smadell

I'm assuming the use of Photo (not Designer), although I am unsure if it would make a difference. Given the desired result (immediately above), it seems pretty clear that the gradient you're looking for is a gradual fade from yellow to green to blue, spread out over four separate rectangles. I think that the easiest way to do this is with a combination of (i) a single layer with a gradient; (ii) a mask on that gradient; and (iii) individual text boxes with the labels. See below...  [note that the "Rectangle" layer is the one that holds the gradient, as a fill.]

Hello @R C-R. The only problem I see with the solution put forth by @JimmyJack is that the same gradient is applied to all 4 rectangles. From the example given by the OP (3 posts above this one) it looks like the 4 rectangles do not contain the same gradient but, rather, are pieces of a larger whole. Admittedly, this was not clear until the OP gave his example.
 
Edit: OK, I take it back. I watched the video he posted and I see what he did (which is not what I initially had understood). His method is certainly valid and may be more elegant than the one I proposed.

I’m looking at my edit several hours later, and I think I’d add a White Balance adjustment to the sky - pushing it a little toward the warmer tones (to better match the forground).

I'm still not sure about this one. The original photo (as posted above) is really, really flat and definitely needs some extra brightness, color, and contrast. But it was so very easy to go overboard without doing very much at all. I even tried Black and White, which could work, but you wanted realistic, so....
I did a sky replacement, and lowered the saturation of the blues to match the cold, blustery weather that seems to be the case. (At least, that's how I remember New England, from many years ago.) On the non-sky elements, I applied Curves and Brightness/Contrast to give the photo better tonality. I added a bunch of Recolor adjustments to the water, grass, and background trees and lowered their opacity quite a bit (to keep them out of the crazy zone). I didn't add any birds, though! See what you think.

I'm still not sure about this one. The original photo (as posted above) is really, really flat and definitely needs some extra brightness, color, and contrast. But it was so very easy to go overboard without doing very much at all. I even tried Black and White, which could work, but you wanted realistic, so....
I did a sky replacement, and lowered the saturation of the blues to match the cold, blustery weather that seems to be the case. (At least, that's how I remember New England, from many years ago.) On the non-sky elements, I applied Curves and Brightness/Contrast to give the photo better tonality. I added a bunch of Recolor adjustments to the water, grass, and background trees and lowered their opacity quite a bit (to keep them out of the crazy zone). I didn't add any birds, though! See what you think.

Alternately, just enable the "Apply to all" option (like in your screenshot) & the shortcut should be enabled in all personas that have an option for that function.

Add my name to the list of “you can do that?” users. I had no idea…

Add my name to the list of “you can do that?” users. I had no idea…

Here's a macro that creates an "Obama Hope Poster" from a photo. It uses a Posterize adjustment and a Gradient Map.
Note: it is a single "afmacro" file, not a library category. Import it into the Macros panel, not into the Library panel.
Obama Hope Poster.afmacro

I believe that the color mismatch is a minor problem, compared to the lighting issue(s) which are the bulk of the problems. I've attached an .afphoto file with a few edits, as well as a JPG below. Basically, I got rid of a little bit of greenish color cast, but generally lightened up your parents quite a bit. I also used a dodge and burn layer, mostly to add highlights, trying to account for the directionality of the sunlight (above and slightly behind).

Parents in the Forest Edit.afphoto

I believe that the color mismatch is a minor problem, compared to the lighting issue(s) which are the bulk of the problems. I've attached an .afphoto file with a few edits, as well as a JPG below. Basically, I got rid of a little bit of greenish color cast, but generally lightened up your parents quite a bit. I also used a dodge and burn layer, mostly to add highlights, trying to account for the directionality of the sunlight (above and slightly behind).

Parents in the Forest Edit.afphoto

I believe that the color mismatch is a minor problem, compared to the lighting issue(s) which are the bulk of the problems. I've attached an .afphoto file with a few edits, as well as a JPG below. Basically, I got rid of a little bit of greenish color cast, but generally lightened up your parents quite a bit. I also used a dodge and burn layer, mostly to add highlights, trying to account for the directionality of the sunlight (above and slightly behind).

Parents in the Forest Edit.afphoto

@Dan C - Diabling Metal and the GPU, and setting the Display to OpenGL, does reduce performance but this seems to be more or less consistent. I have not noticed any obvious degradation over longer editing sessions.Also, despite what I have read from others in the Forum, I have not experienced any outright crashes.
Just for the record, my iMac processor is an 8-core Intel i9 running at 3.8 GHz. Thanks for keeping me in the loop on this!  -smadell

Good morning, @Dan C. With the 1.10.3 version in hand, I was about to open Affinity Photo and go back to the Metal + GPU settings to see if the update improved anything. I may still try this, and will update you with any changes noted (or lack thereof). As to the Selection Brush+Live Adjustment/Filter combo, I'm impressed – whittling down that combination of things is pretty specific. Thanks again for keeping me up to date on this! Let me know if there's anything more I can do to help.   - smadell

Let me propose another way to go about this. What you're trying to do is to darken the lighter hair, but pretty much leave the dark hair alone. This lends itself to Blend Ranges, since whatever you do to darken areas can be applied preferentially to the lighter areas and less so to the darker areas.
What I've done is to put a rectangle over the photo, covering the hair (and other parts of her head). Then, I created a mask by selecting and refining the hair. To begin with, I set the color of the rectangle to the color of the darkest part of the girl's hair. I changed the Blend Mode to Multiply, and I adjusted the Blend Ranges so that the effect was confined mostly to the lighter parts of the underlying hair. Finally, I adjusted the color of the rectangle (mostly by using the Luminosity slider) and its Opacity to get the effect as close as I could to natural.

Just to confuse us all, it’s sometimes called ‘Luminance’ or ‘Lightness’.

I have to say, in APhoto, small though it may be, I'm not a fan of the change from this...

to this ...

I find myself consciously having to think 'which is which'. The icons also don't make sense, the new 'Add' icon looks like more like a 'Divide' icon...

and the new 'Subtract' icon looks more like the 'Insert at the top of the layer' icon...

why replace them at all, they work perfectly and way better as 'Add' and 'Subtract' and if you are going to change them then surely use icons that make sense
or maybe it's just me... 🤪
 

Let me propose another way to go about this. What you're trying to do is to darken the lighter hair, but pretty much leave the dark hair alone. This lends itself to Blend Ranges, since whatever you do to darken areas can be applied preferentially to the lighter areas and less so to the darker areas.
What I've done is to put a rectangle over the photo, covering the hair (and other parts of her head). Then, I created a mask by selecting and refining the hair. To begin with, I set the color of the rectangle to the color of the darkest part of the girl's hair. I changed the Blend Mode to Multiply, and I adjusted the Blend Ranges so that the effect was confined mostly to the lighter parts of the underlying hair. Finally, I adjusted the color of the rectangle (mostly by using the Luminosity slider) and its Opacity to get the effect as close as I could to natural.

Let me propose another way to go about this. What you're trying to do is to darken the lighter hair, but pretty much leave the dark hair alone. This lends itself to Blend Ranges, since whatever you do to darken areas can be applied preferentially to the lighter areas and less so to the darker areas.
What I've done is to put a rectangle over the photo, covering the hair (and other parts of her head). Then, I created a mask by selecting and refining the hair. To begin with, I set the color of the rectangle to the color of the darkest part of the girl's hair. I changed the Blend Mode to Multiply, and I adjusted the Blend Ranges so that the effect was confined mostly to the lighter parts of the underlying hair. Finally, I adjusted the color of the rectangle (mostly by using the Luminosity slider) and its Opacity to get the effect as close as I could to natural.

A different take from me. Given that the ladies don't want any "fake Photoshop look(s)" on the image, subtlety is important. To begin with, the image is kind of flat and needs some Brightness and Contrast. That was the first thing I added. Second, I think that the hair looks "matted down and blurry" because (a) the whole image is low contrast; and (b) the photo is indeed a bit blurry. To deal with that, I added a Curves adjustment and a High Pass adjustment, put them into a Group, and masked the group to entirely black. Then, using a soft brush with low opacity and low flow, I painted the hair only with white, bringing those adjustments onto the hair (but not onto other areas). Also, I set the Blend Mode of the High Pass adjustment to Soft Light, since this give a softer and more subtle effect.

A different take from me. Given that the ladies don't want any "fake Photoshop look(s)" on the image, subtlety is important. To begin with, the image is kind of flat and needs some Brightness and Contrast. That was the first thing I added. Second, I think that the hair looks "matted down and blurry" because (a) the whole image is low contrast; and (b) the photo is indeed a bit blurry. To deal with that, I added a Curves adjustment and a High Pass adjustment, put them into a Group, and masked the group to entirely black. Then, using a soft brush with low opacity and low flow, I painted the hair only with white, bringing those adjustments onto the hair (but not onto other areas). Also, I set the Blend Mode of the High Pass adjustment to Soft Light, since this give a softer and more subtle effect.

I'm hoping this answers the issues raised...

Masking an Adjustment Layer.mp4

Here's a couple of suggestions.
First, you need a better font. Ideally, it should match what's showing on the rest of the jersey. You might try one of these:  https://www.free-fonts.com/high-school-usa
Second, put a little bit of blur on the letters. The rest of the photo is a bit soft, and supersharp letters would look conspicuous. You can do this by selecting the layer with the text, and using the FX choices.
Third, don't make the lettering absolute white. Use one of the color samplers to get a white that matches the letters on the jersey. I used the white found in the middle of the "JOG" insignia just under the collar.
Last, I used the Mesh Warp to curve the upper and lower edges of the letters, to approximate the curve on the shirt fabric. You might want to rotate the letters, too, to match the angle defined by the upper borders of the numbers beneath them.
Here's my quick take on it:

This puzzle actually has a really simple solution. There is no need to combine the two vector shapes in any way whatsoever – each of them remains completely editable. I have given an example below.
Put the rectangle (or, really, anything) in a layer over the background. Then, put the second shape (in this case, a star) over the rectangle. Set the Blend Mode of the top layer (the star) to "Erase." This will drill a hole through the entire image, revealing the blank canvas underneath. I know, I know, that's not what you want.
So, put the rectangle and the star into a Group. This will force the Erase blend mode to work ONLY on the rectangle. The star and the rectangle remain 100% editable, as does the background.

Here's a couple of suggestions.
First, you need a better font. Ideally, it should match what's showing on the rest of the jersey. You might try one of these:  https://www.free-fonts.com/high-school-usa
Second, put a little bit of blur on the letters. The rest of the photo is a bit soft, and supersharp letters would look conspicuous. You can do this by selecting the layer with the text, and using the FX choices.
Third, don't make the lettering absolute white. Use one of the color samplers to get a white that matches the letters on the jersey. I used the white found in the middle of the "JOG" insignia just under the collar.
Last, I used the Mesh Warp to curve the upper and lower edges of the letters, to approximate the curve on the shirt fabric. You might want to rotate the letters, too, to match the angle defined by the upper borders of the numbers beneath them.
Here's my quick take on it: