affinity v photoshop and why so slow?

[Nhojdrib]

Hi
I have been trying Affinity Photo 2 as an alternative to Photoshop- it seems ok but I cannot work out how to edit an image direct from PM as I cannot find an .exe file to apply in the preferences window, which was easy when I previously set  the default to photoshop.exe.
Any ideas please?

Secondly, when I make an edit to an image in photoshop or affinity, it seems I have to rescan the whole folder in order to see the amended image displayed, which can take 1-2 minutes or even longer to resolve. This is seriously slowing my work flow! Am I doing something wrong with my preferences or settings? The same thing happens if I simply switch tabs to open a different folder- Just took 4 minutes to open up even though it had already been in use a few minutes before.
It is very frustrating as nothing compare with PM in its functionality but I am at an age when I can't wit sround so long in case I die before completing my work!
John

[Kirk Baker]

John,

I have been trying Affinity Photo 2 as an alternative to Photoshop- it seems ok but I cannot work out how to edit an image direct from PM as I cannot find an .exe file to apply in the preferences window, which was easy when I previously set  the default to photoshop.exe.

There has to be an application.  How do you launch it?

Secondly, when I make an edit to an image in photoshop or affinity, it seems I have to rescan the whole folder in order to see the amended image displayed, which can take 1-2 minutes or even longer to resolve. This is seriously slowing my work flow! Am I doing something wrong with my preferences or settings? The same thing happens if I simply switch tabs to open a different folder- Just took 4 minutes to open up even though it had already been in use a few minutes before.
It is very frustrating as nothing compare with PM in its functionality but I am at an age when I can't wit sround so long in case I die before completing my work!

That seems unusually long for a rescan.  Where are the photos stored?

You can limit this behavior, but you'll have to rescan manually.  Turn off "Rescan on Resume" in the Contact Sheet page of the Preferences dialog.  See this document for a screenshot:

https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001145135-contact-sheet-preferences

-Kirk

[carlseibert]

Hi Kirk, John,

The latest Adobe outrage has me trying to wean away from Adobe products. I suspect I'm not alone. I ran into the same issue on Windows (to be honest, I haven't tried on Mac yet, but I suspect the issue won't appear on that platform.)

It turns out that Affinity Photo installs as a "Windowsapp", apparently into a hidden folder somewhere in Program Files. Heaven knows why. Geeesh. On the Serif forums, one post suggested that it had something to do with offering their product on the Microsoft App Store. Another claimed it was an outright bug, and the Serif employee posting thought that it had been fixed but wasn't. Yiiiipes!

Apparently, Affinity starts from an alias here:C:\Users\youruser\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe    (if this is a bug, it's one of the fancier ones I've seen ;-)

Photo Mechanic throws an error if I attempt to use that.

Several Serif forums posters suggest starting Affinity from a .bat file   (start AffinityPhoto2.exe %1). I made a .bat file like that and sure enough, it works. But Photo Mechanic doesn't like it as an edit-with target. Probably because it's a .bat file.

It would be nice if Control - E could open images in Affinity.

However.....  You can drag and drop from Photo Mechanic's Contact Sheet to Affinity Photo with good results.

What's more, you can drag multiple RAW files and Affinity will open them all in its "Develop Personna", which is an Adobe Camera Raw-like thingie. The secret is to drag the multiple files and drop them onto the chrome just above the main AF window, as opposed to in the main window. In the window works for single images. Dismiss the scold popups about sidecar files. Wait a while while AF silently demosaics the images. And you're good to go.

Photoshop/ACR, of course, will only open one image at a time. Which I find annoying.

I hope this helps.

John - "but I am at an age when I can't wit sround so long in case I die before completing my work" This was spit-my-coffee good... from a fellow non-youth.

-Carl

[ahoward]

Photo Mechanic throws an error if I attempt to use that.

Several Serif forums posters suggest starting Affinity from a .bat file   (start AffinityPhoto2.exe %1). I made a .bat file like that and sure enough, it works. But Photo Mechanic doesn't like it as an edit-with target. Probably because it's a .bat file.

How recent was this information? Because the last time I remember any Photo Mechanic user having an issue with Affinity Photo v2 was in this thread, where I posted what *should* be a resolution, which was to use their MSI installer.

https://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=15317.msg75250#msg75250

It certainly may still be an issue, I just don't recall anyone reporting an issue more recently than that.

Photoshop/ACR, of course, will only open one image at a time. Which I find annoying.

Not sure what you mean by this. ACR opens multiple images and you can apply the same adjustments to them all at once if you want to. The attached screenshot is what it looks like when Photoshop is my editor in Photo Mechanic and I select multiple images in Photo Mechanic and use the Edit Photos keyboard shortcut. If I then click open, all of the files in the film strip open as tabs in the Photoshop editor.

[Kirk Baker]

Carl,

It turns out that Affinity Photo installs as a "Windowsapp", apparently into a hidden folder somewhere in Program Files. Heaven knows why. Geeesh. On the Serif forums, one post suggested that it had something to do with offering their product on the Microsoft App Store. Another claimed it was an outright bug, and the Serif employee posting thought that it had been fixed but wasn't. Yiiiipes!

Apparently, Affinity starts from an alias here:C:\Users\youruser\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe    (if this is a bug, it's one of the fancier ones I've seen ;-)

Photo Mechanic throws an error if I attempt to use that.

The file is zero bytes in size.  I'm not sure how it works at all.

It would be nice if Control - E could open images in Affinity.

I tested creating a shortcut from the "Applications" folder (Windows-r, type shell:AppsFolder into the Open field and click OK) which offered to save it to my Desktop (the only choice it gives because it can't create the shortcut in the Applications folder itself.)

I modified the "Application picker" in PM to allow .lnk files to be chosen as applications, rebuilt PM and chose that link as an editor.  Photo Mechanic is then able to launch the shortcut and open images from the contact sheet in Affinity Photo 2.  I used the "Edit photo with" sub-menu on the contextual menu and chose the "Affinity Photo 2 - Shortcut.lnk" entry.

We'll have to test this some more before putting it out in a release, but it looks promising.

-Kirk

[carlseibert]

Hi,

I tried Photo Mechanic with the alias and the bat file last week. I confirmed that the bat file works literally as I was typing this post.

I downloaded Affinity 2.5 from their site directly a few months ago. Installer was .exe as I recall. Upgraded to the latest version this morning.

I just looked at that thread. Bob's workaround worked! Except! Affinity Photo crashed upon opening the image. I thought maybe the XMP sidecar might be offending it, so I deleted an image's sidecar file and tried it. That worked fine. In my workflow at least, all RAW files have XMP sidecars. (Well most all, anyway) So that could be a problem.  UPDATE: I just tried a sidecar-less Leica DNG RAW file and Affinity opened it just fine, further confirming my suspicions. Workaround: upgrade all my cameras to Leicas :-)

I don't know what you have done to not offend the Adobe gods. Heaven knows I have worked hard to offend them. But just now when I select three files in PM and press Control - E, ACR opens with the three images as it does for you. But when I hit "Open" in ACR, only one of the three images open in Photoshop. I think it's the last one of the three I edited in ACR, but I haven't confirmed that.

-Carl

[carlseibert]

Kirk,

In the length of time it took me to respond to a post and fiddle with Adobe Camera Raw, you did that. I am in awe.

On the Affinity side, I have no idea why if you drag and drop, they throw up that "can't open file" message about the sidecar, allow you to dismiss the message and go about their business, but if you open the file as an argument(?) they just crash.

-Carl

[ahoward]

I don't know what you have done to not offend the Adobe gods. Heaven knows I have worked hard to offend them. But just now when I select three files in PM and press Control - E, ACR opens with the three images as it does for you. But when I hit "Open" in ACR, only one of the three images open in Photoshop. I think it's the last one of the three I edited in ACR, but I haven't confirmed that.

The items need to be selected in the filmstrip in order for it to know which ones you want to open.

[carlseibert]

I don't know what you have done to not offend the Adobe gods. Heaven knows I have worked hard to offend them. But just now when I select three files in PM and press Control - E, ACR opens with the three images as it does for you. But when I hit "Open" in ACR, only one of the three images open in Photoshop. I think it's the last one of the three I edited in ACR, but I haven't confirmed that.

The items need to be selected in the filmstrip in order for it to know which ones you want to open.

Er... ah... derrp... Yeah, you're right! Thank you. In all the times I've been annoyed by that, I can't believe I've never noticed.

-Carl

[carlseibert]

Now this is strange but encouraging.

I just tried again doing Open photos with...

This time, I did various combinations of two, three and four photos, one of which had no sidecars, one had both and XMP and a .on1, and two had XMPs. I started with Affinity running or not running. That didn't seem to make a difference. I used Open with... and the Control-E shortcut and both worked fine. Altogether, I've now done about a dozen tries with no crashes.

Earlier, Affinity crashed twice in a row.  Go figure.  I have no explanation. But I'm happy.

I was using Bob's "Task Manager to open the executable's folder and dragging a shortcut out" technique. I assume Kirk's fix will work fine, too.

-Carl

[carlseibert]

Hi ahoward, Kirk,

This morning I was able to reproduce positive results using the Bob workaround. Affinity did crash on me once, but I'm now convinced that, well, its Develop Personna just might not be as stable as it should be. Logical reflection suggests that the sidecar thing is not an issue. If Affinity is just being passed the path for the file, it can't have any idea at that point that the sidecars even exist. So that can't be a thing.

I read the Serif posts about the MSIX vs MSI/EXE issue, logged onto my Affinity account and confirmed that for at least my 2.5.x version, you can choose between installers when you download. But the MSIX appears to be the default. I now assume that my download was MSIX. So, it looks like many users will find themselves with the "Windowsapp" installation. It may or may not be trivial to uninstall the sandboxed version and install the normal version. I don't know what might happen to workspace customizations, preferences, and the like. I'll explore some more.

Serif's principal reason/excuse for using the MSIX installation seems to be that they can do updates as patches, thus saving "the user" the bother of downloading the whole installer for upgrades. Seems a tad disingenuous to me, given that server bandwidth might be a bigger deal to the vendor than ISP bandwidth caps might be for the user. But I'm just a cynical guy.

Bottom line seems to be that the need for Photo Mechanic to have its own solution won't go away, at least not soon.

Meanwhile, I think that my now-hopefully-moot issues with ACR may have stemmed from impatience as much as my just being a potato-head. Both ACR and Affinity Develop churn away silently at opening files. Multiple files mean longer churning and more user antsyness.

UPDATE: Figuring that if I was going to move Affinity Photo from Windowsapp-land to the normal program files directory, I should do so now before I have a ton of time invested in customizations and downloaded plugins and whatnot. So, I downloaded the .exe installers for all three programs, uninstalled the existing ones and reinstalled with the new installers. Reactivated with my password. And it was fine. My Affinity workspace was as I left it. (Meaning the uninstaller had left my prefs files in Appdata alone, which is both a good and bad thing.) I then set Photo Mechanic's launching preferences to the new location of the photo.exe file and all was well.

Cheers.

-Carl