Opening PSP as an external editor

[MikeFromMesa]

I use a Mac for photo editing so I have not used PSP 6 (which I have on a Windows VM on my Mac) for much editing. Instead I generally edit using a workflow tool (CaptureOne). When I find I need to do some pixel level editing I have been using the Mac version of Photoshop CC as an external editor for CaptureOne but, since I plan to end my PS subscription, I will need to use a Windows based pixel editor for anything I can not do with CaptureOne.

I setup CaptureOne to use PaintShop Pro 6 as an external editor and tested it. Much to my surprise the Mac software launches PSP properly but, when PSP opens, it does not contain the tiff image that CaptureOne supposedly is sending it. I also have a older Windows version of Photoshop on the Windows partition and, when I call it from CaptureOne, it does open with the tiff image so I am forced to assume that there must be some reason that PSP will not open with the image it is called with.

Because I have received an upgrade offer for PSP 7 and am thinking about buying it to use with my Mac workflow tool I wanted to find out what I could about calling PSP with an image. I understand that my setup (Mac workflow software, Parallels 8 running Windows 8, PSP 6 on Windows) is probably a very unusual configuration and perhaps no one else on this forum is using it, but I did want to ask.

If PSP is called from a workflow tool like CaptureOne as an external editor, will it open with the image already open if called from Windows rather than from the Mac? Is there some setup I may have missed that might be causing this problem? Is this a known restriction with PSP? I guess I would like to know before I buy the PSP 7 upgrade.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

[df]

PSP 6 and 7 are really old versions. I assume that you're actually meaning X6 and X7.

[Forriner]

Just an idea because I don't really know anything.

I don't know about Mac, but Windows can react strangely to folder and file names with spaces. In CaptureOne, can you format the call to open PSP and the image? CaptureOne opens PSP so I would check if it encloses the image path and name in quotes.

The calling command in Windows would be (tested from the command line):
"full path including PSP .exe in quotes" [space] "full path to image name .tiff/.jpg in quotes"

Possibly a %1 (the file name parameter in many programs) enclosed in quotes like: "%1"
"full path including PSP .exe in quotes" [space] "%1"

It might be worth a try if you have nothing better to do.
Good luck.

[MikeFromMesa]

PSP 6 and 7 are really old versions. I assume that you're actually meaning X6 and X7.

Yes. My mistake. Thank you for the correction.

[MikeFromMesa]

Just an idea because I don't really know anything.

I don't know about Mac, but Windows can react strangely to folder and file names with spaces. In CaptureOne, can you format the call to open PSP and the image? CaptureOne opens PSP so I would check if it encloses the image path and name in quotes.

The calling command in Windows would be (tested from the command line):
"full path including PSP .exe in quotes" [space] "full path to image name .tiff/.jpg in quotes"

Possibly a %1 (the file name parameter in many programs) enclosed in quotes like: "%1"
"full path including PSP .exe in quotes" [space] "%1"

It might be worth a try if you have nothing better to do.
Good luck.

Thank you for the suggestions. I will check. But the whole process works properly when I call Photoshop in Windows so I assume the call to PSP X6 would be formatted in exactly the same fashion. One of the problems I have is that I don't have many workflow tools to use on the Mac to test this out. I have Dxo Optics Pro and CaptureOne. Both work with Photoshop, neither works with PSP. I have a good upgrade offer to X7 but there is no sense in my upgrading if using it will be too much trouble. I have not contacted Customer Support about this but my previous experience with Corel Customer Service (about ASP) has not been good.

For what it is worth I have tried calling PSP from another Windows app and this works properly. It is only calling across the Mac/Windows barrier, via Parallels, which does not seem to work and that is sufficiently unique that I don't know that I will find anyone also trying to do this.

Again, thanks for the post.