HEIC support

[Chris Elliott]

When will Affinity Photo 2 support the HEIC file format? This is now standard on iPhones and other Apple hardware, and via software updates applies at least as far back as iPhone 8. Currently, any photos I take with my iPhone I can't convert to JPEG or PNG, except by using other third party software or on-line utilities. HEIC is meant to provide a superior balance of image quality and compression, so I don't want to change the settings on my phone to use JPEG. Hopefully, this issue will be addressed soon in an update.

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

Photo 2 already supports HEIC. There is a problem, though, with handling such images created in iOS 18 which was recently logged as bug AF-4369 and is not yet fixed.

 

[Chris Elliott]

Thanks for the swift reply. Just checked on my phone, and it is up to date, on iOS 15.8.3, but I still get the message on Affinity Photo that the file type is not supported. Is this a bug which has already been logged?

[R C-R]

Can you upload one of your HEIC files from your phone so we can see if we get the same not supported message? FWIW I downloaded sample1.heic from here & it opened without issues on my iMac.

[Chris Elliott]

Hmm. Interesting. I downloaded sample1.heic, the photo of the shingle roofed wooden pavilion by the lake in autumn, and it opened fine in Windows Photo, and in Affinity Photo 2. Here's the file that I wanted to convert. I try opening it in either Windows Photo or affinity, and get the error message in the screenshot. I'm trying to open it on a PC running Windows 11 Home, and the photo was taken on an iPhone 8, iOS 15.8.3.

IMG_0615.HEIC

[Ldina]

I got the same error message with IMG_0615.HEIC in APhoto, XnViewMP and Mac Preview. Maybe something wrong with that file?

[R C-R]

14 minutes ago, Ldina said:

I got the same error message with IMG_0615.HEIC in APhoto, XnViewMP and Mac Preview. Maybe something wrong with that file?

Same for me in all 3 apps, so it seems likely that the problem is with that file ... or somehow with how the OP is getting these files from the iPhone into the Mac.

[David in Яuislip]

Using a hex editor, the file is full of zeroes

[Chris Elliott]

I've just tried copying the file across again, and guess what? Windows shows a thumbnail in Explorer, and it opens in Photo. My mistake was assuming that because the iPhone and Windows said the phone was connected as an external drive, I assumed that it would work like any other attached storage device. Basically, if you do anything other than a straight copy across, it screws up. Who could know? Windows and Apple devices not communicating seamlessly.

Thanks to everyone who has commented on this issue. At some point I would probably have considered the possibility that the file was corrupt, but it really helped to have people say it wasn't working for them, and then the slam dunk of a hex editor saying the file was full of zip, bobkes, nada, nothing, a string of big fat zeros. The community stepping up, and I am grateful to it. As far as I am concerned, you can stamp this one as closed.