Bwood

^^^^ This. I’m so glad a pro user feels this way. Now with a camera in every pocket so many over process and miss the feel of the photo or artificially manufacture it. Most of my shots are on the darker side, processed for detail UNITL it looks artificial. I very much appreciate your step by step guidance in the stacking process. I concur that it works so much better with jpeg rather than raw. My background has been broadcasting for 50 years, now I handle web development for non profits. I do most of my own photography for the sites I manage (animal shelters, museums, churches). Now my next project is squeezing down large jpgs to png or other formats suitable for the web. (Smaller is better).

And here’s my foray into stacking. Not perfect but on the right track. As you can see the snowmen were the only light sources in this school house. 7 raw images were batch converted to jpg. The reindeer will be processed again, no stacking but there’s a grey cast which I just noticed. On a foggy night one of my favourites is our row of older buildings. The fog gave me an interesting sky. All amateur, but fun to learn.

@Ldina While I’m working on my collection for this museum, I’d like you to look at something. This picture was done by a professional a couple of years ago but I couldn’t figure out how he did it. I asked him but he wouldn’t give away his secrets. We live in a small community. The only thing he told me he used a very low iso. I believe he used Adobe. The whites certainly weren’t blown and the colors are quite natural. I was never able to duplicate it, though I believe it was highly processed.

Great detail @Ldina thanks kindly for the step by step. I’ll process and make sure the white balance is the same for all jpegs. On the last outing last night I took a number of shots, working from blown out whites down to detail in the background of the display. This Christmas village in my hometown changes every year, and driving home I surmised that the easiest part of the project is shooting colourful lights with no white sources. It’s so easy without white light ;). I’ve already seen a number of photos posted to social of this village that are almost cartoonish with the sheer over processing. Many thanks again. I’ll post on this thread when I come up with something presentable.

@Ldina one more question. I’m dealing with a stack of raw images. Is the process of stacking for bright image exposure better with jpegs? as well. Did you process your stack images first, before you stacked them? Thanks Ldina Bill

Many thanks @Ldina I had thought of a stack. Expose for the bright object, then another exposure for the surrounding display. I will brush up on stacking. There’s a decent tutorial for that.

I’m a relatively new user of AP. Every year I take pictures of Christmas lights at our local museum. I have one particular challenge. Inside one of the rooms, I have two brightly lit snowmen. The other portions of the display are quite dark. I can take two pics, one exposed for the snowmen, and another for the rest of the room. I have not done much with duplicate photos in two layers, but I did see a tutorial on masking one photo then combining the layers. Does this sound like a possible solution. Or can one work on one photo without combining. Thanks kindly, Bill Wood

I’ve used Xara Pro+ for a number of years. Excellent program.

Don. I’ll give this a try. I’m new to publisher but I’ve worked in a few DP programs. My trick has always been to stay out of paragraph styling and make my own style based upon nothing. If you link a style width to a paragraph style, the program auto styles it. As you have found the paragraph spacing is narrower than what you begin with. Make sense. My solution anyway. Some programs are link Ms word on steroids. incidentally I visited your blog. Interesting.

Crisis management teams are busy. I was burned once with Macromedia to Adobe. Burned again AF to Canva. Shame on,e.

Actually Xara Pro comes close to that. As a consumer app is does all that, perhaps not a professional level but pretty darn close.

I’d like @Joschi to give me three companies that offer a public road map. I’ve used a lot of software and most companies will indicate they are working on this or that, but not a clear public road map. If there is one, I haven’t found it. thx -Bill

Im very happy with the Affinity suite, and have recommended to many others. I especially found the post from @cmo on testing most interesting. Having a number of non profit websites, I still have not found a Mac pgm that answers all my needs without expensive add ons, but that’s another discussion. As @CMO illustrates the addition and fixes of various features is tedious. I’m not sure of the staff numbers at Affinity, but to produce a design, photo, and publishing program for both Mac and Windows is quite remarkable. One should step back and think of any company that has produced all three programs for BOTH platforms. Remember Affinity offered a huge break during and pandemic. I’m truly thankful that they did. Did Adobe do anything like that? Or vectorsyler? Yes there’s bugs and fixes and multiple updates, but I’m not even close to using half of the program suite capabilities. As users we can suggest and report but the bottom line is Affinity can run their business anyway they see fit. If one owns a company they have the right to report to users as they want. If Affinity answers many or all of your needs, great! If not move along and find an alternative. You don’t have to love a company to use their software, although I do. Software companies, offer trial programs. We all have the remains of many try outs on our computers. Do those companies offer a road map? Are they obligated to offer roadmaps? When you visit a grocery store, and they don’t have an item, you can mention it to the store, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bringing in the item. But if an item is stocked, and needs improvement, most often they’ll make a note. The store will try to improve the base product. Affinity has accomplished a lot in a short period of time; and we should applaud them on what they offer today. Though a web development app is not in the near future, it’s not off the table. I remain satisfied with what Affinity has today. Not tomorrow.

As a new user of the Affinity Suite I would hope that upon an update, the list of fixes are listed on the Affinity website. Is this a true statement?

All my pictures for websites are done in the above fashion. You may also want to export to the web in a png format and check the sizes. Depending upon your software for websites, you may also have an option to “optomize” the photo for your website within the pgm you are using. Also if you know the approximate size of the photo you’ll need for your website you may adjust that in the AP export. I do that a lot. -Bill