Affinity - does not read or understand native Photoplus .spp files

[clicker]

I have had a long standing problem with PhotoPlus x8 (or indeed, previous versions) crashing when attempting to export as a PSD file, with layers. Today, I spent some time adding layers to a photographer's job which arrived as an Adobe original PSD which x8 quite happily opened.

 

I forgot until far too late that most likely (true) that I would not be able to export it as PSD, and after examining the other export file formats drew the conclusion I'd wasted a morning, would have buy PS, which I did not want to do. I saved the job in PhotoPlus in the native Serif .spp format just in case I could rescue the situation.

 

Great! An email arrived from Serif thanking me for buying Affinity Designer. I'd forgotten about that. Let's see if it can open a Serif .spp file. No it can't, but I took up the invitation to download the beta of Affinity Photo which I installed. Great, I thought, I can remain a loyal Serif customer (after about 20 years).

 

But would you believe it? You couldn't make this up. It would seem that Affinity Photo does not recognise Serif's own .spp photo file format. That's right. The new Affinity product designed as an upgrade route for those of us using Serif PhotoPlus for years - years - with extensive archives in the native .spp format are cast adrift. Serif obviously just doesn't care about us. I cannot believe this. :angry:

 

As i said, you couldn't make this up. Or have I missed a trick?

[Patrick Connor]

clicker,

 

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums :)

 

Serif PhotoPlus and Affinity Photo are different programs and do not share any code. Affinity Photo is not designed as an upgrade from PhotoPlus, it's a new application aimed at the photographer. We have not added the ability to load PhotoPlus files, because if we did every feature that is saved in the files would need to be read and interpreted in exactly the same way, meaning that Affinity Photo would have to support every saved feature of PhotoPlus. This is not currently possible, sorry.

 

We recommend that you continue to use PhotoPlus for your existing projects and for the tasks that PhotoPlus is best suited for, and that you use Affinity Photo for new projects that suit Photo's features.

 

If you still want to get some work from one program to the other, we would suggest that in you export as a PSD file (or try TIFF or PNG) and open that file in Affinity Photo/PhotoPlus as needed.

[clicker]

That's fine Patrick as far as it goes. But what about my situation? It's been an issue with PhotoPlus certainly going back some versions (I think I've had them all) - and your tech support confirmed this today too -  that the PSD export routine from PhotoPlus has been a source of trouble for a long time.

 

So today, classic example. Opened a job that was authored in original PS, add two layers in X8, attempt to export and it immediately crashes with the 'report fault to Serif' paste box. 

 

Unless you have another export file format with layers, I'm stuffed.

 

If you can interpret original PS PSD files into Affinity, and by implication (untested) write them, what's so unique or difficult about processing your very own .spp files, about which you control the format and must know everything there is to know about.

 

I truly don't understand this business decision. 

[Patrick Connor]

We don't have a 1:1 mapping of PhotoPlus features to Affinity Photo features. We would like the new product to be good for your new projects, but it is not designed to do the job that you need, sorry.

[jorismak]

Not knowing photoplus ,isn't export to tiff with layers not an option ? It would mean everything gets rendered down to rasterized pixels but you would have the layers.

 

I don't know if photoplus supports layered tiff files. If not, I doubt their still putting much effort into it.

 

 

Reading from the forum they should put a massive 'Affinity Photo is not an PhotoPlus upgrade' on the Affinity website :)

[PaulAffinity]

I am confused.

 

OP Clicker;

 

Given AP was developed on MAC first it is your assumption that it a PP upgrade. That has never been mentioned by Serif and no migration tools were issued with MAC AP..

 

You still have Photo plus so you can use and open SPP files as previously. Lost nothing.

You NOW have AP which will open PS PSDs and can save in a variety of formats (but not SPP). Gained much.

By my count whether AP opens SPPs or not you have gained. I accept it is a compromise, however you always have ADOBE...at a considerably greater cost.

 

Cheers, P

[SrPx]

The dozens of software way more expensive -way- that I have purchased and been abandoned totally. You could not even purchase or download anymore, due to company bankrupt or simple change of company direction ! Nendo, Deep Paint 3D (ouch, costed me quite some money), XSI Foundation 4, Amorphium 1 (sigh...precursor of Zbrush.. from other company. I liked it). No legacy converters support, no nothing. Not even purchasable any more, from one day to the other. And those were way more expensive. Even a 3d Studio user can get stuck with some older .max files not opened well anymore in newer versions, after some version numbers go...