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Affinity Photo <--> Skylum PlugIn


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  • 4 months later...

Though it is not supported by Skylum, Luminar 4 (current Windows release 4.1.0 (5191) does work as a plugin with Affinity Photo 1.7.3.481, though with the caveat, that the  Exif information which appears in the Info Tab when Luminar 4 is run in free standing mode, is missing when it's run as a plugin from Affinity Photo. 

That has not been an issue for me, partly because any Lens correction for RAW files that relies on Exif information has already taken place in Affinity before passing the image to Luminar 4, and also because Affinity is retaining the original Exif information so after the image is returned from Luminar, any export still contains the Exif information.

It should be noted that each update of Luminar has a corresponding update of the Luminar4.8bf plug in file. Skylum have so far provided that file on request.

I can't speak for the Mac version.
 

Intel i7-10700 Gen10 CPU, 32GB RAM, Geforce GTX 1660 OC 6GB
Windows 10 Pro 22H2, 1x 1TB M.2 NVMe, 1 x 2TB M.2 NVMe. Affinity APh, APu, ADe

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Luminar 4 doesn't work in Affinity Photo 1.7.3 on Mac nor in the Affinity Photo 1.8.0 Beta version, it just comes up with the "Luminar 4 Plugin Started..." message and you have to force quit Affinity Photo,  this is on OS X High Sierra 10.13.6

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
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On 8/19/2019 at 10:16 AM, Headway said:

Since the Affinity update to 1.7.2 the Skylum products work as PlugIn in Affinity Photo Win on my PC.

Thank you Affinity.

Same here but with Affinity 1.7.3.481, I bought luminar 4, added the plug-in from the Luminar source map and works w/o any issue so far. great plug-in !
 

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9 hours ago, WMax70 said:

....and works w/o any issue so far....
 

@WMax70

Could you please check your Luminar 4's Info tab, using the same image, with Luminar 4 used free standing, and then used as a plugin from Affinity Photo.

When used freestanding here, it shows the filename and the Exif information correctly, but not so when it is used as a plug in.

In freestanding mode it also shows the date the shot was taken, but as a plugin that shows as the current date.

The image size difference is as expected.

My OS is Windows 10 Pro, 1909, build 18363.535, Affinity Photo is 1.7.3.481 and Luminar 4 is version 4.1.0 (5191)

1190512973_Infotab.jpg.236af729e112d9b709d2b60a0469b987.jpg

Intel i7-10700 Gen10 CPU, 32GB RAM, Geforce GTX 1660 OC 6GB
Windows 10 Pro 22H2, 1x 1TB M.2 NVMe, 1 x 2TB M.2 NVMe. Affinity APh, APu, ADe

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Greyfox,

I checked you comment,
As standalone and as plugin I get the same results like you, so I agree, the Exif data is not correct transferred to Luminar 4 and I also get the v.éí data reflected.
I use a Nikon D850.  So no difference here, from which I can conclude that it is also not a camera brand issue.

I did not find other issues at the moment, and so far I did not use it, but I assume all automatic lens corrections for landscape and architecture photography will not work correct with this Exif data, which is a pitty.
Affinity itself does not support that much lens corrections like Dxo and Luminar 4 offer.
I tried to add some data in the past, found others also dit, bit the corrections are still not available for Affinity open lens correction sources (for Tamrom G2 lenses)

However, I can do a lot already with Luminar 4 and it nicely returns its results to Affinity.
I would have liked in Luminar an option to export to eg direct to Affiniy. The Raw convertor is much better and direct lens correction would be don upfront.
Also the nice Image gallery / selection overview works very smooth.

Like many other, Luminar and Adobe LR / PS work fluent together, and it works almost fluent with Affinity.
It's close to what it should be, but the exif data pass to luminar would give advantages to Affinity.
Would be great it this issue could be solved.

A tool set of DXO Nik tools and Skylum Lumiar together with affinity is superb.
 

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Confirmed, on AP beta 1.8 and Luminar 4, I get the same results.  It does work but is a little wonky.  

I'm using Luminar 4 as my main raw processor, not Affinity.  Because AP does not handle Canon CR3 format, and also does not have profiles for my camera and lens yet.  Luminar does, so it makes sense to do all my work there for now, using AP mainly for custom work on selected images.  

I'm not sure how much sense it makes to run Luminar as a plugin of Affinity.  I think rather, it'd make sense to run it the other way around.  Run Luminar as a primary raw processor, then when you need to do touchups on a file, be able to hand-off from Luminar to AP.   I just submitted a feature request to Luminar that they add this functionality, like you have in Lightroom Classic for instance, which lets you specify the .exe of another graphics editor that you can hand off an image to in real-time.  I think in the long run, Luminar aspires to be more of a DAM plus raw processor, which could be a very nice complement to AP, if you were to use Luminar as your main photography processor and AP as your custom editor when you need it. 

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TimIt,

I fully agree the Raw processing of Affinity is far off. I also do not use it anymore.
Up to now I'm using Nikon Capture Nx-D as raw processor. (Then it behaves like the Raw processor in Adobe and I get all camera options en setting Nikon also offers in camera)
Once done I can handover from Capture NX-D to AP, something which is not available in Luminar. (weak point of Luminar if you ask me)
Good that you have requested  hand-over function to Luminar, because once this is available, it also might be the case I start from Luminar also. 
(However, it also depending might be NXD -> Luminar -> AP)
This because, Nikon Capture NX-D supports all Nikon camera functions, but does not support 3th party lens correction support.

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@WMax70, yep I hear you on all of that.  I've tried nearly every well known--and some lesser known--graphics editors and/or DAM apps out there recently, where the main goal was to find a solution for two issues I'm having:  (1) That AP does not have any DAM functionality (including that it does not have super strong RAW processing options), and (2) That AP doesn't support CR3, nor my Canon camera (EOS M6 Mark ii) and lens (EF-M 18-150).  Yet AP remains my favorite standalone graphics editing app, so I keep looking for ways to make it work with other complementary apps to help fill in the gaps.  It's conceivable that on my second issue--support for my camera and CR3--that could be resolved fairly soon, maybe even this year.  

However on my first issue, unless AP is keeping their plans to develop a DAM app under lock and key, I'm not optimistic it's gonna happen.  Realistically it's a small company, and they've gotta prioritize doing a great job on their core applications that they are already shipping.  Building a quality DAM application is complex and takes time.  I've posted this here before in the forum, but I would strongly urge Affinity to just keep doing a great job on their core apps, and for DAM, maybe try to build a partnership with another company that does build an effective DAM.  Heck, maybe that partnership could be with Skylum Luminar!!  Why?  

Well consider:  both products have a strong core of historical Apple support and user base.  Then, look at what each product does.  In short, Luminar either does now, or is aspiring to do very soon, all the things that AP either can't do, or isn't good at.  Non-destructive RAW editing, including layers support!  DAM functionality (limited now, but they explicitly plan to build it out this year).  Including organizing files into albums and folders, photo browsing and photo library management, tagging/ratings/metadata (the last item is weak today, but they've acknowledged that and plan to add enhanced metadata tagging, search, filtering, and related support this year).  I love what Skylum is doing with Luminar, it's an extremely progressive, forward-thinking design technically, and they are savvy and planning to aggressively jump into Adobe's space that they traditionally owned, and compete as a new player. 

Wouldn't it be totally cool if....this year.....

....Serif and Skylum would form a partnership to deliver an end-to-end solution that features Luminar as the DAM application and RAW processor, and Affinity Photo/Designer/Publisher as graphic editing and layout tools?  

Luminar could simply keep building out what they already plan to:  turn it into a better DAM for photo management, keep adding improved support for XMP metadata, tagging, ratings, etc., and then all the sorting/searching/filtering options that go with that.  At the same time, they can keep improving their RAW and photo processing tools and results.   To work effectively with Affinity products, they'd simply build in some improved 'hooks' between the apps, so that you'd have simple options like "Edit in Affinity Photo" when you select an image, or "Export to Affinity Photo/Designer/Publisher" with a batch of images. 

IMHO, this would be a huge win for both companies, and for users.  Unless Serif plans to build a competitive DAM app (which would be awesome, but I haven't heard of such plans), the LACK of a DAM app is going to continue to be a limiting factor making it hard for a lot of users to completely get off of the Adobe train.  I can't see how Affinity Photo becomes a serious option for a large swath of the pro photographer market unless there's some kind of a smoothly integrated DAM product.  And unless Luminar offers more serious, traditional editing functionality along with their other features, then they will struggle to get a foothold in the market, and will remain a minor player only as a plugin to Photoshop or Lightroom.  Put the two together, and you'd have an end-to-end photo development platform that offers a real-world, "perpetual license subscription model" alternative to the Adobe subscription-only model.  For a lot of users, this would finally be the way to escape Adobe's clutches.  

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TimIt,

I was looking in some training and noted next:
It seems that the Apple version has the option to export to other programs as plug-in, but the Windows versions does not!
So Luminar 4 has made is accessible for Apple users only?... Weird... :|
Because I also have the DXO Nik tools and Skylum HDR like listed but both also do not appear.


image.thumb.png.efc1dd297a2e14740dee1c86a7c0bc12.png
 

 

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Yeah that's a lot different from mine on Windows.  Photoshop plugins do not show up, in fact, my Edit menu looks quite different from yours.  And my Export option on an individual photo or selected set of photos is only for actual export to files, it's not for handing off images to another app or plugin.  

They have always been an Apple-first company, they've only recently added Windows support and it shows in the missing functionality, and sometimes slow performance. 

 

Untitled.jpg

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16 minutes ago, timlt said:

Yeah that's a lot different from mine on Windows.  Photoshop plugins do not show up, in fact, my Edit menu looks quite different from yours.  And my Export option on an individual photo or selected set of photos is only for actual export to files, it's not for handing off images to another app or plugin.  

They have always been an Apple-first company, they've only recently added Windows support and it shows in the missing functionality, and sometimes slow performance

 

Untitled.jpg


TimIt, I'm also working with the Windows version. The screenshot came from a tutorial video.
But same feeling here.  Adobe and Affinity do not make that difference, which makes those tools really helpful if you go from one to another colleague and / or if you follow tutorials from them. It really feels sad that if you want to learn something, and some say not problem, that if on Windows or Apple you suddenly cannot do the same things.

I also a have to omit that the speed of adding and/or changing things to Photo's in Affinity is really fast compared to may other tools.
However, once working with more layers and masks, the speed really decreases very fast even if you create new merges in-between and switch off the other layers. 
Icons are often not updated anymore or it takes very long, levels do not show graphs anymore etc..
With more layers active using a pen, it really result in strange things like growing and shrinking the pen size, not showing where you are, serious lag between change and update.
so complete lost of control of what you are doing...and sometimes even a crash.
At those moments I prefer a bit slower performance but better control above this missing info and  running in loss of control. 
That's for me also bit frustrating to Affinity.
The lack of good color control and the point above sometimes really brings me to doubt to go to LR again.
But so far, I'm still able to reach my goals.

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It seems like the common theme in all this is, once you're outside the Adobe family of apps, interop between apps is really what we need most, and is often lacking.  

Everybody wants to build a walled garden to keep you in, so you can only use their thing.  And that's tolerable if you offer a complete product line covering all needed  image handling functionality.  But for smaller companies products, they can't possibly do everything, so it'd make more sense to build improved interop capabilities into their apps.  For example, what we're talking here, Luminar for Windows should have better options to hand off to an external editor.  This was one good thing about the On1 Raw 2020 app I tested recently, they let you configure an external editor of your choice, so you can right-click an image and hand off the file to Affinity Photo for editing, then bring it back into ON1 for DAM functionality.  Luminar should totally be doing this.  If the RAW processor in ON1 didn't suck so much, I'd be getting that to use with Affinity.  

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17 minutes ago, timlt said:

It seems like the common theme in all this is, once you're outside the Adobe family of apps, interop between apps is really what we need most, and is often lacking.  

Everybody wants to build a walled garden to keep you in, so you can only use their thing.  And that's tolerable if you offer a complete product line covering all needed  image handling functionality.  But for smaller companies products, they can't possibly do everything, so it'd make more sense to build improved interop capabilities into their apps.  For example, what we're talking here, Luminar for Windows should have better options to hand off to an external editor.  This was one good thing about the On1 Raw 2020 app I tested recently, they let you configure an external editor of your choice, so you can right-click an image and hand off the file to Affinity Photo for editing, then bring it back into ON1 for DAM functionality.  Luminar should totally be doing this.  If the RAW processor in ON1 didn't suck so much, I'd be getting that to use with Affinity.  

Best raw convertor so far for my camera's are is till Nikon NXD (D850 &D750), also compared to the Adobe raw convertor, but those are close and offer color calibration control which is not possible with almost any other program.
 

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