smadell

Hi, Paul... Resizing the photo to the desired dimensions and dpi can be done easily using the Crop tool. As far as the "black background" goes, you didn't say whether the black part is included in the stated dimensions (1600x1200) or exists outside of those dimensions. Either way, this can be done fairly easily. I made a little video for you, since seeing is easier than reading. It will show you a way to put the black background INTO the photo (so that the photo plus the background takes up 1600x1200) or OUTSIDE of the photo (so that the photo remains 1600x1200 with additional black around it). In either case, once you've done this use the Export... choice on the File menu to save out a JPG version of the photo. Also, toward the end of the video I typed the phrase "Rasterize and fill" - that should be "Rasterize and Trim". Oops - not worth re-doing the whole process. Resize with Black Bkgnd.mp4

Admittedly, an imperfect solution. But, you might want to try this:

Anthony... Try these:

My pleasure!

Here is a link to a YouTube video from Dave Straker’s channel (InAffinity) that discusses the HSL panel. It is from Winter 2018, but will show you the basics. https://youtu.be/LgAlNkZro-E

Use an HSL adjustment layer. With the panel open, choose one of the 6 color circles (but not the multi-colored circle on the left, which is the “master”). With the color circle chosen, you can click on the Picker button and then click on a specific color in the image. The hue, saturation, and luminosity sliders will only apply to your clicked-upon color. Also note that you can change the selected color range by moving the nodes on the color wheel to apply to different ranges, and to feather the selected range more or less.

Glad you got it sorted out. Masks took me years to wrap my head around - just the concept was hard to figure out, let alone the implementation!

click on the mask’s thumbnail so that only the mask layer is selected, then hit the Delete key. ps - make sire nothing is selected when you hit delete, or AP will try to delete only what’s inside the marching ants, not the entire layer

Presets created in individual adjustment panels can only be accessed through the Adjustment panel [View > Studio > Adjustment]. In this case, open the Adjustment panel and click on the Gradient Map line. This will insert a Gradient Map adjustment into your Layer stack, but it should also reveal any/all of your saved presets. Click on one of them to change the gradient map to the one you want. Before you even say it, I also think that the presets should be available from their associated panels (that is, the gradient map presets should be available from the Gradient Map panel, and so forth) but that's a whole different argument.

Thanks, carl123. I knew there was a way to do this, but drew a blank. Too simple...

Sorry to see you go, TonyGamble. As I've said before, I love Affinity Photo, but (like you) find its Raw capabilities to be its "weak link." Doing HDR work, Panoramas, Focus Merges, and so forth – anything that requires combining/stitching multiple individual photos – starting with Raw files is always a bit of a struggle. This is why I still use DxO PhotoLab for my Raw files, and export to TIFF's in order to maintain as much usable data as possible. If your work requires more than the occasional use of multiple Raw files coming together into a single image, then Affinity Photo may not be the best answer for you. Oh well – it was worth a try, though, wasn't it?

The only way to edit an existing gradient is to have created it in a vector object. A typical Mask layer is treated as a Pixel based layer, and the gradient can’t be tweaked after the fact.

In theory, it can be done. However, if memory serves me correctly, you lose some of the Raw developing finesse you would otherwise have if you did the raw development first, and only then did the HDR merge. I think I remember a tutorial stating that developing the individual Raw files (where you can deal with white balance and tint better) and saving to EXR (which is a 32 bit format), then doing the HDR merge on the three EXR files is the better way to go. Watch this video (below) and think about doing the initial Raw development (including white balance and tint), saving to EXR as a 32 bit file, and then doing the HDR Merge on those EXR files.

TONYGAMBLE!!! DON'T DELETE ANYTHING!!! (unless you already have...) Before you delete and re-install... The tools you are looking at are NOT from the Develop persona. You are looking at the tools from the TONE MAPPING persona. No wonder it didn't work! In the list of Persona icons at the top left, there is the (i) Photo persona; (ii) Liquify persona; (iii) Develop persona - shaped like a hexagon; (iv) the Tone Mapping person - shaped like converging vertical bars; and (v) the Export persona. When you open a Raw file, it will open in the Develop persona. If you click on Develop, you enter the Photo persona. To re-enter the Develop persona, click on the THIRD icon in the row; you have entered the Tone Mapping persona, where you will not find what you want. Also, from what I've seen, when you're in the Develop persona working on a Raw file, the White Balance tool will adjust not only the Blue-Yellow axis, but also the Magenta-Green axis. Remember that, if you develop a Raw file and then re-enter the Develop persona at some later time, you are NO LONGER working on a Raw file.

Walt... I've attached an image with i) a circular image of a flower on top; ii) a series of black lines beneath it; and iii) a mask on the flower layer. This seems to work the way it should. I'll note that I started with a canvas measuring 1024x1024 and tried to resize it to half-size, and the mask got royally screwed up. I haven't quite figured out why. But, I deleted the mask and created a new one on the smaller document, and this works well. Was this a "lock children" kind of issue? a bug? I don't yet know. Anyway, consider the attached a file as a kind of "proof of concept" in that it can be done; implementation was a bit clunky, though. Photo with Radial Mask.afphoto

Assuming that you’re in Photo, attach a Mask to the layer with the image that should be transparent in the center. With the mask layer selected, put a Radial gradient into the mask - black in the middle (to make the center of the image transparent) extending to white at the periphery (to make the edges of the image opaque). Slide the center point of the gradient back and forth to change how quickly the transparency gives way to opacity. If you put the second photo underneath, it should show through in those areas where the top image’s mask is black.

Good morning, TonyGamble... There are, I think, a couple of “comparing apples to oranges” issues here. First, it’s not entirely fair to compare white balance correction performed on a Raw file to that performed on a JPG image. Since you’re using the White Balance panel, you must be in the Photo persona, which implies you’ve moved beyond Raw processing. We simply don’t have the same latitude after Raw development that we have beforehand. Second, comparing Affinity Photo to an HDR processing application may suffer since HDR processing implies tone compression, local contrast introduction, and a host of other changes that go beyond simple color correction. This may be why the SNS-HDR version looks like it is Levels-adjusted. The White Balance panel in Affinity Photo is known to leave the Tint slider un-adjusted. This may be addressed in the future, but don’t hold your breath since it might be a long time. You might want to compare results from running a Raw file through DxO to the same results brought into Affinity’s Develop persona, where you can apply its White Balance tool. That having been said, and despite the fact that I consider myself an Affinity Photo “fanboy,” I am NOT a fan of its Raw file processing. I routinely use DxO PhotoLab on my Raw files, export them as 16 bit TIFF files, and finish them in AP. I got very similar results to you when I opened the downloaded JPG from your first post in DxO (without any other changes applied). Although I love working in Affinity Photo, and would love to have a one-size-fits-all solution, for the time being I will continue to rely on DxO for my Raw files, and that includes using it for the bulk of my White Balance correction.

Two things... 1) I have a hard time believing that DaveHill's method could possibly work. If you're putting an already-grey line on the canvas, and using that as a target for the White Balance picker, you already know the line is grey and this should result in no actual change. The idea of the "picker" is to click on something that should be grey, but isn't. 2) You might be using the White Balance tool correctly (by clicking the "picker" on the white tiles). However (and this is a substantial "however") the picker in the White Balance panel only sets the correct value on the Blue-Yellow axis. It does not adjust the Tint slider (the Green-Magenta axis). Your remaining yellow tint might actually be more of a green tint, and might be very correctable by manually adjusting the Tint slider. I downloaded your image and adjusted the White Balance only, and then added the Tint slider. The result obtained by adding Magenta is much closer to what you are probably expecting. [see below...] ps - your second example (from SNS-HDR) also looks like it's had a Levels adjustment applied, and this may well be a function of the HDR nature of that program. My second example (above) could probably use a Levels adjustment, especially one which darkens up the Gamma (midtones).

If you are doing the watercolor directly in Affinity Photo, then the suggestion by DWright would seem to be the best one. However, if you are trying to get rid of an "almost white" background in an existing image, your best option might be using Blend Ranges. (1) Open the image in Photo; (2) Put a Fill Layer below it – I've used Red for best visualization; your choice of color will depend on the colors already in your image; (3) Open the Blend Ranges for the image (not the fill layer) and set them to something like what's shown in the screenshot below. I've set everything to be visible on my painting layer, up to a luminosity of 98%. Above that luminosity level, the painting layer goes from completely visible (at 98% luminosity) to completely transparent (at 100% luminosity). Sliding the node at 98% back and forth will let you see what parts of the painting are being affected, since the Fill Layer will show from below in those areas; (4) Delete, or Hide, the Fill Layer. Or, change the Fill color to pure white. Then, you can print onto your paper and the areas that were originally "almost white" should now be transparent (or pure white, if you changed the Fill color), and should transition from opaque to transparent/white smoothly rather than abruptly.

Nicely done. But, you know, we’re both doing the same thing. You’re using a couple of rectangles and the Transform panel; I used the Crop tool and the Resize command. As they say, six of one or a half-dozen of another...

I don't think there's a way to resize a document so that only a portion of it measures a specific value. In other words, you can Resize the Document so that the entire thing is, let's say, 10 inches tall. But in order to have just a portion of the photo become a certain measurement requires a "workaround." Here's what I would do. 1) Start with the original photo (see below) 2) Crop the photo so that ONLY the head is included in the crop. This is the part of the photo that you want to measure exactly 6.5 inches. Hit "Apply." 3) Choose Resize Document... from the Document menu. Change the Units to Inches. Do NOT change the aspect ratio (i.e., don't click on the "Lock" icon). Change the height (the second field in the top row) to 6.5 inches. Change the Resampling method if you want – I usually use the Lanczos algorithms. Hit the OK button. Your photo (which at this point includes only the head) is now 6.5 inches tall. 4) Use the Crop tool to crop the photo a second time. However, with this second crop, you'll expand the photo to include head and shoulders. This is possible because Affinity Photo makes non-destructive crops, and the entire photo is actually still there (as long as you don't choose Rasterize or export to some other format). 5) The right-most photo on the bottom is the result of my efforts - the head should measure 6.5 inches.

Thank you for the shout-out, jmwellborn. Your valentine is certainly appreciated! - smadell

Good morning, dolunaykiz. If you've created the macro in the simplest way, the problem might be that the image you're duplicating is either an "image" or an "embedded document" layer. In either case, the duplicates will work, but the Fill command might not. I made up the macro attached which does what I think you're asking for. You must have a layer selected (although it does not have to be a pixel layer to start with). Also, it is an .afmacro file (not an .afmacros file - note the "s") so it must be imported into the Macro panel, not the Library panel. Let me know if this helps you out. ps - as an aside, many of the filters in Affinity Photo can be destructive, but need not be. The "Live Filter Layers" are all non-destructive, and are analogous to Photoshop's "smart filters." Cntrl-Shift-J Analogue.afmacro

Thank you, @Old Bruce. Being completely honest, I have to admit that it's taken (many) years to come to even the most basic understanding of Color Management and why my prints always looked different from what I was looking at on screen. As a complete aside, I used to wonder (still do, I guess) what would happen if your eyes could magically be hooked up to my brain - would I see the same color that you see? Or, in different terms, if my brain got the signal from your eyes, would I label the color I/we were looking at the same way you would?

Let me give this a shot, although I'll be the first to admit that "color management" is perhaps the most complicated part of computer graphics that I've had to deal with. Getting everything to match up is a tough one, but you can come close if you do the following. First of all, understand that the color you see on the screen may not be the color that is saved to your file. Your monitor introduces a "bias" which must be corrected. Much of the time, your computer screen will be (i) too blue; and (ii) too bright. If you use your monitor defaults, your "perfect" colors will be too yellow and too dark, since you will have tried to compensate for that bias introduced by your monitor. This is why calibrating your monitor is important. Your monitor should aim at a White Point of about 5500K, which is much more "yellow" than its most likely original setting. You should also keep the brightness of your monitor at about 80-120 cd. This is MUCH less bright than the default value your computer shipped with. So, the first step is to calibrate your monitor. Calibrating your monitor, in simplest terms, means that a file that contains a certain RGB triplet (like "255,0,0" for pure red) is actually displayed as pure red on your screen. You cannot do this by the "eyeball" method. Get yourself a colorimeter, like a Spyder from DataColor, or any of a dozen different other devices. These things, basically, hang in front of your screen and measure the color being shown by software that knows just what color it should be. Calibration software will ultimately create an ICC Profile for your monitor, based on the measurements it makes. Set your "Display Profile" to use that ICC Profile. On a Mac, you can set this in the "Displays" part of the "System Preferences" application. On Windows, I believe it's found in the "Color Management" app (although someone who is more Windows-fluent can correct me any time). In Affinity Photo, Designer, or Publisher, you should set the Color Space to be used by your documents. Do NOT set this to your Monitor Profile. This is a common mistake, and it will not get you the results you are after. Your files should almost always be done in RGB (not in CMYK, even though you will eventually print them) and you should use a color space like "sRGB" or "Adobe RGB (1998)". I've included a screen shot from the Preferences part of Affinity Designer below. Now, the tricky part. If you've calibrated your monitor, then your computer file contains the correct colors. But, when you send that file to your printer you have to be sure that you compensate for any bias that your printer may have (and also compensate for any weirdness introduced by the coloration of the paper you use). This is where Printer Profiles come in. I have not found any printer profiles for your Epson EcoTank printer online, but I only looked for about 5 minutes. It's possible that you can find them. If not, getting them custom created is the other choice. You would need to print a test sheet that contains some known colors, and compare that sheet with the colors it should contain. Once again, an ICC Profile is created that is specific for your Printer and your Paper, and which corrects any color bias that your printer introduces. When you print, you need to specify that your printer should use THAT particular printer profile when it interprets the colors your computer sends over. Usually, that is done in the dialog box that opens after you choose "Print..." And, even after you do EVERYTHING right, your printed image will never match your computer screen perfectly. If nothing else, your monitor uses light and your printer uses ink. Light is additive, and ink is subtractive. They will never be exact matches, and your printed image will almost always tend to be a bit darker that your computer image. The goal of color management is to come as close as you can. Best of luck! It is, admittedly, a struggle…