How do i do the whole roundtrip from Apple Photos to Affinity Photo and back again?

[Patrick DonEgan]

I am attempt to figure out how to "edit" a photo from Apple Photos with Affinity Photo

and then send it back to Photos.

All the tutorials seem to have old version of Photos with "extentions" button,

which is no longer on my version of Photos. - Very strange and upsetting.

I can edit the image - now i want send it back!!!

Please advise!

 

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, Patrick DonEgan said:

All the tutorials seem to have old version of Photos with "extentions" button, which is no longer on my version of Photos.

Does any of the info in https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/add-editing-tools-to-photos-pht820c5ba8a/5.0/mac/10.15 help?

[Cecil]

R C-R - my workflow concerning the above instructions:

Open Photos, iMac.  Double click the photo, click open in, I selected Affinity Photo.  The photo opened,   I made a few simple changes, clicked Save.  I opened Finder to locate Saved photo, Screen shot added.  The photo was not saved to my iCloud Photos.  I opened the Saved photo, Affinity Photo Document.jpg, screen shot attached.

This may be the AP program intended designed; however, I thought the intention was to Save changes to iCloud Photos, source of open file, and allow you to revert changes, in iCloud Photos if desired.

Please correct any work flow errors on my part or any misunderstanding of AP.  Thank you.

[markw]

It seems to me that this whole subject of using Affinity Photo as an external editor with Apple Photos is getting a bit confusing here on the forums.
There are at least 3 other threads also about it now I think.
And now with Catalina being the de facto macOS we might see more people with problems.

From what is being posted at the moment on the forums, my summery of the situation as of today would be that if you are on Catalina then there probably is no way to do the round trip using Affinity’s extension; 'Edit In Affinity Photo' or by right clicking a photo and choosing; 'Edit With Affinity Photo'.
Both these methods seem to be broken in Catalina.

If you are on Mojave or earlier OS then you maybe have a 50/50% chance that the 'Edit In Affinity Photo' extension still works for you. For some it works for others it doesn’t. No one seems to knows why.
But again the right click; 'Edit With Affinity Photo' method is broken here too. In fact this has been broken for a very long time.

[Cecil]

Yes I was using Catalina.  iPadOS works for me in Affinity Photo.  I’m confident the problems will be solved in the long term, just frustrated hit or miss or if one just clearly is doing something wrong.  As my only camera now is iPhone XS and I use iCloud Photo as my Photos backup, I depend on it working.  My process now is exporting to external drive macOS and if I want copy in iCloud Photos, without AP files, I just share it to myself and save.

[Patrick DonEgan]

I am on High Sierra on a Mac Mini 2012, so I will not be upgrading to Mojave or Catalina.

Right now I am using the <...> method to "Edit in Affinity Photo" and wondering why those other workflows dont work anymore.

 

Thanks and please advise:

 

[robfol]

Why on earth does Affinity Photo not access the system level image browser so one can import directly from Photos?

All my photos live in PHOTOS, I do not want to have to export from photos just to import in to AF

1. Open AF,

2. import from Photos using Image Browser 

3. export to Print Folder, / Mail or back to Photos

 

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, robfol said:

Why on earth does Affinity Photo not access the system level image browser so one can import directly from Photos?

Affinity Photo accesses everything Apple says it is safe to access in Apple Photos libraries, including through Photos Editing extensions & the open dialog sidebar Media > Photos browser. (The browser is the same as the one shown here, except that since AP can only open photos & not music or movie files, those items do not appear in the sidebar browser.)

[Cecil]

53 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Affinity Photo accesses everything Apple says it is safe to access in Apple Photos libraries, including through Photos Editing extensions & the open dialog sidebar Media > Photos browser. (The browser is the same as the one shown here, except that since AP can only open photos & not music or movie files, those items do not appear in the sidebar browser.)

Make your changes, save the photo, and close the app window. In the Photos window showing your changes, click Save Changes, and the changed photo appears in the editing view. After editing a photo, you can restore the original by clicking Revert to Original.
 

Everything is set per instructions, however underlined above does not work for me.  I have workaround, just wish it would work per instructions.  Save changes do not appear in Apple Photos.

[R C-R]

25 minutes ago, Cecil said:

Make your changes, save the photo, and close the app window. In the Photos window showing your changes, click Save Changes, and the changed photo appears in the editing view. After editing a photo, you can restore the original by clicking Revert to Original.

Everything is set per instructions, however underlined above does not work for me.  I have workaround, just wish it would work per instructions.  Save changes do not appear in Apple Photos.

For Mac Affinity Photo users, there are four different ways to access photos stored in an Apple Photos library:

1. Directly from AP, using the sidebar Media browser
2. Indirectly in Photos, using Photos' Open with > Affinity Photo option
3. Indirectly in Photos, using Photos' Edit > Edit in Affinity Photo option
4. Directly in Photos, using the Edit > Edit Affinity Develop/Affinity Haze Removal/Affinity Liquify/etc. extensions

The first does not add anything to the library, although using the File > Share option the edited version can be added as a new photo. The third & fourth rely on the Photos Editing extensions provided with AP, which can be enabled individually in System Preferences > Extensions. (I am not sure if the second requires enabling extensions or what.)

The second has been broken for a long time -- it never actually saves the edited version back to the Photos library. Even if it did, there are good reasons to avoid the "Edit With" option, not just with AP but also with any other third party editor, because as explained in the Don’t Edit with “Edit With” section of this article, in part it was never intended to be used with editors that do include Photos Editing extensions, & also because of the issue with Revert To Original.

The third way is broken for some users but works fine for others. Currently the reason for this is unclear -- it does not seem to be directly or entirely related to the Mac OS or Apple Photos version installed, the presence or absence of some conflicting third party add on, the Mac model, or anything else obvious.

The fourth way seems currently to be a mixed bag: there are a few user reports of some of the extensions working fine but others not at all, sometimes very long delays before the edit window opens the extension or its adjustments will do anything, or other unspecified issues.

On top of all that, there are reports of various issues apparently related to the Photos iCloud storage options, some of which may not work as "seamlessly" as Apple says they should with third party apps. How much of that is something the app developers or only Apple can fix is also unclear.

[Cecil]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

For Mac Affinity Photo users, there are four different ways to access photos stored in an Apple Photos library:

1. Directly from AP, using the sidebar Media browser
2. Indirectly in Photos, using Photos' Open with > Affinity Photo option
3. Indirectly in Photos, using Photos' Edit > Edit in Affinity Photo option
4. Directly in Photos, using the Edit > Edit Affinity Develop/Affinity Haze Removal/Affinity Liquify/etc. extensions

The first does not add anything to the library, although using the File > Share option the edited version can be added as a new photo. 

This one works for me.  Too many open threads and post with this single problem to remain a issue affecting so many AP users.  I hope 1.8 fixes the issues for all.  I just bypass the problem and export to external drive.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Cecil said:

This one works for me.

I give up. Which one do you mean works for you?

[robfol]

13 hours ago, R C-R said:

THANKS, so totally hidden away and not in help, I wasted a lot of time trying to figure this out. Nosorteded THANKS again - Cheers Robert

Affinity Photo accesses everything Apple says it is safe to access in Apple Photos libraries, including through Photos Editing extensions & the open dialog sidebar Media > Photos browser. (The browser is the same as the one shown here, except that since AP can only open photos & not music or movie files, those items do not appear in the sidebar browser.)

 

 

[Cecil]

6 hours ago, R C-R said:

I give up. Which one do you mean works for you?

Sorry - The first does not add anything to the library, although using the File > Share option the edited version can be added as a new photo.  
 

I thought I pasted that to my reply.  Too young to be this old.

[Knocker3769]

What frustrates me about all the weird anomalies trying to use AP with Photos including flattening any image you save back to Photos, is that On1 Photo RAW has this implemented perfectly. Including being able to re-open any edited file with all adjustments intact including layers etc. It’s nowhere near as nice to use as AP, but I'm afraid until these issues are fixed, AP no longer fits into my workflow. If they can do it, surely the clever folks at Serif can if they really want to?