JLARM

This is another of my small cut and polished stones. The image went through some post process software and then brought into Affinity Photo for final finsih. It is still a bit rough but I am happy with it. Can you imagine the architectural plans for this thing ! I would hate to be the construction contractor. I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you MEB and Jasper. I appreciate your replies. I am continually fascinated by the small beautiful worlds that pop up inside these stones. Mother Nature is amazing. As you can see by the photo in this post, these stones are not spectacular gems. Just ordinary polished bits of rock. But, once "inside", who knows what you will find.

Only Mother Nature could make an image like this. I am still messing around with the new release of Affintiy Photo. Once again this is one of my macro photos of a small cut and polished stone. The RAW file was processed through AP with only slight adjustments to bring out the color. It is still a little rough and needs further work but AP makes it easy. I hope you like it as much as I.

Using a photo from my last post, I wanted to show what can happen when you let Affinity Photo do it's own thing. The first image is the original RAW photo with no changes. The next is my attempt to learn a little more about AP and make adjustments to improve the photo. And lastly is the image produced by AP with no help from anybody. I used all four of AP's auto adjustments and I for one am very impressed with the results. Although it is a little on the cold side, AP managed to pull out a great deal of detail and correct a lot of the indistinct elements. As I said on my last post, the photo is a macro image of a small cut and polished stone. The entire image area is just slighly larger than a US 25 cent coin. The new release of AP is certainly worth a look.

Another RAW file processed through Affinity Photo new release. This one is just a normal export as a JPG small size. From a distance it reminds me of an oriental painting of a snowy branch. There is very little post processing of the photo to adjust colors. This is another photo of a small cut and polished stone. The area covered by this photo is only slighly larger than a US 25 cent coin. Please excuse the slight blurryness in the image. Not Affinity Photos fault. Macro photos at this level are difficult at best with less than a professional camera. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks MBd. I appreciate your viewing. You are most probably correct about the exporting. I was just mainly testing AP to see what it would put out at the 3x level. I am not a photographer and my photos of these stones can sometime be a real pain to get to look good. I know that the more pixels I have to work with the better the result will be when printed at a smaller size. I will, as you suggest, check it out as a normal export and see if it improves any.

This is my first photo from the new release of Affinity Photo. For those who might be interested, the photo is from a RAW file opened in AP, slightly adjusted and then developed. The image was then exported out of AP in 3x which resulted in a 219 MB PNG file with the image at approx 48 x 36 inches with a resolution of 288 ppi. I then squished it down to upload to the forum. The image is a macro photo of a small agate stone that has been cut and polished. Affinity Photo handled the whole thing like a trooper. No hesitation, no slowness, no fuss, no bother. I really like this program. Since I have zero experience or talent in this area, I am really pleased at the result. Thank you guys at Serif. Nice job !

Ok, for anyone who happens to be following this journey, here is the completed line work for the partial version of the original file which I will use for my first mandala. I went to extra effort to make sure all lines are correctly joining. There are 137 circles in the image which were arranged to get the pattern. I am currently taking Robbie McBride's excellent beginners course over over on Udemy. Trying to pick up some hints because I am now going to have to "objectify" each of the spaces in this image so that I can color them and keep them in vector. This is going to be interesting. :wacko: Any hints would be greatly appreciated.

Peter, you are so right ! I have almost finished the linework for a slightly simpler version of the original file to use for my first mandala and I completly lost yesterday. I have no idea where it went ! I don't know what will happen when I actually get to coloring it. Hopefully something to show soon. :huh:

Gregg: Thanks for the welcome. I am looking foward to getting some color into it. Peter: Thanks for the idea. I may try getting a few printed for test purposes. I need to do a little work on this now because these old eyes did not get the lines quite lined up correctly. I am going through making sure the lines meet properly. With the number of circles in this it may be a little while.

I am a complete newbie to Affinity and this is my first attempt at a project. I am attempting to copy a pattern used by an artist on the Web who is involved heavily with Sacred Geometry. If you are interested you can Google Charles Gilchrist or Sacred Geometry. The pattern was used as the base for one of his Mandala paintings. The pattern called Natures First Pattern is basically circles arranged to form a repeating pattern. This is the result of my first attempts with Affinity and vectors in general. Of course, I had to pick an easy one ! I am convinced that Affinity Designer is made with secret magic potions and mysterious spells. All of this pattern is split into individual pieces and the file is still very small and extremely responsive on the screen. If I were to export this file to PSD it would generate a 13 Meg file ! The document size is 24 x 24 inches at 300 DPI for printing. I will post an update when it is colored. Should take me about 23 years !