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Accessing photos in iMac "PHOTO"


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I have just bought this iMac -- it is the 27" screen version -- top of the line -- and I have a 500GB external drive where I keep the photos in my IPHOTO Library...... When I open Affinity and attempt to access these files I cannot get to them.  Also -- I have taken some out of the Library and exported them to the desktop to work on them.  After doing what I wanted as far as manipulating the photos (just practicing now on this 10-day trial)  I attempted to save them.  I could only save them to the desktop -- did not see any other "location" to save them to.  When I did save them they appear on my desktop not as thumbnails -- but as the Affinity Icon.  I am a newbie at this Affinity program but have worked for years with Photoshop and I feel that Affinity is very, very complex . . . . unnecessarily so.  Any feedback would be appreciated . . . . Thank you.2013Yellowstone Modified.afphoto

 

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Well, here some answers: 

1. If you want to open files from your iPhoto library, you have two options. Either you open the menu "view/media browser", or you open the menu "File/open" and then you navigate in the left bar to the item "Photos", here you have access to your photo software. 

2. If you want to export files from iPhoto, you can drag and drop them from iPhoto to somewhere. When you use the "export" function, you can select the folder of your choice, and you are not limited to the desktop. If you have no other choice than the Desktop, click the little arrow on the right hand side of the file name. This opens the complete file dialog. 

3. If you want to save the resulting pictures form Affinity Photo, you should select "file/export". This results in picture files of your choice. The Affinity icon you get when you save the Affinity project file. This is similar to the psd file you get from Photoshop. 

 

Did this help you?

Best regards

 

BlauerClaus

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menu: view=>media browser

 

this should give you access to your iphoto library.

since i don't use this feature, i don't know how it works in detail, whether exporting an edited image will save it into iphoto library again. i am quite sure that an edited image has to be exported, not saved, since iphoto does not handle ap's proprietary file format.

 

i do see all .afphoto files as thumbnails in the finder. strangely enough, it took some time before it started working, and i suspect that the finder started showing them as thumbnails when i copied a number of .afphoto fils from une folder to another. this does not make sense, i know.

take care,

stefano

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Hi,

 

There's a difference in Affinity Photo between saving and exporting.

 
Suppose you launch Affinity Photo and use it to Open a picture using the file browser dialog, (which also displays the Apple media browser of images within Apple Photos - and iPhoto if you're still using it). 
 
When you edit the image (say a file called Pic1.jpg) using Affinity Photo, and then Save or Save As... it will save an Affinity-only version of the file called Pic1.afphoto, which retains all the extra information about non-destructive editing changes, adjustments, layers, saved selections, clipping masks etc etc etc. This file can only be opened and viewed using Affinity Photo, and the adjustments will still be accessible.
 
But if you want to use the edited image for another purpose (email, graphics program, web, iPhoto, Apple Photos...) then you have to Export it from Affinity Photo in a more generic format such as .jpg, .tiff, .png. Exported files can be viewed, opened and edited on Macs and PCs using standard software and imported into Apple Photos and iPhoto.
 
When you export the image, your original Pic1.jpg stays where it was when you opened it and remains unchanged. This is why opening and editing a picture using Affinity Photo via the Apple media browser doesn't update the original in Apple Photos. You can't do a "round trip", as it's sometimes called.
 
It doesn't matter where you keep your iPhoto or Apple Photos library, or how big your external hard disk is - the same principles apply:
 
If you want get an edited version of the picture into Apple Photos, or iPhoto, then you Open, edit and Export using Affinity Photo. This gives you a flattened copy (.jpg, .tiff, png...), in the folder of your choice, that you can then Import into Apple Photos or iPhoto, or send in an email, or upload to a web server.
 
Photoshop can save and edit in different formats. But even in Photoshop, if you try to save a document with layers, clipping masks, vector objects etc as a .jpg or .eps, you will still be forced to save it as a flattened copy, which is the same principle as Affinity Photo's Export.
 
Cheers,
 
H_D

Affinity Photo 2.0.3,  Affinity Designer 2.0.3, Affinity Publisher 2.0.3, Mac OSX 13, 2018 MacBook Pro 15" Intel.

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See the topic Can't import pictures in this forum for some tips on accessing your iPhoto library from within Affinity. Note that iPhoto is no longer being developed by Apple. The replacement for it is just called "Photos" & comes with all new Macs. When you open the Photos application for the first time, it will ask you to locate you iPhoto library & migrate your photos to it. You may want to search the web on "Apple Photos" or the like because it works somewhat differently from iPhoto & not everyone is happy about that.

 

As for the icons, every Finder window has View Options (accessible from the View menu or with the command + J keyboard shortcut), one of which is to show icon previews. (This is an OS X, not Affinity, feature.) Enable that & you will see thumbnail previews of your Affinity documents. Photoshop has an option to embed Mac or Windows thumbnails in saved documents. OS X will use them if they are present but they are not needed if you work only with OS X & make saved files a bit larger.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.2 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Sorry -- but I did not give you all the correct info . . . . . . My library is "Photo" -- new Mac my old Mac had iPhoto --- as you can see I am a bit confused.  Sorry 'bout that . . . . . Thank you all for your input -- I will continue banging my head against the wall until it finally sinks in.  Did a little too much "screen staring" for today -- so I am gonna give it a rest.  Thanks again. - Bob

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