Installing Nik on Affinity Photo

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, Stolzy said:

I'm thinking maybe the NIK collection is not M1 compatible.

Is that a possibility?

That's what we already said at least for the free Google version of NIK2. - Those days Google NIK2 was build (~2016 & Intel CPU based compiled) there wasn't of course any Apple Silicon hardware available, thus it has to be forced to be executed via Rosetta 2 on M1 based hardware.

• Installing Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon Macs

• How to install Rosetta on M1 & M2 Macs

• How to Install Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon Macs

• ... etc.

The above (Rosetta 2) is of course only needed & usable on M1/M2 based Silicon hardware so far!

[Old Bruce]

5 hours ago, Stolzy said:

I'm thinking maybe the NIK collection is not M1 compatible.

Is that a possibility?

Check the NIK website. They should have some information about their products.

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

Check the NIK website. They should have some information about their products.

I've before already posted such a reference link in this thread ...

• Nik Collection compatibility with OSes & third-party software  <-- ***

[walt.farrell]

12 hours ago, Stolzy said:

I'm thinking maybe the NIK collection is not M1 compatible.

Is that a possibility?

The old Google version can't be M1-compatible. You would need to use Rosetta, I believe.

The latest NIK version should be M1-compatible.

[abe.tomas]

On my Monterey Macbook Pro M1/silicon (late 2020), the google NIK 2012 collection suite runs either as plugins in Affinity 1.10.5 or as standalone apps.

• in order to run each of the NIK plugins, Affinity must be set to 'Open using Rosetta' in info screen. (I posted the Affinity screen cap earlier)
• each of the NIK plugins can also be executed standalone and open files (except for Sharpener and Viveza which did not have File options in their menu bars) 

The Mac previously had Big Sur and I upgraded to Monterey.  I did not actually install Rosetta, it seems to have come with the Monterey upgrade. 

[Stolzy]

5 hours ago, abe.tomas said:

On my Monterey Macbook Pro M1/silicon (late 2020), the google NIK 2012 collection suite runs either as plugins in Affinity 1.10.5 or as standalone apps.

• in order to run each of the NIK plugins, Affinity must be set to 'Open using Rosetta' in info screen. (I posted the Affinity screen cap earlier)
• each of the NIK plugins can also be executed standalone and open files (except for Sharpener and Viveza which did not have File options in their menu bars) 

The Mac previously had Big Sur and I upgraded to Monterey.  I did not actually install Rosetta, it seems to have come with the Monterey upgrade.

OK, but I'm not clear on:

Quote

in order to run each of the NIK plugins, Affinity must be set to 'Open using Rosetta' in info screen. (I posted the Affinity screen cap earlier)

Where do I set Affinity Photo to open using Rosetta?

[R C-R]

10 hours ago, Stolzy said:

Where do I set Affinity Photo to open using Rosetta?

Select AP in the Applications folder, then select "Get Info" from the File menu, or use the shortcut for that (CMD+I). That will open the Affinity Photo Info window shown in the previous post.

[Stolzy]

16 hours ago, R C-R said:

Select AP in the Applications folder, then select "Get Info" from the File menu, or use the shortcut for that (CMD+I). That will open the Affinity Photo Info window shown in the previous post.

OK, I have that open, and, as I posted before APh appears to be an 'Intel:64' app so I presumably need Rosetta.  How do i tell APh to open with Rosetta?

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, Stolzy said:

OK, I have that open, and, as I posted before APh appears to be an 'Intel:64' app so I presumably need Rosetta.  How do i tell APh to open with Rosetta?

Please post a screenshot of your open Affinity Photo Info window (the one like the second screenshot by @abe.tomas above) so we can see what it says.

[Raymondo]

Forgive me for saying but this topic seems very protracted. If you have a new MacBook or a fairly up to date one, is that the case?, and you have the recent Affinity Photo version then Version 5 of Nic will work. I know you have said you don’t use it very much and it’s not big part of your workflow so if that’s the case why are you giving yourself so much grief, live without it or buy the version 5 which I know works great with Monterey OS and have a peaceful life. Don’t take this the wrong way, it’s just an observation.

[PaulEC]

29 minutes ago, Raymondo said:

live without it or buy the version 5

I suppose it's a matter of personal choice/circumstances, but there are degrees in everything.

I've been using the old, free, version of the NIK Collection for quite a while. I find it useful and would not like to have to do without it. But I would not want to have to fork out around the same amount (£135) for a single AP plugin, as I paid for the whole set of Affinity apps! If the OP is happy with the version he has been using, I don't see a problem with putting a little effort into finding a way to continue to do so. 😉

[Raymondo]

Well I paid for the NIc plugins when it was owned by Google but later when the software was taken over by DxO I realised I was going to have to shell out again if I wanted the plugin to continue to seemlessly work with Affinity Photo. It was a real bummer but I bit the bullitt... simple as. Sometimes you just have to do that. If your making money from your design work then there is no reason why you should not put a bit aside now and again for future development needs. I learned a long time again that to avoid workflow problems you need to keep your system and software up to date. If on the other hand design is just a hobby then I can understand the reluctance to not want to shell out again and again. And just to clarify, he’s not happy is he hence why he has posted this topic and the advice given is very mixed and doesn’t seem to have resolved his problem. 

[Old Bruce]

10 minutes ago, Raymondo said:

I learned a long time again that to avoid workflow problems you need to keep your system and software up to date.

Excellent advice. I will wager you learned this the hard way and that is why it sticks with you.

[lacerto]

On 7/12/2022 at 2:23 AM, walt.farrell said:

The old Google version can't be M1-compatible. You would need to use Rosetta, I believe.

The latest NIK version should be M1-compatible.

I think that both the old Google version and the latest 5 are Intel-based plug-ins. Photoshop 2022 however can be run in native Apple Silicon mode and still access and communicate with at least version 4 and 5 Nik collection plug-ins (Monterey 12.4). I have not been able to do that from within Affinity Photo (1.10.5), which it seems still needs to be run in Rosetta mode to be able to access Nik Collection plug-ins. 

[v_kyr]

Note that the following overview lists from the DxO support site aren't entirely true, I saw several entries here where they are wrong! - Therefore, the whole lists here should only be understood with reservations!

 

Nik Collection compatibility with other third-party software (Affinity):

 

Nik Collection compatibility with OS X:

 

Nik Collection compatibility with Windows:

 

Nik Collection compatibility with Adobe Photoshop & Photoshop Elements:

...

...

[v_kyr]

12 hours ago, Stolzy said:

OK, I have that open, and, as I posted before APh appears to be an 'Intel:64' app so I presumably need Rosetta.  How do i tell APh to open with Rosetta?

Well, if that info indication (aka:  "APh appears to be an 'Intel:64' app") would be true, then ...

1. You've probably got infos about an older selected APh version (and not the actual APh v1.10.5), so maybe before APh multi architecture (universal) build times, if really just one Intel64 based architecture is detected here.
2. Or some magic way of running lipo removed/stripped out the arm64 architecture out of APh 1.10.5 on your M1 hardware (... as far as this screen really stems from an M1 based Apple hardware system running APh 1.10.5 [?]), which I highly doubt here.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

Well, if that info indication (aka:  "APh appears to be an 'Intel:64' app") would be true, then ...

If @Stolzy would post a screenshot of the open Affinity Photo Info window like I asked for earlier, we should be able to tell if #1 is true...

[lacerto]

On 7/13/2022 at 11:21 PM, v_kyr said:

Note that the following overview lists from the DxO support site aren't entirely true, I saw several entries here where they are wrong! - Therefore, the whole lists here should only be understood with reservations!

Indeed! I just updated to Nik Collection 4.3.5 on Windows 11, and it showed this:

...so in conflict with the table you posted. But then some of the plug-ins, when accessed from within PS CS6 (64-bit), show an error message of having too little RAM (which messages are not shown when running from within PS v 2022). Some of the plug-ins run just fine from within CS6 and produce expected results. It might also be dependent on image size. Perhaps because of this vagueness, it is best to simply just mark PS CS6 as non-compatible. It might be similar with other DxO apps and OS versions, which is of course confusing since on forums users may report a specific version of Nik Collection (or just some specific plug-ins included) compatible based on their personal (limited) experience.

[v_kyr]

23 hours ago, lacerto said:

Indeed!

I can tell that the (Google) NIK Collection 2 works fine under MacOS 10.11.6 (El Capitan) here for me from APh v1.7 on up to the latest APh v1.10.5.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, v_kyr said:

I can tell that the (Google) NIK Collection 2 works fine under MacOS 10.11.6 (El Capitan) here for me from APh v1.7 on up to the latest APh v1.10.5.

Works fine for me on macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina).

[arnim]

had the same problem, affinity v2 nik v3 not working allthough all nik plugins where shown properly in the  affinity preference window. So as suggested I started Affinity v2 with Rosetta and it worked. But here is the cool thing: After that even without Rosetta it is now working!

thank you to the great work of the affinity team and all the moderators, so helpful!

[abe.tomas]

5 hours ago, arnim said:

had the same problem, affinity v2 nik v3 not working allthough all nik plugins where shown properly in the  affinity preference window. So as suggested I started Affinity v2 with Rosetta and it worked. But here is the cool thing: After that even without Rosetta it is now working!

thank you to the great work of the affinity team and all the moderators, so helpful!

I tested, the Nik plugins (google, v2012) would run with Affinity v2 only if Affinity v2 is set to 'Open using Rosetta' in my MacBook M1 on Ventura.

But yes, in my case, Affinity runs natively without Rosetta and I think I just cannot use intel-based plug-ins with it.