Hilltop

My first foray into a photo like vector illustration!
All Designer apart from the watercolour of the Kudu which I actually painted back in 2016 with ArtRage (it's good to recycle!).

An abstract creation of a west African man depicting their arts & culture.
Created using Affinity Designer.

Clone, Heal, Patch, Inpaint…which one to use? In this Affinity Photo tutorial we’ll look at the various tools for copying and removing objects, along with some image repair techniques. 
 
 
 

Here is a rough and ready tutorial on how to use chartwell font in Publisher to create graphs.
see the attached file.
 
Chartwell Graphs.afpub
Chartwell.mp4

Vector graphics are what we usually use Affinity Designer for, but did you know there is also an entire raster tool set? In this video we’ll look at the Pixel Persona and will pay particular attention to best practices when working non-destructively with bitmap graphics. 
 

Create cool filters like you see on Instagram and TikTok using gradient maps! This simple tool can add a “Wow” factor to your photography and art. In this video, we’ll look at spicing up your photos with cool filter effects and even see how to transfer styles from one photo to another.
 

Hi All,
We have just made 2.2 live across all App Stores and our website. As always, the feedback we have received from you all during this beta has been an incredible help in both shaping the new features as well as squashing many bugs!
The build we have released is the same as RC3 (build 2005), meaning for the time being whether you use the latest beta version or switch to using the release version they are the same. If you anticipate taking part in the next beta you may wish to keep your current beta version installed, as this will be updated on auto update when a new beta is available. This will either be a 2.2 patch if we feel one is needed, or moving straight onto a 2.3 beta.
It would be impossible for us to do what we do without your support, and I just wanted to say a huge thanks for everything you have contributed to this release.
All the best,
Ash

I really appreciate your tutorials, Trent! They're snappy, yet packed with lots of information and tips. 

The Vector Brush tool will allow you to add some organic texture to your art in Affinity Designer. We’ll look at how to get the most out of the default brushes and also see how to create your own brushes from scratch. 
 

My favorite car made completely in Designer.
Instagram: Austiemo
Webstie: Austiemo.com/portfolio
Facebook: Austiemo

Thanks so much! Very useful.

Thank you for this wonderful resource, Mike!

I have attached a macro category called "Enhance Skin Tones." This is a free download which will help add color and tone to the skin of your portraits. There are 21 different enhancement macros included, grouped for Light, Peach, Tan, and Dark skin. These macros are meant to enhance, not replace, skin colors. The macros are all based on the use of Gradient Maps, and use different dark and light colors along with setting opacity and blend mode for each adjustment.
While the skin tone macros are grouped into Light, Peach, Tan, and Dark skin groups (roughly corresponding to Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic, and African coloration) they are certainly not exclusive. You may want to experiment using the adjustments from any (or all) of the groups to add different coloration and tone to your underlying portrait.
The Light and Peach skin tone macros add a gradient map and set its opacity to 25%. The Tan skin tone macros set the opacity to 30%. The Dark skin tone macros set the opacity to 40%. All of the macros set the blend mode of the gradient map adjustment to Soft Light. You should also experiment with changing the opacity and blend mode of the adjustments, as these will create different effects that you might like. Try using blend modes such as Overlay, Linear Light, and even Multiply. The results can be subtle, but changing the default settings can often make them fairly dramatic.
An important note: the macros work best when you have the skin selected prior to invoking the macros. This ensures that the gradient map adjustment uses your selection as a mask, and applies the changes to the skin only. As with all layer masks, however, you can edit the mask (by painting on the adjustment layer in black or white) after the fact.
Here is a graphic that includes 4 portraits (labelled as Original versions) along with versions of each of the 21 different skin tone enhancing macros. The enhanced versions are all based on the default settings for the respective macros. Under each example is the name of the skin tone macro used, along with a gradient representing the dark and light colors used in the gradient map adjustment. Remember that these results look very subtle, but your results can be more dramatic simply by increasing the opacity slider.

The attached macro category was created in Affinity Photo 2, and probably will not be compatible with version 1. It is a category and therefore should be imported into the Library panel (using the "hamburger menu" at the panel's top right corner). The category includes the 21 skin tone macros, but also includes a macro called "Try All Skin Tones" which will create a group (with sub-groups) that includes all 21 adjustments so you can try them all to see which one you like. There is also a macro called "Instructions - Enhance Skin Tones" which will display on-screen instructions for using the macros. These instructions are placed in a separate layer which you should delete after having read and understood the instructions.
[These macros are loosely based on some of the gradients used in a recent YouTube video by Blake Rudis, whose f64 Academy channel has been quite helpful (especially for matters concerning color grading). Blake's videos are exclusively aimed at Photoshop users, but the methods he uses are almost always compatible with similar methods in Affinity Photo. So, a big thank-you to him.]
As with all of my Resource uploads, these are the work of 1 person working on 1 computer. I do not pretend to have tested them extensively, but I believe they will function as they are supposed to. Try them and see if they work for you. If they do, they are free for your use without restriction.
I have always encouraged users to "pay it forward" and help others in this forum as they themselves become more knowledgeable and adept at using Affinity Photo. This is how knowledge and good will spreads.
Enhance Skin Tones.afmacros

I'm unsure. I just intended to explain the Books feature since it's so difficult to know if it's the right choice for your project until you've broken your book into chapter files. And if it turns out it was the wrong choice, it's hard to put the chapters back together again. I need to get back to my other book project but I imagine I'll expand this a bit in the future when I feel an itch to document a feature. I added the section on keyboard shortcuts yesterday while waiting for the release of 2.2.
Thanks for catching this. If I had been sending this to print I would have engaged proofreaders but since this was a free project I knew there would be some copy/paste mistakes like this. Here's what the first example should have been, I will change this in the first update.

Will do, thanks.

[Updated Nov 30 2023 - new version for Publisher 2.3 with 120 more pages than the first version]
Learn how to format text and publish books and other long documents with Affinity Publisher 2.3. This free in-depth manual is filled with steps, tips, and recommendations for:
Character and paragraph formatting - added Nov 30 Text styles - added Nov 30 Documents, Pages, Master Pages, Sections, and Baseline Grid Text Frames, Text Flow, and Stories Books and Chapters Cross-References, Table of Contents, and Index Notes - including Footnotes, Sidenotes, and Endnotes Fields - including Page Numbering, Running Headers, and Custom Variables Anchors and Hyperlinks Printing and Exporting Settings This manual does not cover objects and photos so it covers approximately half of the topics.
Updated version:
Publisher Manual Nov 29 2023.pdf
 
Q&A
Is there a full manual I can purchase? No, this is all there is. Is this really free? Yes, I'm making it available free of charge. It's copyrighted to prevent others from publishing it as their own. Is there an iPad version? No, the steps and screenshots are for the macOS and Windows versions. Is there a version for Designer or Photo? No, but the text features are largely the same so you may find it useful. Why does it use a print layout if it's a PDF? It's a demonstration of how to use the features it describes to create a print book. Original version:
Publisher Manual Sep 26 2023.pdf
Publisher Manual Sep 18 2023.pdf

Here are two of my Badge (Label) Assets sets, these assets are plain (silhouettes) + vintage (grouped) vector curve(s) based badges/labels. The two sets do contain various forms of these. NOTE that the assets for the below shown vintage badge set don't include any preapplied text, it's below just shown this with text way in order to give you an idea how they could look with some used/applied text on them!
 


 
The corresponding assets files:
Badge_Assets.afassets  
- Have fun with these free to reuse badges!

The Book would be much more useful if it - as an alternative - allowed editing all the included chapters at once. Searching & replacing, editing of styles and text variables, master pages, and so on.
Paolo
 

Great video again. Thanks. One thing, though, the perspective of the 'walkway' text looks a bit off compared to the 'stop' text. The latter seems to lie a bit flatter while the former seems to point more upwards. Might be the font and its size....

The Vector Warp Group tool in Affinity Designer is a great way to bend designs to your will…but understanding perspective can be a little tricky. In this video, I’ll go over some basic perspective theory and then show how to use the Warp Group tool to shape text and logos to fit onto objects.
 

If you want to take your outline effects to the next level, then the Contour tool is must-know feature of Affinity Designer. This simple little tool can have some surprisingly powerful effects and we’ll review a bunch of them in this video.
 
 
 

The Shape Builder is a welcome addition to the Affinity Designer toolset. Learn how to use this versatile tool to speed up your workflow when creating vector artwork. 
 
 

Symbols are a great way to reuse objects in your document and make updates that can be reflected everywhere. In this video, we’ll explore how to enable symbols along with some tips and tricks for dealing with how they actually work.
 

In this video, I give an overview of the Boolean operations and then discuss how to use them non-destructively with compounds. This is a useful technique for building more complex objects in a flexible manner.
 
 

In this tutorial, I give a crash course in how to use Adjustment Layers. I demo them in Affinity Designer, but this powerful tool is available in all the Affinity products: Designer, Photo, and Publisher:
 
 
 

Wield the Gradient Fill Tool like an artist, adding depth, dimension, and captivating hues to your designs. In this video, you’ll learn how to infuse your designs with an explosion of colors using Affinity Designer's Gradient Fill Tool.