Import Affinity documents and recognize preview fallbacks

Detailed import behaviour, what stays editable, what is rasterized or approximated, and how to recognize conversion limits.

Applies to Photo 0.9.0 on photo.et.

What this reference covers#

PhotoCraft opens native Affinity documents: .af files from Affinity 3 and .afdesign, .afphoto and .afpub files from Affinity 1 and 2. Layers come in as editable PhotoCraft layers:

• pages and artboards become artboards (Publisher spreads sit side by side);
• layers and groups become groups;
• curves and shapes (rectangles, ellipses, polygons, stars and the other geometric shapes) become shape layers with their fill, gradient and stroke;
• artistic and frame text becomes type layers, drawn with the fonts available to the editor;
• placed JPEG and PNG images become embedded smart objects, and pixel layers become pixel layers;
• vector and pixel masks, opacity, visibility, locks, names and blend modes are kept.

Artboards are recognized from both the legacy flag and current Affinity 3 artboard properties. They keep their names, bounds and editable children when saved as .pcraft or PSD; moving an artboard moves its children together. Nested boards become masked groups, and rotated or curved boards currently use their bounding rectangle.

The document is 8-bit RGB at the Affinity document's resolution. What PhotoCraft can't reproduce is listed in a warning when the file opens, for example layer effects, adjustment layers and live filters, brush strokes (drawn as plain strokes), special shapes such as clouds and hearts (drawn as ellipses), master pages, and CMYK or Lab colour (converted to RGB without the document's profile). Inspect the import warnings for details of unsupported content.

PhotoCraft can't write Affinity files. An opened Affinity document has no save path: Save asks for a new file (.pcraft, PSD, PNG…) and never writes over the Affinity file.

If the native data can't be read (a damaged file, or a layout PhotoCraft doesn't know), PhotoCraft opens the small PNG preview Affinity stores in the file instead, as a single pixel layer named “Affinity preview”, and the warning says why. That preview can't be placed or used by File ▸ Place, stacks, batch processing or other imports that can't show the warning. Export PSD or PNG from Affinity in that case.

Review before continuing#

Compare the opened document with an export from Affinity, especially when it uses advanced effects, fonts or colour modes. Check whether you received editable layers or a single preview layer. Keep the original Affinity file, then save a separate working copy rather than treating this conversion as a reversible round trip.

Continue reading

• Save, export and exchange files →
• Keep an editable master with .pcraft →