Apple Photos linking issues

[JayTealia]

Currently using Affinity Designer on both my Mac & iPad to create a photo book. I really like that I can choose photos right out of the Apple Photos app (for both devices) instead of exporting them out. 

However, I have already had to locate "missing" images twice on my Mac app. This is only occurring with photos that I import from Apple Photos. Other design elements that I import from iCloud Drive doesn't seem to have this problem. 

Opening the same file in my iPad would also prompt the missing resource issue with photos from Apple photos. However, when I try to locate them, the file window doesn't have the option for me to choose from the Apple photos app (as iCloud Photos cannot be accessed from the iPad files app). 

Hope my question makes sense. Do help a desperate girl out, really liking Designer so far but it's frustrating at times. 

[Dan C]

Hi @JayTealia,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums & thanks for your post!

I can confirm that when 'Linking' images from Apple Photos, the Affinity app uses a temporary location on your Mac to link the physical files.

This means when restarting your device, or transferring the document to your iPad, this link is lost as the temporary location is not present (either it has been removed in the restart, or was not present to begin with).

I've tested this further here and logged a few issues with our development team;

• When linking to an Apple Photos image, this should not use a temporary location, retaining the link between restarts on the same device
• When relinking a missing resource on the iPad, Apple Photos should be offered as an option
• When linking to an Apple Photos, image links should be created similar to iCloud/Dropbox links, retaining the link between devices (where possible)

I hope this helps

[JayTealia]

Hey Dan! 
Thanks for confirming that my issues were valid and its not just cause I am a total newbie being quite dumb tbh. 
Just for clarification, does this mean that these issues currently can’t be solved before the development team fixes it? 
Also, just an add-on question, currently as the ipad is unable to locate the photos from the app, can I still work on the file (particularly tools that require the apple pencil) whilest ignoring the ‘’missing resources’. Do you anticipate there being any issues? 

[Dan C]

No problem at all, happy to help!

16 hours ago, JayTealia said:

Just for clarification, does this mean that these issues currently can’t be solved before the development team fixes it? 

Unfortunately this will require an update from our developers to change the current behaviour - you might want to consider using embedded resources in the meantime to ensure your images are always present in the Affinity document, though I do appreciate this will increase the Affinity documents size.

16 hours ago, JayTealia said:

Also, just an add-on question, currently as the ipad is unable to locate the photos from the app, can I still work on the file (particularly tools that require the apple pencil) whilest ignoring the ‘’missing resources’. Do you anticipate there being any issues? 

There should be no issues at all with this, with a 'missing resource' the app will continue to display a previously cached 'thumbnail' version of the image, rather than the full image itself.

Provided you don't need to edit that 'missing' image on the iPad, you should be fine to perform your tools/functions using the Apple Pencil, then return the document to the desktop to re-link these images before exporting - otherwise the exported version of the document will also only include this 'thumbnail' version of the missing resource.

I hope this clears things up