Affinity taking over

[Nifty]

HI good people... I've been having a problem for a few weeks, every time I import photos from my camera to a folder on my Mac all the photos automatically have the Affinity designation on all photos,, i'm unable to open any raw files( or JPG} in Lightroom, Lightroom tells me I don't have any photos and also that Affinity is an unknown developer.. This has only just started happening recently, but right from the installation of Affinity the programme took over my computer and any photo i opened to do some editing on was immediately opened in Affinity.. This is causing a huge problem, I enjoy Affinity but i also enjoy L/R and P/S. An hour ago, after being on the phone with Apple Care assistance for over an hour the problem was unsolved.. I bought Affinity from Affinity. Com and only yesterday, after weeks of use I found Affinity is in the Ap store.. Jeeeeezzz.. Any sensible help or suggestions are appreciated,  Thank you.. Neville... P.S. If i'm unable to get this problem solved it means I've just wasted the money i paid for the programme... I noticed that in the App. store there is no price indicated on Affinity App. Very strange when I had already paid for the programme on a Web site... 

 

[toltec]

19 minutes ago, Nifty said:

HI good people... I've been having a problem for a few weeks, every time I import photos from my camera to a folder on my Mac all the photos automatically have the Affinity designation on all photos,,

 

You probably just need to change the default app for the files you want.

Open up Finder, navigate to a file in question (like a JPEG) and right-click it to bring up the Contextual menu. Select Get Info and then from the box that appears, part way down you'll find the heading Open with.

Set that to whatever you want to open the files in question, presumably Lightroom.

Hopefully, that should do it.

[R C-R]

Affinity did not "take over" your Mac. As @toltec mentioned, a feature Apple (not Affinity or any other developer) built into the Mac OS is to automatically assign a default app to each kind of document file, which is just the app that opens if you double-click on that kind of document. This also automatically assigns an icon supplied by the default app to the document files in Finder views, although that can be changed on a per folder basis through the Finder's "View options." 

[gdenby]

FWIW, I haven't had a system update in awhile, but 2 times in the last year, the OS has re-assigned file~app defaults. Preview, the usual default for .jpg, went to Photoshop Elements. I deleted the app, but of few weeks later it was changed to AD. All my simple text files started opening in the Numbers spread sheet!?  Etc. 

[Geedee]

Hi Nifty, I AM NO EXPERT...being a selective Luddite and in no way skilled in understanding much in the way of that which seems to go on in the background of my machines I am VERY,  some would say overly sensitive to any thought of programmes identifying MY files as theirs, and in such a way as you report, thus I download my photographs directly to  a remote drive via a card reader and open copies of them from the drive into which ever PP programme I use... Though in truth I suspect you could do the same thing by creating a file for your images within your "C"  drive in a file you create and not within any programme as such. In which case your images will retain the identity your camera created for them as in .JPEG or I'm my case with  a Nikon camera and RAW files they are identified as NEF files.... With such identities it would seem that any quality photo programme will open these files..... and if you foul up any image during processing by miss clicking anything... you are not dependant on having been careful to utilise the the non-destructive facilities in the programmes prescribed manner as your ORIGINAL will still be wherever you chose to store it...  I store my images remotely for both space saving on my desktop and security on two drives one a mirror of the other and to have done so in both Windows and Mac compatability.

I also do not SAVE any modified files within a PP programme I EXPORT them to remote drives thus again avoid being identified as other than which I care to identify them as... Admittedly I suspect that I may well be missing out on some advantages relative to identity filing and storage within the programme.. but it works for me up till now.

My GUESS is that once you modify a file using any of the many facilities in a PP programme that they may only be sure to be visible and further adjustable within that one programme and thus the requirement for that programme to identify that file as one modified within it's software.

Like you I am relatively new to Affiniti and have yet to learn of it's many wonders and have used basic aspects of Adobe Elements, also Nikon View, Nikon Capture having become used to certain aspects of these programmes in time it can be frustrating to struggle to find that which appeared basic stuff  in another programme... though hopefully we will get there... (-: 

[R C-R]

@Geedee I am guessing by your mention of a 'C' drive that you are a Windows user. Here we are talking about the way the Mac OS automatically assigns a default app to documents of each filetype. This does not mean the OS or any app identifies these files as theirs or in any way changes them because that isn't what happens. It just optionally assigns an icon obtained from the default app that Finder uses as an indicator of which app will open if you double-click on the file, but users can still open the file in any app that supports that filetype by using the 'Open with...' option or just dragging the file onto the desired app's icon.

These default assignments are stored in the file system, not in the files themselves, which is why this does not in any way alter the file or any custom icon it might include.

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, gdenby said:

FWIW, I haven't had a system update in awhile, but 2 times in the last year, the OS has re-assigned file~app defaults. Preview, the usual default for .jpg, went to Photoshop Elements. I deleted the app, but of few weeks later it was changed to AD. All my simple text files started opening in the Numbers spread sheet!?  Etc. 

That rarely happens these days due to improvements in Mac OS, but when it does the usual cause is the same one that was a problem with older OS versions: the Launch Services database has become corrupted & needs to be rebuilt. There are several articles on the web that explain how to do this, some more up-to-date than others. This article is the most up-to-date one I could find & should be relevant for High Sierra as well as older OS versions.

Since doing this manually involves using some fairly complex terminal commands, as the article mentions a good alternative for most users is to use the command built into the freeware utility Onyx instead. Just make sure you use the version of Onyx made for your OS version & keep it up-to-date. Also, just because the rebuild Lanuch Services function is the the "Maintenance" section of Onyx, this does not mean it is suggesting there is any need (or any benefit) to running any of the listed functions unless there is an issue they can correct. The app includes good built-in help that will explain what each function is for & when to use it.

[firstdefence]

8 hours ago, R C-R said:

Just make sure you use the version of Onyx made for your OS version & keep it up-to-date.

Thanks for reminding me to update 

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

Thanks for reminding me to update 

I had to do that too, because as I mentioned there is no reason to run it unless there is an issue it might be able to fix. The Mac OS does not require regular maintenance. In fact, it works much better when users avoid running utilities like this one to periodically 'clean' or rebuild things.

[firstdefence]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I had to do that too, because as I mentioned there is no reason to run it unless there is an issue it might be able to fix. The Mac OS does not require regular maintenance. In fact, it works much better when users avoid running utilities like this one to periodically 'clean' or rebuild things.

I agree, this is a "just in case" app for me, generally I leave well alone unless I have a glitch, like a few days ago when I started getting generic icons in the dock and the applications folder, removing a whacked cache file and rebooting sorted that out easily enough.

[gdenby]

14 hours ago, R C-R said:

That rarely happens these days due to improvements in Mac OS, but when it does the usual cause is the same one that was a problem with older OS versions: the Launch Services database has become corrupted & needs to be rebuilt. There are several articles on the web that explain how to do this, some more up-to-date than others. This article is the most up-to-date one I could find & should be relevant for High Sierra as well as older OS versions.

Since doing this manually involves using some fairly complex terminal commands, as the article mentions a good alternative for most users is to use the command built into the freeware utility Onyx instead. Just make sure you use the version of Onyx made for your OS version & keep it up-to-date. Also, just because the rebuild Lanuch Services function is the the "Maintenance" section of Onyx, this does not mean it is suggesting there is any need (or any benefit) to running any of the listed functions unless there is an issue they can correct. The app includes good built-in help that will explain what each function is for & when to use it.

The first time  I tried a manual rebuild, but something screwed up and 24 hours later, I was getting the problem again. Remembered I had Onyx, d-loaded the appropriate version. I recall having to try a few times w. different setting, but it did clear up the launch problem.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, gdenby said:

Remembered I had Onyx, d-loaded the appropriate version. I recall having to try a few times w. different setting, but it did clear up the launch problem.

So are you saying that this problem no long reoccurs or the Onyx fix was only temporary?

[Geedee]

R C-R Thanks for the response. I bow to your knowledge for sure.. and admit to my lack thereof, though the question raised by Nifty was relative to a similar issue I experienced in other photo programmes some time back in that he was unable to open his images in pp software other than Affiniti,  AFTER they had been downloaded from his camera via Affiniti... Whereas prior to using Affiniti to download his camera's images he previously opened them in Lightroom which it seems was his normal workflow (?) and that he (like me) had thought that issue might have been caused by the change in file naming, the new suffix applied to his images (.afphoto) which caused his issue seemed logically Affiniti related..?

I use both Mac and Windows and my remote hard drives are configured to plug and play in both systems (thanks to help provided here (-:)  I should have taken more time re my answer to Nifty for which I apologise, perhaps I should have suggested that he might care to create a file system within Documents for his photo files and download from his camera directly to there, using that as his storage under the designation (or not) which his camera applies to them .... Selecting files from his chosen storage location using  OPEN WITH and selecting Affiniti, Lightroom or whatever other PP software he cares to choose and hopefully without the limitations he is currently experiencing...?

Just thinking in type, claiming zero expertise

[Wosven]

If you opened a file (for example  a JPEG or RAW) and save it as an APhoto file (.afphoto extension), it will only open in APhoto or ADesigner, but your JPEG/RAW original file will exists in the folder, if you saved it first on your computer, it won't be erased by the APhoto file.

It's your orignal file that you need to open in Lightroom or another app.
If you set your computer to open files in APhoto, without copying them first, it's possible you only saved the APhoto file, instead of keeping the original files in your folders.

You'll have to really copy them (the original ones) this time or, to export the APhoto files in another file format to be able to open them with other programs.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Geedee said:

Selecting files from his chosen storage location using  OPEN WITH and selecting Affiniti, Lightroom or whatever other PP software he cares to choose and hopefully without the limitations he is currently experiencing...?

As it is, without the need to create any special folder the "Open With" option is available for any file type an app can open, as is dragging the file onto the icon of any app that can open that file type. But as @Wosven mentioned, only the Affinity apps can open the native Affinity file types (those with the .afdesign or .afphoto extension). That is why neither Open With nor drag & drop will work with other than the Affinity apps regardless of what folder the files are stored in -- the other apps have no way of interpreting the proprietary file format of the Affinity files.

[Geedee]

Not sure if Nifty has baled out on this, but if not and he has as Wosven has suggested, downloaded his images from his camera using Affiniti to do so and that as a result has tried to open them in Lightroom which does not recognise the file type thus thinking he has now locked his images into Affinity only software operations.... Then I suspect if he uses the EXPORT facility within Affiniti he may be able to remove the .afphoto designation from his images that seems to be causing his issues...?

However I suspect he may not be able to recover the image as a RAW file, though not entirely sure. 

[gdenby]

On 6/15/2018 at 10:02 AM, R C-R said:

So are you saying that this problem no long reoccurs or the Onyx fix was only temporary?

The Onyx fix worked. My recollection is that I had to select some option to get it to stick. Sadly. don't recall what that was.