or your OS (not Affinity nor any other app) assigns to a file type, which determines which app opens the file if you double-click on it.

Both the Mac & Windows operating systems also provide alternate ways of opening a file with another app that can handle that file type, so you are not limited to opening it with the associated app. For example, on Macs you can drop the file on an application icon in the Applications folder or in the Dock, or right-click on the file & choose a different app from the "Open with ..." popup menu item.