Affinity Photo

Does Filter Forge work with Affinity Photo?

Alright so I hear that you can use Photoshop Plugins with Affinity Photo and I tried. FilterForge will show up as a plugin on Affinity Photo but launching it will cause the program to crash. aka: it doesn't work. But I say these folks are on the right line. I'm excited for Affinity's product line and it'd be fantastic to see FilterForge onboard with Affinity's platform as well.

I don't see Xara on that list but on the Xara forums they say it works.

Hi,

Filter Forge can work in Serif Affinity Photo but it requires a slight manual modification of a config file. See attached for details.
This was also the case to make Filter Forge work in Serif PhotoPlus, by the way.

Cheers,
Roberto

Owe, yes that is sad indeed.
Sorry for not having mentioned that the fix at least applies to Windows.

Roberto

Quote
Just would like it if somebody from FF would at least pop in and just say something.

As stated above by GMM:

Quote
We tried to contact Serif developers but got no reply. I'd appreciate if you, as a paying customer, nag them as well: about adding Filter Forge support, or about documenting their plugin interface, or at least about answering our requests.

CartoonMike, it appears we should send messages to Serif. It's almost there, just not quite and there are obviously things FF can't do without their call.

Ok. After I installed FF6 outside the standard Program Files Folder, it works.

Folks, if you haven't already, send emails to Affinity in regards to having a proper solution to supporting FilterForge on Affinity Photo. Not sure what the status on that is but the more people are talking about this, the better for yourself.

YES! Thank you!!!

Quote
GMM wrote: Hi Patrick and welcome to the forums! Just checked it again – I'm afraid we haven't received anything from support@seriflabs.com. By the way, we've tried to reach four different contacts from serif.com and seriflabs.com – you are the fifth one.

Well not quite, as "Mark" from Filter Forge Support has been communicating directly with the Affinity Photo Project Lead Andy Somerfield since 4th Jan... I'm looking at the email thread now (Case 367473). Technically not a reply from "support@seriflabs.com" but you don't get a better contact for Mac Affinity than Andy and you are certainly not being ignored....

Quote
Could you please email us directly at support@filterforge.com.

I will also email support@filterforge.com explaining how to access our Windows version of Affinity Photo.

P Connor
Head of QA Serif Affinity

hmm, sorry it's not in my version of the thread. I'll see where that has gone..

Hi Patrick Connor,

Nice to see you here!!
That's interesting: reading messages from Patrick Connor I assumed I was on the Serif/Affinity forum: took me four wrong passwords to login here ... until I noticed this is the FilterForge forum

Hmm, wanted to leave an Affinity related reply ... better to switch to that other forum
Anyways, great to see both parties successfully came in touch with each other

Cheers,
Roberto

No idea if it has anything to do with it but I was told that PhotoPlus as well as Affinity Photo does something most if not all other hosts do:

When a plugin (in general) is started (or closed?) the host should free the memory it will use/used.
Not doing so it may cause errors with plugins if the plugin code doesn't include a reset of the variables build-in.

However, Affinity closes before the FF plugin starts then this might not have anything to do with the issue above.

Roberto

No Macs here, sorry.

Just was telling about a known plugin issue with Serif that perhaps might be related.

Followed the instructions that GMM posted and although FF shows up in the preferences and in the Filter|plugins menu, it's not selectable. And the plugin creation date is back in Dec '16. It didn't seem to get updated in the 6.007 update.

Quote
GMM wrote: Please make sure you have "Allow unknown plugins" setting enabled.

It is.

Hi Matrose,

(for MS Windows:)

Affinity's own plugin folder is: C:\ProgramData\Affinity\Photo\1.0\Plugins
Affinity will always find plugins in that folder. Verify if Affinity has detected plugins by going to: Edit - Preferences - Photoshop Plugins.
Also MAKE SURE you have checked the little box in the bottom left: 'Allow ''Unknown'' plugins to be used: is the FilterForge plugin visible in the list? If yes then restart Affinity.
(PS: in this dialog you also can ADD additional (plugin) folders Affinity should load plugins from at start-up).

If the FilterForge plugin is NOT visible in the list then switch to a file manager (e.g. Windows Explorer) and go to the plugins folder of FilterForge 6 which is at default on the C:/ drive but it can be on an other drive if you set an other drive during FF installation. With the C:/-drive assumed you can find the FilterForge6 plugin file at: C:\Filter Forge 6\ Plugin\ x64\Filter Forge 6 x64.8bf.
Copy the file Filter Forge 6 x64.8bf
Go to the plugins folder from Affinity at C:\ProgramData\Affinity\Photo\1.0\Plugins
Paste the FF6 plugin file there.

Restart Affinity and see if the FilterForge 6 plugin is loaded: if not than again go to the Photoshop Plugins dialog (Edit - Preferences - Photoshop Plugins) and make sure the 'Allow "Unknown" plugins to be used' checkbox is checked.

For Macintosh I don't know if the plugin folders have the exact same paths.