smadell

Yes, and you did, and I wondered if what you opined was correct, so I asked Alfred for his opinion.
So, I accept that you are correct.
William
 

And…. I hope this doesn’t seem childish, but let’s remember that it was @William Overington himself that asked the forum to comment on his use of punctuation!

@Alfred, you are entirely right about the comma-delimited phrase “ ,in no way, “. I think the general rule has been that a phrase like that, enclosed in commas, can be removed from the sentence without changing its meaning. Clearly, that wouldn’t be the case there.

Your question as to the insertion of a comma after the word “artist” does not go to the real problem. @Alfredalluded to it. The phrase “…based on Ancient Greek obelisks” is left ambiguous. What is based on those obelisks - the pylons or the artist?
The answer, unfortunately, is to re-write the sentence to make it more clear.
Try: “For example, when the National Grid was introduced, the artist designed the pylons based on ancient Greek obelisks.”
Or: “…the artist referenced ancient Greek obelisks in his design of the pylons.” 

Your question as to the insertion of a comma after the word “artist” does not go to the real problem. @Alfredalluded to it. The phrase “…based on Ancient Greek obelisks” is left ambiguous. What is based on those obelisks - the pylons or the artist?
The answer, unfortunately, is to re-write the sentence to make it more clear.
Try: “For example, when the National Grid was introduced, the artist designed the pylons based on ancient Greek obelisks.”
Or: “…the artist referenced ancient Greek obelisks in his design of the pylons.” 

Here are 2 very short videos.
1) Here is the difference between "Pinch" and "Punch"

Pinch vs Punch.mp4 2) Here is a very amateur, quick breast reduction on Miss Dolly. (WARNING: Some may find the video unsuitable!!) Please note that the video starts (i) already in the Liquify persona; and (ii) having applied the "Freeze" tool to a few areas. The Freeze tool protects those areas from being affected by the liquify changes. Also note that I have increased the Speed of the warp operation for the sake of the video.

Dolly's Reduction.mp4

@William Overington - My digital version of the font has a "Regular" typeface, only. No bold, no italic, etc.

The font is: LTC Goudy Italian Old Style. 13 point, regular type, if I remember correctly.

The font is: LTC Goudy Italian Old Style. 13 point, regular type, if I remember correctly.

@smadell   Hands (or pens) down, definitely the winner!  Finis.

One last entry from me (because I just had to)…

 

One last entry from me (because I just had to)…

 

One last entry from me (because I just had to)…

 

There once was a man from Nantucket -
a poet whose skills didn’t cut it.
When his words failed to rhyme
(which was most of the time)
all his work would get tossed in the bucket.

There once was a man from Nantucket -
a poet whose skills didn’t cut it.
When his words failed to rhyme
(which was most of the time)
all his work would get tossed in the bucket.

@DarkClown - The macros will not work with the embedded masks in Adjustment or Live Filter layers. But, if you are willing to create a separate mask layer (as a child of the filter or adjustment) they should work as expected.

Good morning, @John Rostron. I was intrigued by your method, and tried it. I found that it produced a nice, sharp image in a different way. I thought there had to be a way to do all of this inside of a single file (and, therefore, make it amenable to an inclusive macro). I found that I could create the Light Edges and the Dark Edges inside of Groups, which were then rasterized. I then went about incorporating your instructions to a single macro. This brings together all of the steps you outlined above (except the creation of separate documents, of course) and then combines the Light and Dark Edges layers into a Group. In that way, the whole effect can be turned on/off with a single click. It can also be made less conspicuous by tweaking the Opacity of the group.
I have attached the macro I created to this post. It is an .afmacros file, meaning it will import into the Library as a Macro Category. Users can drag the macro into one of their existing categories, if they like, and then discard the empty category they imported. I posted this as a category instead of as a single macro so that it could also be imported into the iPad version (although I confess I have not yet tested it out on my iPad – I am assuming it will work, and I hope I am correct).
Sharpening by Blurring.afmacros.zip

Yes, unchecking visibility in the Layers panel keeps a layer from printing. But it also cannot be seen. The request is to keep an item visible on screen, but suppress printing of that item.

If you look carefully at the PhotoWhoa site, you should notice that all of the presets are described as an "Affinity Presets LUTS Collection." This pretty much defines how you'll end up using them.
Affinity Photo can use "color lookup tables" (otherwise known as CLUT's or LUT's) and these are fairly commonly used to "color grade" images or video. Basically, if you start with an image and then alter it with one or more Adjustment layers, you can then choose "Export LUT..." to form an external file that encapsulates all of the adjustments you made. Basically, a color lookup table is simply that - it lets you start with a bunch of pixels (your photograph) in which each pixel has a defined color, then the LUT changes each of the colors to a pre-defined "other" color according to the entries in the lookup table. It's a simple substitution scheme, which goes something like "wherever there's a pixel with this color [R255,G0,B0] put in a something else, like [R240,G100,B100]." And, it does that for each triplet combination of Red, Green, and Blue in your photo.
The up side to using a LUT is that it is simple, and boils down to an all-in-one color grade change. The down side is that the LUT does not add the component Adjustment Layers, so you can't really tweak the components afterward (except by adding more adjustments and filters, etc.)
To use your MegaPresets files, simply put the collection of folders somewhere convenient. I'm not from the Windows side, but I don't think there's a specific place they need to be. Once you have a photo in Affinity Photo, add an adjustment layer by choosing "LUT..." from the Layer>New Adjustment Layer submenu, or by choosing it from the icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. The LUT dialog box will open.

Click on the button called "Load LUT" and you will be able to navigate to the folder(s) containing your presents. Choose the one you like. Your photo will have one extra adjustment layer, labelled LUT, and the color lookup changes dictated by the LUT file will have been applied. (You may want to change Blend Modes, opacity, and so forth on the LUT adjustment layer to further refine the color grading.

I couldn't help myself. I had to have a go at it. First of all, I largely agree with the comments by @NotMyFault - your edit is too saturated; concentrating instead on local adjustments would help. Second, this particular photo is a great example of why shooting in Raw is better than shooting in JPG. The dynamic range would be far easier to address in a Raw editor (the really bright sky and the really shadowy parts of the mountains on the right). I hope that the original was a Raw file, but the posted original was a JPG (and a very small one, at that).
Nevertheless, I'm putting a JPG version of what I did below, and am attaching the .afphoto file if anyone is interested. I made selections of the various areas (they're in the Spare Channels) and then addressed each of the areas separately. Also some dodging and burning at the end, to enhance contrasting areas, and a subtle vignette to bring attention to the building itself.

Castle Edit.afphoto

I couldn't help myself. I had to have a go at it. First of all, I largely agree with the comments by @NotMyFault - your edit is too saturated; concentrating instead on local adjustments would help. Second, this particular photo is a great example of why shooting in Raw is better than shooting in JPG. The dynamic range would be far easier to address in a Raw editor (the really bright sky and the really shadowy parts of the mountains on the right). I hope that the original was a Raw file, but the posted original was a JPG (and a very small one, at that).
Nevertheless, I'm putting a JPG version of what I did below, and am attaching the .afphoto file if anyone is interested. I made selections of the various areas (they're in the Spare Channels) and then addressed each of the areas separately. Also some dodging and burning at the end, to enhance contrasting areas, and a subtle vignette to bring attention to the building itself.

Castle Edit.afphoto

I couldn't help myself. I had to have a go at it. First of all, I largely agree with the comments by @NotMyFault - your edit is too saturated; concentrating instead on local adjustments would help. Second, this particular photo is a great example of why shooting in Raw is better than shooting in JPG. The dynamic range would be far easier to address in a Raw editor (the really bright sky and the really shadowy parts of the mountains on the right). I hope that the original was a Raw file, but the posted original was a JPG (and a very small one, at that).
Nevertheless, I'm putting a JPG version of what I did below, and am attaching the .afphoto file if anyone is interested. I made selections of the various areas (they're in the Spare Channels) and then addressed each of the areas separately. Also some dodging and burning at the end, to enhance contrasting areas, and a subtle vignette to bring attention to the building itself.

Castle Edit.afphoto

You're putting the cart before the horse. It is indeed the selection that varies in strength. This should be obvious when you inspect the Pixel Selection channel.
Also, assuming that there is an active selection, an activity such as creating a Mask or Adjustment Layer means that the selection is applied to the Mask (for example), not that the Mask is applied to the selection. This might seem like a trivial distinction, but it is crucial to understanding the way channels work.
Channels are multipliers. When displaying a color, Affinity will put up a color that is G(128) when the Green channel is 50% grey for that corresponding pixel. Basically, it uses the multiplication (Green * 0.5). If my Mask is 80% grey, then the pixels being displayed are (Full Transparency * 0.8). And, if I use a Selection whose Pixel Selection channel contains pixels that are, for example, 30% grey, then the action subsequently performed on those pixels takes the general form: (Action * 0.3).

To understand selections, one must understand channels. Because a selection is a channel.
Look at the Channels panel. Each and every layer is composed of a number of channels. When we look specifically at pixel layers in an RGBA document, each layer has red, green, and blue channels which denote color; there is also an alpha channel which is used for transparency.
Look toward the bottom of the Channels panel. There is a separate channel called Pixel Selection. This channel contains the active selection. (1) It is fluid, in the sense that its contents will change depending on what, if anything, is selected. (2) It does not belong to a layer, but exists on its own. (3) Most importantly, like all channels, it has a single entry for each individual pixel.
That last notion is important. A pixel is the most elementary unit of an image. Each pixel can contain one, and only one, color. Each pixel can contain only one level of transparency. And each pixel in the Pixel Selection channel can also include only a single value.
This is why a single pixel cannot be two different colors. This is why a single pixel cannot be half opaque and half transparent. And it is why a single pixel is either selected or not, but also why a selected pixel can be partially selected.
Let’s first clear up the “where is the 50% line” question. In the image below, I’ve created an elliptical selection and applied a 100 pixel feather to it. On the right, I’ve zoomed into the marching ants at 1400%. The marching ants line indicates the border at which pixels are 50% selected. PLEASE note that the line does not go through individual pixels. It denotes entire pixels, because each pixel can only be selected by a specific fraction (0% to 100%, or any value in-between)

The answer to questions by @R C-R and @walt.farrell about how partial selection affects subsequent operations is really a fairly straightforward one. (1) Once a selection is made, that selection is stored inside the Pixel Selection channel. (2) In many cases, for instance in straightforward use of the marquee tools, the Pixel Selection channel is white where the selection is active, and black where the selection is not active. (3) In some other cases, such as Selection From Layer, Luminosity based selection, and feathered selections, the Pixel Selection channel contains pixels that are all shades of grey. These grey pixels within the Pixel Selection channel indicate document pixels which are partially selected. (4) Subsequent use of the selection acts on whatever layer is activated in the Layers panel. The specific action that is undertaken (whether that is a Copy command, the creation of a Mask or and Adjustment or Filter, or anything else) is modified by the values in the Pixel Selection channel.
What that last clause means is that my actions are multiplied by the value of the Pixel Selection channel for each and every pixel. In other words, if the Pixel Selection channel is black for a particular pixel, then my action is multiplied by 0. If the Pixel Selection channel is white for a particular pixel, then my action is multiplied by 1. And, if the Pixel Selection channel is, for instance, 45% grey then my action is multiplied by 0.45.
Once you start thinking of selections as a separate channel, not attached to any particular layer, they become easier to understand. Also, it becomes a lot easier to understand how a pixel can be partially selected, and how a mask or adjustment layer created based on such a selection may contain areas which are grey.

Good morning, @John Rostron. I was intrigued by your method, and tried it. I found that it produced a nice, sharp image in a different way. I thought there had to be a way to do all of this inside of a single file (and, therefore, make it amenable to an inclusive macro). I found that I could create the Light Edges and the Dark Edges inside of Groups, which were then rasterized. I then went about incorporating your instructions to a single macro. This brings together all of the steps you outlined above (except the creation of separate documents, of course) and then combines the Light and Dark Edges layers into a Group. In that way, the whole effect can be turned on/off with a single click. It can also be made less conspicuous by tweaking the Opacity of the group.
I have attached the macro I created to this post. It is an .afmacros file, meaning it will import into the Library as a Macro Category. Users can drag the macro into one of their existing categories, if they like, and then discard the empty category they imported. I posted this as a category instead of as a single macro so that it could also be imported into the iPad version (although I confess I have not yet tested it out on my iPad – I am assuming it will work, and I hope I am correct).
Sharpening by Blurring.afmacros.zip