High Sierra Photos

[nicholasg]

six colors.com has a nice post on the latest version of Photos for Mac.

I noticed one thing that surprised/disappointed me (in bold): -

Support for third-party edits.

In the transition from iPhoto to Photos, the ability to edit a photo in an outside app and then save it back into your photo library was lost.

It’s back now, and it’s better than it ever was in iPhoto.

In Photos on High Sierra, you can open any photo in an external image editor via the Edit With command under the Image menu. Under the Edit With menu will be a list of all the apps on your Mac that have been updated to take advantage of this feature of Photos, meaning you don’t need to pick a single external editor—you can choose different apps as you see fit.

Once an image has been opened in an external editor, you can do pretty much anything you want to it. Once you save in the app, the adjustments you’ve made come back to Photos right where you left it. You can make further edits on that photo if you want, and as with any photo in Photos, the original image is stored so you can revert back at any time.

One caveat: If an image is shot in the Raw file format, the Raw file is not sent to the external editor; instead, a JPEG version is transferred. (The Raw original is always saved and can be reverted to later, of course.)

Is he correct?

 

[whiteonline]

I believe so. The only potential caveat to his caveat is when you send an virgin (unedited) raw file to the external editor, it will send the raw itself. (I know this was the case with Photos extensions before, and am assuming the same for using an external editor).

 

[nicholasg]

I wonder if anyone has tested this. I imagine most external applications would tell you what type of file (RAW or JPEG) they are editing.

 

[robgendreau]

That's not true, depending on the external editor.

When you use edit with... it opens up the image in the new application. Most will show you in the title bar what you're working on. Images I sent from a raw in Photos to Graphic Converter showed Tiff, as did a couple of others. But an image sent to Affinity Photo showed as the ORF raw and opened in AP's develop module, as any raw would.

It might have to do with whether Photos and/or the system knows if the external application does raw; if not, maybe it uses the OS conversion, as it would if one opened the image from the Finder.

 

[nicholasg]

That's not true, depending on the external editor.

When you use edit with... it opens up the image in the new application. Most will show you in the title bar what you're working on. Images I sent from a raw in Photos to Graphic Converter showed Tiff, as did a couple of others. But an image sent to Affinity Photo showed as the ORF raw and opened in AP's develop module, as any raw would.

It might have to do with whether Photos and/or the system knows if the external application does raw; if not, maybe it uses the OS conversion, as it would if one opened the image from the Finder.

Rob,

Thanks for this info.

When you opened the RAW file in Affinity Photo, were you using 1.5? The release notes for 1.6 "New Edit in Affinity Photo integration" and I wonder what is different.

When you saved from Affinity Photo what file type went back to Photos? Is it possible to tell Affinity Photo what type to send back?

Thanks,
Nicholas

 

[robgendreau]

Rob,

Thanks for this info.

When you opened the RAW file in Affinity Photo, were you using 1.5? The release notes for 1.6 "New Edit in Affinity Photo integration" and I wonder what is different.

When you saved from Affinity Photo what file type went back to Photos? Is it possible to tell Affinity Photo what type to send back?

Thanks,
Nicholas

I must have been using 1.5, because I just upgraded to 1.6, and haven't used it with Photos yet. I don't remember what it sent back. Maybe get a demo and try it.