Launch apps with Affinity Photo

[MikeFromMesa]

To the best of my knowledge (and after doing a forum search) there is not any way to launch an app from within Affinity Photo (I have version 1) in any native AP way. Being able to do that would solve some problems for me as some of my older plugins (that have not been updated) do not work with AP, but their app versions would work if I could launch them from within AP. This problem probably stems mostly from the fact that I work on a Mac M2 machine, AP is a Universal app and the plugins and external apps are Intel based.

I thought that someone might have figured out a way to do this using scripting so I thought I would ask. Has anyone found any way to launch other apps from within Affinity Photo, version 1 or 2, and use the apps as substitutes for plugins? Some other pixel editors that I have used do this and perhaps I just don't know how to do it with AP.

Thank you for any help.

 

[walt.farrell]

41 minutes ago, MikeFromMesa said:

This problem probably stems mostly from the fact that I work on a Mac M2 machine, AP is a Universal app and the plugins and external apps are Intel based.

As a workaround, have you considered running Photo under Rosetta (or is it Rosetta 2)?

[R C-R]

It's Rosetta 2.

[MikeFromMesa]

5 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

As a workaround, have you considered running Photo under Rosetta (or is it Rosetta 2)?

Yes. I did that before I posted. If I run Photo under Rosetta it will then run some of my plugins, but not others, and those that do run do not run properly. I am not referring to the Nik plugins, which do run properly in Photo.

I had the same issue with another pixel editor (PhotoLine) but it allows the user to run the app version of the plugins and those run properly. I tried to find some way to run the apps under Photo, but can not find anything that works. I have not yet looked into scripting, and thought I would ask if anyone has done that before I spend the time and possibly redo someone else's efforts.

[v_kyr]

51 minutes ago, MikeFromMesa said:

I tried to find some way to run the apps under Photo, but can not find anything that works. I have not yet looked into scripting, and thought I would ask if anyone has done that before I spend the time and possibly redo someone else's efforts.

Well in order to start other third party plugin apps from APh one would have to make use of the Adobe PS C++ API (SDK), also in order to be able to exchange images then from/with both directly. - Thus the following mostly applies here too for APh under Apple Silicon ...

• Photoshop Plugin Support for Apple Silicon; Required Recompile for C++ Plugins

51 minutes ago, MikeFromMesa said:

I have not yet looked into scripting, and thought I would ask if anyone has done that before I spend the time and possibly redo someone else's efforts.

APh v1.x/v2.x don't have and support any scripting capabilities yet. So you would have to exchange data between APh and some stand alone running third party Plugin via other ways (system copy/paste, or via export/import of some by both supported file format ...).

[MikeFromMesa]

For some reason I thought that AP did support scripting, but that was probably just me misremembering some scripting I did years ago with CaptureOne. If AP does not support scripting then I guess the idea of somehow launching apps from it is hopeless, at least now. As for recompiling plugins, if the plugin companies wanted to do that they would already have done so.

I have thought about looking into writing a simple plugin which would then allow the launching of an app, but have not looked at the SDKs so I have no idea how much work is involved, and since none of my software experience was involved with handling and processing photos I guess that means a long and involved learning curve.

The simple solutions seem to be to either use Photoshop (which has an automation feature) or returning to PhotoLine which already contains the ability to launch apps.

Thanks for the post.

[v_kyr]

21 minutes ago, MikeFromMesa said:

For some reason I thought that AP did support scripting, but that was probably just me misremembering some scripting I did years ago with CaptureOne. If AP does not support scripting then I guess the idea of somehow launching apps from it is hopeless, at least now.

No as said it doesn't yet, all it offers so far is a limited Macros facility and some also limited PS C++ plugin SDK support.

24 minutes ago, MikeFromMesa said:

As for recompiling plugins, if the plugin companies wanted to do that they would already have done so.

Probably.

25 minutes ago, MikeFromMesa said:

I have thought about looking into writing a simple plugin which would then allow the launching of an app, but have not looked at the SDKs so I have no idea how much work is involved, and since none of my software experience was involved with handling and processing photos I guess that means a long and involved learning curve.

Well just launching some app wouldn't be much of a problem and simple here, but the respective launched app usually also has to exchange some data (images) with APh and so you also need to know how to transfer data the right way in either direction between them then. So the later exchange operation implies here, that you also have to know some internal working insights about the third party app you want to use here then.

35 minutes ago, MikeFromMesa said:

The simple solutions seem to be to either use Photoshop (which has an automation feature) or returning to PhotoLine which already contains the ability to launch apps.

Both of these (PS and PL) offer scripting capabilities and appropriate related documentation, which APh don't.

[MikeFromMesa]

It probably is not worth the time and effort involved. After all I can just save an image, start the app I want, process the image, save it again and load it into Affinity Photo.

On the other hand I am retired and have lots of time and not all that much interesting to do, so this might be a bit of fun. Or pain. Depending on how things go. 😀

 

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, MikeFromMesa said:

On the other hand I am retired and have lots of time and not all that much interesting to do, so this might be a bit of fun. Or pain. Depending on how things go. 😀

Then you should do so and deal with it, who knows maybe you find some elegant working solution which can be reused then for various such ways.