Nik Collection - Live Filter

[GarethCallan]

I'm sure this has been requested before.. but +1 for enabling plugins to be used as Live Filter layers please.  I love Nik Collection but I do not love using it destructively in Affinity Photo where adjustments cannot be made subsequently.  Live Filter seems to be the best way to achieve similar functionality as Smart Filter/Smart Object in PS. 

 

 

Oh... and sort out the colour render in Viveza please as well 

 

Thank you, Serif!

[stroiman]

I would seriously love to see this too.

To be able to apply Nik filters, and then come back the next day, and do minor tweaks. That is really something I miss from PS.

Please!!!

[craigleeus]

I was searching the feature requests for this very topic. 

Adding plug-ins to the live filters is something AF really needs to do.  How hard can it be? 

As it is now, applying a plug-in to a layer is destructive; and further the plug-in cannot be re-edited without undoing everything done since applying the plug-in.

I really like Affinity Photo, but this one issue is important for me.

 

[fde101]

8 hours ago, craigleeus said:

How hard can it be? 

Consider that plugins are an unknown quantity when it comes to performance and to availability.

If a plugin is used as a live filter and the document is then opened on a computer where the plugin is not installed, it will not be possible to render any changes to the document that would be impacted by the algorithm in the plugin.

If the plugin is available, but is very slow and takes a long time to render, then every small change in the document could lead to unusable levels of performance.

Node-based compositing software used in video production is generally designed with this in mind, but the nature of how the Affinity products work might make supporting arbitrary plugins as live filters impractical unless they could be sufficiently isolated from the main application to deal with plugin crashes, lags in rendering performance, etc.

This may not be insurmountable, but it may not be as simple as you think either, particularly with so many filters not working well if at all on the software.

Personally I would rather they got them working with greater consistency and stability first, then add in the bells and whistles like this.

[ColinG]

And in the meantime I shall stick with Ps. Such a shame but such is life 🙂

[Mikado73]

And in the meantime I shall stick with Ps. Such a shame but such is life 🙂....

 

Same for me... 😆

[XZY11]

Just a question in 2025 - does this work yet in V2? - I mean being able to return to a layer with a Nik plugin edit on it and edit that edit? I have tried opening the Live layers but they do not seem to support this - unless I am missing something? 

(For me it is not a deal breaker - I don't use the Nik Collection that much, and if I ever return to an image and want to tweak it i don't mind redoing the Nik work - but then I am not working in, say, an ad studio, where I can see it might be a problem).

Edited April 25 by XZY11

[GarryP]

11 minutes ago, XZY11 said:

Just a question in 2025 - does this work yet?

This thread might help: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/228042-nik-collection-in-26-3106/

Or this: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/228137-old-nik-collection-plugins-in-ap2/

I think the general gist seems to be: “DxO change things from time to time and Serif have no control over what happens. So try different versions, if you can, and see if any of them work for you.”