Using several Pixelmator and other photo applications with Apple Photos on the same photo

Talk about Pixelmator Pro, share tips & tricks, tutorials, and other resources.
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2022-10-18 04:25:37

Hi, I was wondering if the following can cause problems with Apple Photos saving non destructive edits. Is it possible to use different applications inside Apple Photos and have them all save back changes to the same photo?

For example: edit a photo with Pixelmator pro, save changes to apple photos. Then use an Affinity Photo dehaze tool, save back the changes, .... using Pixelmator Photo on ios to make more changes on the same photo...etc etc

Does this cause any problem later on? I tried this with Pixelmator Photo on ios and Darkroom. So from what I can see it works. Both Pixelmator and darkroom create a file on icloud in their respective folders.

Still, it sounds messy to me so if anybody has some input on if this is an OK workflow or not would be great.
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2022-10-18 18:08:08

Nik Bhatt, wrote a very good article in TidBits about this issue.

https://tidbits.com/2019/06/14/the-ins- ... c-and-ios/

I think this will explain all.

HtH
Ben
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2022-10-19 06:17:29

by MacGB Nik Bhatt, wrote a very good article in TidBits about this issue.

https://tidbits.com/2019/06/14/the-ins- ... c-and-ios/

I think this will explain all.

HtH
Ben
great article!

If anybody is interested, basically, using 2 different editors on the same file in Photos will not work correctly. One edit will overwrite the other according to the above article.
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2022-10-19 11:19:18

by denisbkk
great article!

Using to editors on the same file will not work correctly
Perhaps I am misreading your summary, but as long as you don’t open the edited picture in another app, you can continue editing were you left (so it is possible to re-edit your first edits). If you open the edited picture in another app or continue editing in Photo’s the first made edits are “backed in” , so you cannot redo them individually. The only possibility if you want to redo them is to “start over” by going back to the original in Apple Photo’s or make a duplicate as original.
This behavior also applies when you start editing in Photo’s first, if you then go to another app, the edits from Photo’s are “baked in”
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2022-10-19 11:56:25

by MacGB
Perhaps I am misreading your summary, but as long as you don’t open the edited picture in another app, you can continue editing were you left (so it is possible to re-edit your first edits). If you open the edited picture in another app or continue editing in Photo’s the first made edits are “backed in” , so you cannot redo them individually. The only possibility if you want to redo them is to “start over” by going back to the original in Apple Photo’s or make a duplicate as original.
This behavior also applies when you start editing in Photo’s first, if you then go to another app, the edits from Photo’s are “baked in”
I think changes don't get backed in from the first app you edit with. When you edit an already edited app with a second app, then the edits you made from the first one are gone/reset. All you keep are the changes you made with the 2nd app. That is how I understood it at least.
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2022-10-19 13:29:33

by denisbkk
When you edit an already edited app with a second app, then the edits you made from the first one are gone/reset.
That is not correct. The edits are saved, when you open the edited picture with a second app, Photo’s will sent a jpeg or tiff with the edits from the first app “baked in”. You may then continue editing with the second app, however you cannot undo the edits from the first app per edit anymore.
I have been practicing this many times. So for instance when I make my edits with PP, save them back to Photo’s and reopen it with Affinity to use Dehaze. All edits are still there, and I will just dehaze, and save back to Photo’s. All edits are still in the photo including the dehaze. Reopen in PP will open a jpeg including all edits. However for PP it’s a “new” picture, so you cannot redo/undo the edits made earlier with PP.
Hope this clarifies ?
As far as I have experienced there is one exception. When you open a RAW file in Affintiy-Develop it will always open the unedited RAW. But that is how Affinity interacts with Apple Photo’s. Even if you just use Affinity develop and re-open in Affinity again it will just pick the original RAW again.
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2022-10-20 05:19:27

Yep, you are absolutely right. Had to re-read again but what you say is correct.

I'm wondering without this page linked above, how would anybody understand this? There seems no documentation about this from Apple or anywhere else. Really weird. Then again, even with all those shortcomings, I (personally) still think Apple Photos is the best photo browser of all, one of the reasons I got Pixelmator was that it works perfectly fine with Apple Photos. Let's hope it will not be abandoned again like other Apple products.
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2022-10-23 07:34:48

actually I have one more question about this. I own Pixelmator Pro and Pixelmator photo on ios.

They are different apps so making edits on photos with Pixelmator Pro, then opening the file on ios, I am not able to "see" or adjust those edits from Pixelmatort Pro.

How is this with the Pixelmator ios app? I do not own this one. Are edits made in Pixelmator Pro visible on ios when editing with Pixelmator ios? And vice versa?

When Pixelmator Photo for Mac Os is released soon, then this will be a eco system across all devices and you can save and adjust edits on any device and save it back to Apple Photos. I am wondering then how Pixelmator Pro fits in there or if this already works when I would buy the Pixelmator ios app.
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2022-10-23 07:48:34

@denisbkk
I don’t own Pixelmator for ios, so I can’t help you out with this.
I do have Pixelmator photo for ios and tried opening edited photo’s from my iPad in Pixelmator Pro. That didn’t work either, (unless I made some changes in the file structure myself) which is a cumbersome way, so I stopped doing that.
Personally I have my hopes on Pixelmator Photo for macOS. When that arrives and has the functionality I need for photo-editting, I will stop using Pixelmator Pro, as it has to many distracting functions for what I am doing.
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2022-10-23 09:12:42

yep, same here, I hope we see local adjustments once Pixelmator Photo launches for Mac OS.