Portrait Pro Plugin does not start

[hy13]

Installed Release Version 1.7.2. of AP today. Afterwards configuration of Portrait Pro 18 as plugin. Plugin did show up then under Filter --> Plugins -->"PortraitPro..."

Pixel layer containing Picture with a face was marked in Photo Persona. After clicking "Portrait Pro" AP hangs and must be killed by task manager. Task manager did not show a process in that state where Portrait Pro could be assumed behind. Same happened after configuring Pro Body 2. What I should mention is that all NIK Filters are working.

As various users in AP forums give different experiences with the plugin interface, could you please inform if this is an acknowledged error or what state that topic has inside Serif meanwhile. Is there an official howto (besides that of 2016) available about the configuratio of that interface?

Thanks in advance.

[Gregory St. Laurent]

3 hours ago, hy13 said:

Installed Release Version 1.7.2. of AP today. Afterwards configuration of Portrait Pro 18 as plugin. Plugin did show up then under Filter --> Plugins -->"PortraitPro..."

Pixel layer containing Picture with a face was marked in Photo Persona. After clicking "Portrait Pro" AP hangs and must be killed by task manager. Task manager did not show a process in that state where Portrait Pro could be assumed behind. Same happened after configuring Pro Body 2. What I should mention is that all NIK Filters are working.

As various users in AP forums give different experiences with the plugin interface, could you please inform if this is an acknowledged error or what state that topic has inside Serif meanwhile. Is there an official howto (besides that of 2016) available about the configuratio of that interface?

Thanks in advance.

This has been an ongoing issue, see my earlier discussion. It seems to work if you purchased V18 as an upgrade (as I did) but if you are installing from scratch it just locks up. It may have something to do with a registry entry that has been changed from V17 to V18 of Portrait Pro this is only speculation. Anyway this is all on Anthropics and they really aren't interested in fixing it!

 

[hy13]

@Gregory St. Laurent

Thanks for your reply. Your discussion is known to me, but my first attempt to use Portrait Pro as plugin was in AP 1.7.2 where I assumed that it should do because of some positive news found in the release discussion.I fear, that your experience is not valid in general. My Portrait Pro 18 is an upgrade to V17 and with Body Pro V2 it is the same issue, but it was no upgrade. Even worse: I made the rollback to AP 1.7.1 release version and there is no function as well. As recommended, I deinstalled AP 1.7.2 first, but was astonished then, that all my 1.7.2 stuff (own macros and filter plugin links) was available in new 1.7.1 as well without any action needed. And there was no requirement to input license code during 1.7.1 installation. That is why I rechecked the 1.7.1 version number on startup, but it is as expected 1.7.1.404 shown on the splash screen. Meanwhile I have the suspicion that behind such things there is a lack of cooperation will between serif and other software companies (see as well the comments from Mark Ingram towards AcdSee). Nevertheless I addressed the problem as well towards Anthropics and will see if there is an answer the next days.

[Gregory St. Laurent]

2 hours ago, hy13 said:

@Gregory St. Laurent

Thanks for your reply. Your discussion is known to me, but my first attempt to use Portrait Pro as plugin was in AP 1.7.2 where I assumed that it should do because of some positive news found in the release discussion.I fear, that your experience is not valid in general. My Portrait Pro 18 is an upgrade to V17 and with Body Pro V2 it is the same issue, but it was no upgrade. Even worse: I made the rollback to AP 1.7.1 release version and there is no function as well. As recommended, I deinstalled AP 1.7.2 first, but was astonished then, that all my 1.7.2 stuff (own macros and filter plugin links) was available in new 1.7.1 as well without any action needed. And there was no requirement to input license code during 1.7.1 installation. That is why I rechecked the 1.7.1 version number on startup, but it is as expected 1.7.1.404 shown on the splash screen. Meanwhile I have the suspicion that behind such things there is a lack of cooperation will between serif and other software companies (see as well the comments from Mark Ingram towards AcdSee). Nevertheless I addressed the problem as well towards Anthropics and will see if there is an answer the next days.

How is my experience not valid? I too ran Portrait Pro V17 on earlier versions of Affinity Photo with no issues. I then had purchased V18 of Portrait Pro and had issues where it would lock up Affinity I then uninstalled it reinstalled V17 and proceeded to install V18 over the V17 install to my surprise it worked. As of version 1.7 of Affinity Photo all bets were off because it no longer worked, then they released V1.7.2 patch and it's been fixed, I now have full functionality to Portrait Pro V18 as a plugin. The problem is with Anthropics! they have changed something in the new version and all corespondents I've had with them have been in vain, they are not interested in Affinity Photo all they spit out is how it works with Photoshop!

[hy13]

@Gregory St. Laurent

Thanks for returning on that issue. And of course your experience is not unvalid. As I understood, you had V17 working and when V18 arrived you lost that functionality after installation. Well the difference to me is, as I understand it now, that you uninstalled V18, reinstalled V17 and then upgraded to V18 again. What I did was only upgrading V17 to V18 and then there was no function. I will try now to uninstall V18 first and then do your sequence. I will be back to report what happened the next days.

Meanwhile I got a response from Anthropics: They state only that there is no interest by Anthropics to support that interface to AP. Well, I think that I should inform them now that I lost interest in Anthropics products further on and will close  down the news channel. As I am informed there are other products available which do a very good job on that task and I will have a look to those products now.

[hy13]

@Gregory St. Laurent

UPDATE:

Things proceeded much faster than I expected because I had the old *.8bf files from V17 sitting somewhere on my computer as I made experiments with Photoshop at that time. The solution was to delete the *.8bf files dated from 2018 from the AP plugin directory and reference the old ones  from April 2017 (V17) instead via additional path in AP preferences/Plugins. There was no need to uninstall V18 for me. I guess if we had some old *.8bf files from Portrait Body we could make this one work as well. What a pity that I startet with V2 which had the *.8bf files from 2018 already. Perhaps you know someone who could test that for us and give us the proof.

[GarethCallan]

 

@hy13

Dear hy13,

This looks like a useful fix.  Unfortunately I don't have the v17 *.8bf file, I have searched my c:drive and I have several V18 populated in various sub folders.

Is it possible to share this file please, so I can get  AP 1.8 up and running (again, like it used to!)?

Thank you

Gareth

(...and have you purchased a V19 upgrade?....does that work any better?)

[hy13]

@GarethCallanMeanwhile there is V22 from Portrait Pro out and as it looks like, the former issue is no longer there. It works perfect together with AP 1.10.4 from the beginning. Both packages were installed on a new built Win 10. But I do not know what and who has made it working. Perhaps Serif talked to Anthropics or vice versa.

[Robert the Photographer]

I seem to have trouble with this on a 2021 16" Macbook Pro and Affinity Photo 1.10.4 with Portrait Pro 22.  I see the option in filters but when I click on it, it just never starts.  These were both fresh installs.  I really hate dealing with vendors who  play the blame game.  Sadly this worked with PP21 on an intel mac.