Integration with Apple Photos

[androg0000@yahoo.com]

I think it would be nice to have integration with Apple Photos. I believe that Apple offers an option for plugins , so perhaps by clicking a plugin icon we  can open the image in Affinity. So, it would be nice to use Apple Photos for importing and navigation and do editing in Affinity. Right now I have to export the files ( not a big deal ) and then work on them. 

 

Initially, I disliked Apple Photos because it seemed to me rudimentary , however recently I have been testing it against other Raw editors including Lightroom ( horrible rendition of color at least for NEF ) and Capture One ( surprisingly Apple Photos handles color almost as good as Capture One, capture One has excellent Shadow and Highlight recover and Clarity filters , other than that I am happy with Apple Photos ) 

[MEB]

Hello androg0000@yahoo.com,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Currently Apple Photos doesn't offer an Edit in external editor functionality to automate this process. So you have to export, edit and import your images manually (at least if you intend to work with RAW). It's possible to access the Photos Library trough the Media Browser (View ▸ Media Browser...) in Affinity Photo, or going to the Media section in the Finder dialog when you open an image in Affinity. Both options import a jpg version of the image, not the original RAW as far as i know.

 

Another way to use Affinity tools in Apple Photos is trough extensions. Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.3.5.7) offer six extensions (Retouch, Miniaturise, Monochrome, Liquify, Develop and Dehaze) to work with. If you decide to install the Beta, just remember to keep the Mac App Store installed since it's required to run it.

[F_WRLCK]

Another way to use Affinity tools in Apple Photos is trough extensions. Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.3.5.7) offer six extensions (Retouch, Miniaturise, Monochrome, Liquify, Develop and Dehaze) to work with. If you decide to install the Beta, just remember to keep the Mac App Store installed since it's required to run the Beta.

 

If I'm working with a RAW photo through the extension, will the extension see RAW, TIFF or JPEG? What does the extension send back to Photos?

[MEB]

Hi F_WRLCK,

Affinity Photo extensions work inside Apple Photos. You don't have control over the formats used for editing, other than switching between JPG or RAW if you have an image from a camera that has saved both formats simultaneously.

[F_WRLCK]

Hi F_WRLCK,

Affinity Photo extensions work inside Apple Photos. You don't have control over the formats used for editing, other than switching between JPG or RAW if you have an image from a camera that has saved both formats simultaneously.

 

Right, but there're a variety of posts in various places on the Internet stating that once a RAW image has been edited with an extension, the RAW is developed into a JPEG and any edits on top of those done by the extension will be done on that JPEG.

 

For example:

1. RAW photo in Photos
2. Edit using the Affinity Photo extension
3. Edit using extension B

 

From your response, it sounds like the Affinity Photo extension in step (2) will be operating on a RAW file, but what does extension 'B' see in step (3)? Will it still be RAW? Will it be some other lossless format? Or is it, as some fear, just a JPEG created from the output of step (2)?

[MEB]

As far as i know yes, seems further adjustments are based on the the edited image (JPG) rather than the original RAW. The exception seems to be TIFF files which are edited directly as TIFFs rather than converted to JPG. I will have to investigate this. It's not clear how Apple Photos is managing this process.