Opening and importing

For many users, the starting point to your project will be to open or import an image and then edit it. Images can be accessed from local and cloud storage (e.g., iCloud), or from your iPad's Apple Photos app. Of course, you can also open already saved Affinity Photo documents (iPad or desktop), Affinity Designer documents, PSD, and PDF files.

The choice of whether to open or import files is an important decision in Affinity Photo. Understanding the difference will help with file management and backup strategies.

Opening in place

You can open images and previously saved Affinity documents (plus PSDs) from local or cloud storage. When opening, the key point is that these files are kept in their original location and will be overwritten on saving. However, if you add layers to an opened 'flat' image, you can either flatten the document on saving (this overwrites the original image in its original location) or save the document to a new fixed location on local/cloud storage. The latter preserves all layer information.

Importing by copying

Unlike opening, importing always makes a copy of the original image or document and loads it as an 'internal' document. The imported file could be from your Apple Photos library or from local/cloud storage. On saving, the document will be added to cloud storage or On My iPad to a fixed location.

Opening vs importing
Opening vs. importing

Recent documents are shown as thumbnails at the top of Affinity Photo's Home screen for your convenience. They are actually open minimized documents, so saving and closing a document will create a physical file and remove the document's thumbnail from the app's Home screen.

Add Import from iCloud To open an image or document in place:
  1. From Affinity Photo's Home screen, tap the plus icon.
  2. Select Open From Cloud to access your local or cloud storage (e.g., iCloud, Dropbox or other cloud storage).
  3. Navigate to, then tap the file to open.
Add Import from iCloud Import from Photos Import from Camera To import an image or document (by copying):
  1. From Affinity Photo's Home screen, tap the plus icon.
  2. Select one of:
    • Import From Cloud—accesses your local or cloud storage.
    • Import From Photos—accesses your Apple Photos library.
    • Import From Camera—captures and opens a photo with your iPad device. You can shoot RAW, bracketed HDR, toggle face detection and display on-screen aids such as a histogram and vectorscope.

For the first two options, navigate to and tap the file you want to open. For the last option, the photo you've taken using the iPad camera will load automatically into Affinity Photo.

To display a document:

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