How to install plugin in Affinity Photo 2

[Sreng Pagna]

I watch tutorials on how to install plugin in Affinity Photo 2. I followed their steps. However, after finishing the tutorials, the plugin did not show up in filters > plugins at all. I tried restarting the software, tried 2 different plugin following the tutorials, but I don't see any plugins appear in filters > plugins at all. Please help tell me what could be the problem. Thank for your help. 

[walt.farrell]

What OS do you use?

What kind of plug-ins are you trying to install? For example, on Windows, only plug-ins of filetype .8bf will work.

Can you show us a screenshot of your Photo Settings, Photoshop Plugins?

[John Rostron]

There are two ways of doing this.

Either: Locate the default plugin folder. You can find this from the Photoshop Plugins box. Copy your plugin to this folder.

Or: In the Photoshop Plugins box, Click on Add, then navigate to the installation folder for your  plugin and select the folder where the plugin resides.

Have you done either of these?

John

[Sreng Pagna]

@walt.farrell I use Window 11. The screenshot is provided here. Inside plugin folder, I don't see any (*).8bf.

@John Rostron I have done both of them. Thank you. ❤️

Edited January 21 by Sreng Pagna
Add extra explaination

[walt.farrell]

7 hours ago, Sreng Pagna said:

Inside plugin folder, I don't see any (*).8bf.

Then those plugins do not work with Affinity Photo. 

And from the name of the plugins folder, I can see that the function they provide is not one that plugins can perform in Photo.

[Sreng Pagna]

@walt.farrell Do you have any link to plugins that works with affinity photo so that I can try and learn how to install plugins? I am really new to this.

[Affinityconfusesme]

@Sreng Pagna https://www.on1.com/products/effects/

this is free till the end of the month.

[Sreng Pagna]

@tzvi20 Thank you.

[DWright]

If you use the EXE version of Affinity Photo most recent plugins liken ON!, Topaz and Nik Collection will automatically detect Photo and add the plugin within the app when the plugin is installed.

[Sreng Pagna]

I installed it, and it worked like separated program. When I went to Photoshop plugins in Affinity Photo preference, there was not plugin detected. 

[walt.farrell]

53 minutes ago, Sreng Pagna said:

I installed it, and it worked like separated program. When I went to Photoshop plugins in Affinity Photo preference, there was not plugin detected. 

What did you install?

[Sreng Pagna]

@walt.farrell This one, https://www.on1.com/products/effects/, following the comment above.

[Dave.Kelly]

I have installed this with no issues. This was on V1 Affinity photo.Did Sreng pagna have the option "allow unknown plugins" ticked?

[Dave.Kelly]

Another thought, Is V1 still installed? And is the plugin installed there?

[MEB]

8 hours ago, Sreng Pagna said:

This one, https://www.on1.com/products/effects/, following the comment above.

Hi @Sreng Pagna,
Regarding On1 Effects, do the following:

1. Open Affinity Photo, go to Settings, Photoshop plugins then in the Plugin Search Folder click Add and browse/add the following folder/path:
C:\Program Files\ON1\ON1 Effects 2023

2. Make sure Allow "Unknown" plugins to be used is ticked then restart Affinity Photo.

3. Check if the plugin is now detected/available in Affinity Photo.

[Dave.Kelly]

From On1 forum

My first thought is that the installer doesn't recognize the newer version of Affinity Photo so it couldn't install the plug-ins. It was looking for V1 and couldn't find it. Just a guess. If you go to the ON1 Effects 2023 folder you'll see a Plug-in Files folder and in it are the actual plug-in files. You should be able to install it manually by putting a COPY of the correct on into the proper AP plug-ins folder. NOTE: This doesn't mean it will work. You'll have to try it and see.

[MEB]

Hi @Dave.Kelly,
There's no need to copy the plugin file(s) to another place (nor recommended as there may be dependencies/config files etc it may then not find). Just pointing Affinity to On1 Effects folder is enough.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, MEB said:

Hi @Dave.Kelly,
There's no need to copy the plugin file(s) to another place (nor recommended as there may be dependencies/config files etc it may then not find). Just pointing Affinity to On1 Effects folder is enough.

FWIW, this did not work for me in V2 on my Mac until I copied the ON1 Effects 2023.plugin file into the AP 2 defaults plugin folder. I tried various combinations for the plugins support folder & everything else I could think of but the ON 1 Effects 2023 plugin would not appear as detected until I copied it to the default folder.

Maybe I'm doing something wong but I can't figure out what it might be.

 

[Affinityconfusesme]

Hi @Sreng Pagna This should get you started.

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/6809-google-nik-collection.html

[MEB]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

FWIW, this did not work for me in V2 on my Mac until I copied the ON1 Effects 2023.plugin file into the AP 2 defaults plugin folder. I tried various combinations for the plugins support folder & everything else I could think of but the ON 1 Effects 2023 plugin would not appear as detected until I copied it to the default folder.

Maybe I'm doing something wong but I can't figure out what it might be.

 

No need to copy anything R C-R. See video below:
   

 

[R C-R]

11 minutes ago, MEB said:

No need to copy anything R-C R. See video below:

Like I said, it did not work for me until I copied the plugin to the default folder. This was even though the installer said it had detected AP 2, it was not listed among the Detected Plugins afte restarting AP 2, & nothing related to it was added to the Plugin Search Folders list, if that was supposed to happen automatically. It only appeared after copying it to the default folder & restarting.

Moreover, if I temporarily changed the plugin's extension in the copied default folder's version to something else so it would not be detected there, when I relaunched AP 2, as before it was not detected.

I also noticed in your video that you had a beta version open & that the Plugin Support Folder list had nothing in it, not even the usual forward slash. I do not know if that makes a difference, only that for me it only works if copied to the default folder.

[MEB]

R C-R,
Yes there's a few issues with the plugin installation - despite detecting Affinity Photo as a host, the installer doesn't place anything in the Default folder both on macOS and Windows - thus the need to point the Plugin Search Folders to the On1 Effects folder manually. In your case I would try to remove the plugin file from the default folder and change the Plugin Search Folder path to /Applications/ON1 Effects 2023 only (remove the rest of the path). 

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, MEB said:

In your case I would try to remove the plugin file from the default folder and change the Plugin Search Folder path to /Applications/ON1 Effects 2023.

OK, that worked, but it obviously does not work without adding /Applications/ON1 Effects 2023 to the Plugin Search Folders list manually, despite what the ON1 web site says about it automatically being detected.

BTW, I had to do the same for it to appear in the 2.4 beta.

[jmwellborn]

I struggled and struggled because the plugin kept trying to use Photo V1 and even then it said "file type not supported."  But I did open the app as a standalone, and fiddled around with it a bit.  As far as I am concerned, Affinity Photo is hands down far, far nicer to use, has so many more possibilities, and allows one to be infinitely more creative.  We just have to discover and learn all its possibilities.

After a few minutes, I used the handy uninstall folder that ON1 provides, and confined the whole thing to the trash.

Just me.  

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

As far as I am concerned, Affinity Photo is hands down far, far nicer to use, has so many more possibilities, and allows one to be infinitely more creative.

But the ON1 Effects app and/or plugin can do quite a bit that is either difficult or impossible to do in AP.

That said, the ON UI seems far less user friendly than the AP one.