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Affinity Photo--Can I use NIK Software?


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Hi Triniart,

Welcome to Affinity Forums.

Affinity Photo supports Photoshop compatible plug-ins; however, some of them aren't still working correctly.

To check whether a specific plug-in is working take a look at this thread. We are continuously improving this, so keep an eye on it for news.

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  • 4 months later...

Watched the video. Did a complete re-install for the Nik collection for Adobe CC bridge, lightroom and photoshop. Works fine in these apps. Did the plugin folder and forward slash thing in Affinity. Restarted Affinity Photo.

Loaded an image (one layer) and tested the Nik modules. Some of them do work fine now. Others like Viveza give this warning about working on the existing layer. Pressing OK does not crash the system anymore like in my previous attempts, but nothing really happens except for AF Photo adding a 'plugin' step to the history. I give up now.

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FYI - the "Efex" Nik plug-ins (Analog, Color, HDR, Sliver) all work on my machines (2011 MBP Mavericks and 2013 MacPro Yosemite).  The non-Efex plug-ins (Viveza, Sharpener, DFine) do not, causing the error as previously described.

 

kirk

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Hi

 

I have posted a question regarding plugins, but I am also having the same issues after buying 2 licenses for 2 users.

I am very disappointed to say the least. We use Alien Skin 7 and Nik.

It puzzles me that you have released a product that has such weaknesses with regard to PS Plugins.

The least that could have been done is to warn users that plugin support is "very patchy".

 

People will not wait for every though, and I have seen some stating they are returning the product.

 

But saying all this, I think the product deserves a chance, and so will keep the product, but will stay with Adobe CC for now.

 

I think the product is great beside this and I applaud anyone taking on the might of Adobe and kicking them on the shins good and hard.

 

Please hurry with the support!!!!

 

Jay

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I did not test the app further before release, purchased it and... NIK filters still are not possible to use (license is not recognized). So that is STILL the SAME problem. Makes app useless for me regarding photo.

 

I do not use many filters, only Filter Forge and NIK. but these are probably essential to many. 

So what is holding Affinity back making it possible to use them?

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  • 8 months later...

Many people are asking the same question. On their website it says "As we continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile, including Google Photos and Snapseed, we’ve decided to make the Nik Collection desktop suite available for free, so that now anyone can use it" which indicates that they are more interested in developing for mobile vs. the desktop so they are giving it away.

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Getting Nik to work with Affinity is complicated because Affinity recognises only Photoshop plug-ins, but Photoshop plugins only get installed if Photoshop is detected on your computer! I really wish Serif would address this...

Luckily, Nik can be tricked.

1) If you have already installed Nik, uninstall it.
2) Go to you your Applications folder, and create a new folder called 'Photoshop Plugins'.
3) Run the Nik installer
4) When you get to the 'Compatible Host Applications' screen, where you see Aperture or Lightroom or whatever listed as detected applications, you will see a '+' at the bottom of the screen. Click this, and it lists everything in your Applications folder, included the 'Photoshop Plugins' you just made. This should not be greyed out (because it has 'Photoshop' in the name...) so you can click it and add it as a compatible application.
5) Continue to install Nik.
6) Go to Affinity > Preferences > Photoshop Plugins
7) Add you Photoshop Plugins as a search folder
8) Restart Affinity

As the Nik Photoshop plugins should have been installed in your Photoshop Plugins folder, they now be available in the Filters/Plugins menu. Most of them work, but you get some error messages warning that it modifies the active layer instead of creating a new one.

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"This should not be greyed out (because it has 'Photoshop' in the name...)"

 

The folder name does not need to include "Photoshop." I created a folder named "Nik Collection" in my Applications folder, clicked the plus button in the Nik installer, & had no trouble adding that folder to the list of install targets. Running the installer added a "Google" folder & 9 application files (for the 8 stand alone versions of the plugins -- Sharpener Pro 3 installs there as two apps -- & an uninstaller app) to my "Nik Collection" folder.

 

In AP's Photoshop Plugins preference pane, I simply added Applications/Nik Folder to the Plugin Search Folder list, set Plugin Support Folders to Authorize Global (which may not even have been necessary for these plugins) & checked the Allow "Unknown" plugins to be used option. On restart, AP recognized all the plugins without difficulty.

 

Because I still had a no longer used copy of version 9 of Photoshop Elements installed on my system (the oldest one the collection supports), the Nik Installer showed that app as the default plugin install location. Out of curiosity I allowed it to install the plugins for that app as well, to see what would happen. That resulted in the installation of a Google folder at path /Applications/Adobe Photoshop Elements 9/Plug-Ins/ but none of the stand alone apps there & no HDR Efex Pro 2 subfolder, probably because the installer was smart enough to know it won't work with PSE 9.

 

I'm just guessing but I think this is part of the reason MEB suggested in reply #10 of the News forum topic to create a new folder for the plugins if you don't have Photoshop installed. I don't know for certain if it works the same as with PSE 9 but if it does, this will not install the stand alone app versions, all of which seem to be usable with Tiff & JPEG files if you use the control-click "Open with" option in Finder -- otherwise, because the stand alone versions do not have a File menu there is no way to open these files in them. If you use the stand alone versions this way, be aware that the "Save" button immediately overwrites the original file & does not offer any 'Save as' options so it might be a good idea to make backup copies of the originals beforehand.

 

I also noticed that the Nik installer is a bit sneaky, at least on my iMac running OS X 10.11.4, in that even though I do not have Aperture installed it installs yet another Google folder at path /Library/Application Support/Aperture/Plug-Ins/ -- this one with 7 subfolders, one for each of the plugins that work with Aperture 3.1 or later -- but the contents differ considerably from either of the other two Google folders because Aperture can't use plugins written for Photoshop unless they have an entirely different file structure that app recognizes

 

This is a big part of the reason why Serif can't do anything about this on their own -- most Photoshop plugins won't work with any other apps (besides Adobe's) unless they specifically have been designed by their developers to be compatible with them. Since Google, not Serif, owns these plugins, Serif can't rewrite them to work with Affinity.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Many people are asking the same question. On their website it says "As we continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile, including Google Photos and Snapseed, we’ve decided to make the Nik Collection desktop suite available for free, so that now anyone can use it" which indicates that they are more interested in developing for mobile vs. the desktop so they are giving it away.

 

Thank you!  I hope Affinity never ever think that thought! 

 

Most likely it´s Abandonware  now.

Thanks. Yes I think so too.

- Affinity Photo 2.3.0
- Affinity Designer 2.3.0
-Affinity Publisher 2.3.0

 

MacBook Pro 16 GB
MacOS Sonoma 14.1.2

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  • 8 months later...

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