Opening another editor from Affinity?

[Howard Worf]

I have done a search, but as usual I probably haven't framed my question in quite the right terms to find an answer. So here it is: is it possible to 'call' another application fro inside Affinity Photo - along the lines of the automate function in photoshop? I am thinking now specifically of calling Gigapixel, On1 and DarkTable (have you seen how amazing that is for colour grading? I digress). At the moment I am having to exit Affinity completely to use any of the external editors I like to use, it would be very useful if I didn't have to.

[v_kyr]

52 minutes ago, Howard Worf said:

So here it is: is it possible to 'call' another application fro inside Affinity Photo - along the lines of the automate function in photoshop?

Not sure what you mean with PS automate functions (?), since APh doesn't support or have any such scripting capabilities. Also their support of the PS API (programming SDK) is limited, proprietary and sadly absolutely undocumented. - Thus you usually can only take the common OS based Clipboard tour (copy/paste), or certain OS share/exchange services, in order to open and exchange image data here with other third party apps.

 

[Howard Worf]

I hope I can clarify a little. Affinity understands x64.8bf plugins, all of the ones I have work. Gigapixel, however, uses an x64.8li file as well as two x64.8bfs, which are 'gather; and 'apply', neither of which appear in the plugins list in Affinity even though they are in the same plugins folder as everything else. DarkTable is a mystery, although I am investigating that. I was in error in my original post, On1 modules can be called from Affinity.

[Dan C]

Hi @Howard Worf 

On 12/9/2020 at 8:40 AM, Howard Worf said:

along the lines of the automate function in photoshop?

Unfortunately Affinity Photo doesn't support any type of automation functionality outside of the supported Plugins, my apologies.

This is something that's heavily requested on the forums and is a feature our developers are hoping to add in the future - although I can provide no timescale currently.

I don't believe that Affinity supports x64.8li plugins, as these usually require Photoshop specific panels that aren't available in Affinity Photo.

I hope this clears things up!

[Howard Worf]

Thanks very much - obviously it is possible to work around the issue by exporting and opening the stand alone apps, then exporting things back. It's clearly not going to be possible to integrate the 8li functions, but I would imagine simply starting another application might be somewhat more achievable.