Is there any possible way to open an application from illustrator using javascript?

function unique(ain) {
	var seen = {}
	var aout = []
	for(var i = 0; i < ain.length; i++) {
		var elt = ain[i]
		if (!seen[elt]) {
			aout.push(elt)
			seen[elt] = true 
		}
	}
	return aout
}

var doc = app.activeDocument;
var listImageFiles = [];
var i, in_file;
for(i = 0; i < doc.placedItems.length; i++) {
	in_file = doc.placedItems[i].file;
	listImageFiles.push(in_file);
	listImageFiles = unique(listImageFiles);
}
   
var ii;
for(ii = 0; ii < listImageFiles.length; ii++) {
	photoshop.open(listImageFiles[ii]);
}

First we put all placed images with full path into an array.

Then we use the unique function to remove any images placed more than once from the array.

In the end we open all files stored in the array in Photoshop.

To prevent errors make sure Photoshop is already running because the script is faster than app startup 🙂