Example external Photo editor

it's interoperability with other editors is far better than iPhoto - you're not restricted to one

in iPhoto and Aperture we had to select a favorite external editor in the Preferences. It was easy to use this one editor, but very clumsy to switch between external editors. What I really enjoy in Photos is, that I can use many different editors simply from the Edit menu in Photos, if the editor provides photo editing extensions. no more changinging the preferences, when I need several editors.

The edit panel makes it so simple (since Sierra) - I can easily mix the lens correction in DxO Optics pro with the Haze removal in Affinity Haze removal and the perspective correction in Luminar:

And since High Sierra, the Image > Edit with menu allows to use any external editor, but this will only work, for external editors , that have been updated to be compatible with this interface. Older applications cannot save the edited image directly back to Photos.

But we can call any application using the "Other" entry in "Edit with" and then use the magnificent "External Editors" extension to add the edited image as an edited version of the original photo.

I am using the "External Editors" extension a lot.

No rose without thorns. 😁 Some external editors are returning gigantic image files of 100GB and more, which is ridiculous, if the original image file is a JPEG of just 5MB. When that happens, I use Luminar or GraphicConverter 10 to convert the file to a HEIC image and then replaced the edited version by the smaller HEIC External Editors".

You can use any 3rd party image editor of your choice with Photos. All you need to do is purchase the 99¢ External Editors For Photos extension from the App Store. This user tip shows how: External Editors in Photos Are Here

With Photos 3.0 you access a large number of 3rd party image editors without the extension. The extension does expand the number of editors one can use with photos:

Double click on image above to activate animation.

The apps must reside in the Applications folder.

With the Extension more apps are accessible:

You will need to determine which 3rd party image editors you'll want to use.

Sorry but I have no idea what you are talking about

This is the Photos for Mac forum and you seem to be asking about iPhoto which is a totally different program that was discontinued over three years ago

iPhoto can use any editor as an external editor but only one can be set so changing is dificult

Photos can use any editor as an external editor with the $0.99 External Editors for Photos extension from the App Store and the current version can use the Edit with command to edit using any editor - with Photos you NEVER directly access the contents of the library using the finder, you only use the external editor or edit with capability - and the current version also can use extensions which are available for many photo editing programs - Photo Editing Extensions for Photos for Mac

Please explain what you want and for which program

LN

rccharles wrote:

I'm wondering if anyone knows of examples of such editor. I'd like to try one out.

Photoshop, Aurora, GraphicConverter, Luminar, Preview, and Readiris are among the programs that "External Editors" offers on the MacBook on which I am typing this.

Anyone know about the programming interface for this feature. How would I go about building such an editor?

Sorry, can't help with this part. However, ...

Seems like this would provide the capability to find the "official" location of the file.

As I understand it, the target program could well be passed a copy of the subject image, which would provide no clue as the "official" location of the file (whatever that means).