How can I temporarily uninstall Affinity Photo?

[Rich]

I need to temporarily un-install AP. It is conflicting with the installation of another application that I need for work. Some of the new app's plug-in files are being labeled as Affinity Photo files by error.

 

Does anyone know how to un-install Affinity Photo. Can't find the info anywhere. There is not even an Affinity Support Dept. to contact. Weird. Thanks.

[R C-R]

You can uninstall either Affinity app by dragging it to the trash from the Applications folder & emptying it. However, if all you want to do is associate certain kinds of document files with a different app you can do that by locating one of these files in Finder, using CMD+i to open the 'get info' window, & in the "Open with" section, change the app associated with it to the other one. After doing that, the "Change all" button becomes active & by clicking it & confirming, you can set all document files with that file type extension to open with the other app.

 

Note that you can always right click on any document file in Finder & from the popup menu that appears, choose any of the apps listed in the "Open with" fly-out to open it in that app. You can also drag a document onto the app icon (either in Finder or in the Dock if you have put the app there) & it will open in that app. Obviously, this works only if the app has declared to the OS that it can open that kind of document.

[Fixx]

Better correct that configuration problem, it may appear in other forms too. AP should not cause anything like that in itself.

[Rich]

You can uninstall either Affinity app by dragging it to the trash from the Applications folder & emptying it. However, if all you want to do is associate certain kinds of document files with a different app you can do that by locating one of these files in Finder, using CMD+i to open the 'get info' window, & in the "Open with" section, change the app associated with it to the other one. After doing that, the "Change all" button becomes active & by clicking it & confirming, you can set all document files with that file type extension to open with the other app.

 

Note that you can always right click on any document file in Finder & from the popup menu that appears, choose any of the apps listed in the "Open with" fly-out to open it in that app. You can also drag a document onto the app icon (either in Finder or in the Dock if you have put the app there) & it will open in that app. Obviously, this works only if the app has declared to the OS that it can open that kind of document.

Thanks RC-R. I will try to re-associate the installed files first, as you suggest.

 

These files are not document files, but instead proprietary image files (.lfp) that can be edited in the Knoll Light Factory app., a plug-in for Photoshop. Even though the .lfp files show up in PS's plug-ins folder, they are tagged as "Affinity Openable" files w. Affinity icon and will not open in PS (click on attachment).

[R C-R]

If these files can be edited directly in the Knoll Light Factory app, then I think re-associating them with it should work. However, I was puzzled why .lfp files should be associated with Affinity to begin with so I dug a little deeper & discovered something that might be (marginally) relevant:

 

Mac apps declare the file types they can open in their info.plist files -- for Designer this is at path /Applications/Affinity Designer.app/Contents/Info.plist & for Photo at /Applications/Affinity Photo.app/Contents/Info.plist. Sure enough, each has a "CFBundleTypeExtensions" key declaring they can open lfp files. That made no sense to me until I found a reference on the web for .lfp as the RAW format extension used by Lytro "Light Film" cameras.

 

I have no idea if Affinity can actually open these RAW files* but on the (very!) off chance that it can and you have any of them, changing the association of the extension to the Knoll (or any other) app would mean you would have to use the drag & drop or control-click context menu method to open them in Affinity Photo. i can't imagine Designer ever having this capability since it is not a RAW developer, so it probably qualifies as a (very) minor bug that there is a "CFBundleTypeExtensions" key in its info.plist file.

 

Just something to be aware of.

 

EDIT: I found a site where sample Lytro .lfp files can be downloaded. Neither Affinity Photo nor (no surprise) Designer can open the one I tried -- both generate an unsupported file type error, so I think it is wrong for the file extension to be included in the info.plist file. I will report this is in the Bugs section & see what the staff has to say about that.

Edited February 1, 2017 by R C-R

[Rich]

If these files can be edited directly in the Knoll Light Factory app, then I think re-associating them with it should work. However, I was puzzled why .lfp files should be associated with Affinity to begin with so I dug a little deeper & discovered something that might be (marginally) relevant:

 

Mac apps declare the file types they can open in their info.plist files -- for Designer this is at path /Applications/Affinity Designer.app/Contents/Info.plist & for Photo at /Applications/Affinity Photo.app/Contents/Info.plist. Sure enough, each has a "CFBundleTypeExtensions" key declaring they can open lfp files. That made no sense to me until I found a reference on the web for .lfp as the RAW format extension used by Lytro "Light Film" cameras.

 

I have no idea if Affinity can actually open these RAW files* but on the (very!) off chance that it can and you have any of them, changing the association of the extension to the Knoll (or any other) app would mean you would have to use the drag & drop or control-click context menu method to open them in Affinity Photo. i can't imagine Designer ever having this capability since it is not a RAW developer, so it probably qualifies as a (very) minor bug that there is a "CFBundleTypeExtensions" key in its info.plist file.

 

Just something to be aware of.

 

EDIT: I found a site where sample Lytro .lfp files can be downloaded. Neither Affinity Photo nor (no surprise) Designer can open the one I tried -- both generate an unsupported file type error, so I think it is wrong for the file extension to be included in the info.plist file. I will report this is in the Bugs section & see what the staff has to say about that.

 

Interesting. But how do you see the contents of the Affinity Photo app. folder? On my system Affinity Photo is just listed as an app in my Applications folder, no Contents/Info.plist to see. Thanks.

[A_B_C]

Ctrl + click on “Affinity Photo.app” in Finder and select “Show Package Contents,” in case you are interested … :)

[Rich]

Ctrl + click on “Affinity Photo.app” in Finder and select “Show package contents” …  :)

OK, I had just figured it out when you replied. Thanks.

 

So, do you think I could delete the line, "<string>lfp</string>" and it would keep AP from being assigned those .ifp files?

[A_B_C]

Hmm … honestly, I would rather wait until the developers have submitted an anwer to R C-R’s report …  :)

 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/35019-ap-ad-file-extension-lfp-should-not-be-in-infoplist-files/

 

I am a bit cautious by nature …  ;)

[R C-R]

In Finder, control click on the app in the Applications folder & choose "Show Package Contents" from the popup menu. In OS X, packages are really folders that the Finder normally treats as if they are a single file. There is a good reason for this: in general you should never change anything in an application package unless you know exactly how that will affect the app. You should never do this when the app is open, or if you do not have a backup or don't mind reinstalling the app if something unexpected goes wrong.

 

In particular, editing property (plist) files can be tricky because they often have complex hierarchies of key/value pairs which can include dictionaries & arrays -- sort of like the layer hierarchy in Affinity but considerably more convoluted.

 

EDIT: While I was composing the above you asked, "So, do you think I could delete the line, "<string>lfp</string>" and it would keep AP from being assigned those .ifp files?"

 

At a minimum, I think you would need to delete both the <key> & the <string> entries -- they form a pair, sort of like a subject & predicate in a sentence. But I do not recommend doing this, particularly if associating your lfp files with the Knoll app makes that unnecessary.

[Rich]

In Finder, control click on the app in the Applications folder & choose "Show Package Contents" from the popup menu. In OS X, packages are really folders that the Finder normally treats as if they are a single file. There is a good reason for this: in general you should never change anything in an application package unless you know exactly how that will affect the app. You should never do this when the app is open, or if you do not have a backup or don't mind reinstalling the app if something unexpected goes wrong.

 

In particular, editing property (plist) files can be tricky because they often have complex hierarchies of key/value pairs which can include dictionaries & arrays -- sort of like the layer hierarchy in Affinity but considerably more convoluted.

Well, it looks like I have no other option than a complete un-install of AP.

 

I tried re-associating these .lfp files to the Knoll Light Factory plug-in, but the plug-in was not an option for assignment. So I tried assigning the file type to photoshop, but that still did not work, the plug-in could not open the files.

 

I hope that I will be able to re-install AP once this niggle is sorted out. Thanks for reporting it to the developers.

[R C-R]

I would not expect the extension to be able to be associated with a plug-in, only with an application. I tried to make that distinction clear but I see I probably did not do a good job of it.

 

I did a brief & not very thorough search on the Knoll software & from what little I found, current versions do not support editing (possibly as opposed to using) the plugins in Photoshop. If this is true, then the filetype association won't matter because these files are not meant to be opened directly by double-clicking on them, only indirectly from the app(s) that support the plug-in.

 

Before uninstalling Affinity it may be worth checking on that -- there is not much I can do without having the software on my own system to test with besides a web search.

[Fixx]

Shouldn't Photoshop/Knoll be able to open lfp even when association is wrong? That is. when you open from PS using open or import or acquire dialog, not in OS side with open or double click. File type association should not matter then.

[Rich]

Shouldn't Photoshop/Knoll be able to open lfp even when association is wrong? That is. when you open from PS using open or import or acquire dialog, not in OS side with open or double click. File type association should not matter then.

I tested this and you are correct. The problem is on the KLF side and that has been sorted out w. the folks at Red Giant.

 

So, this situation w. AP having support for .lfp files is more of a mystery than any problem it has with other apps.. Thanks.