dvoth

There is a "Haze Removal" filter that might help.

Hi folks,
I thought I'd give you a quick progress update and let you see some of things we've been working on at Serif Labs.  We now have a scripting core that we're reasonably happy with and have put together a little test area where we can run Javascript code, so I thought I'd show you some of that. Things to note:
This is all VERY early, like pre-pre-pre-alpha. The JS API is extremely fluid and is constantly changing. This is not how the Affinity suite will run scripts and plugins; it is just a sandbox window for internal testing. There is still a huge amount of work to be done. I can't provide any timescales for when scripting will be publicly released, for Beta or Retail. Constructive feedback is welcomed, but I won't be able to answer all questions - see previous points. I'm not claiming any of these examples are particularly useful on their own; they're just to demonstrate some basic scripting functionality. Re Javascript async - yes, we support it, I've just not recorded anything yet. The sleep calls are there for screen-recording purposes only. Here are some demos as low-res gifs. If you want to take a closer look, movs are attached.
Create a Mandelbrot image

Some dodgy physics

Insert a dragon curve

"Emojification" (translation?) of text

Create a grid of colours
 
Select and hide based on hue

Replay a document's edit history

mandelbrot.mov
balls.mov
dragon.mov
grid.mov
hue.mov
replay.mov
emoji.mov

Graphic Converter has some powerful digital asset management features such as the Browser which works with your existing file structure and has extensive metadata tools (for instance, ExifTool is built in), convert and modify, powerful batch processing, renaming tools, face recognition, ratings, labels and tags, non-destructive editing in Cocooner, basic RAW editing, cataloging to print or html, etc etc. It took me a few days just to go through the multiple preference options (which fortunately can be exported to a reloadable file).
The trial is not time-limited and is fully functioning. MacOS only. It's still under active development by Thorsten Lemke who originally released it in 1992!

I started this thread here since the old thread is for iPad V1 apps.
 
Will there be an option for Light Mode on IPadOS in the near future? This setting is really helpful for adding visual contrast against certain projects especially for people who have visual Impairments, but it’s also better on the eyes during the day. It’s pretty standard as a setting on many IPad apps as well. Any plans to add this?

Hi All,
Well, it’s been a pretty crazy week since the launch of V2!
This has been a real labour of love for us over the last year or so, and I can’t even begin to describe how hard the development team have worked on it. Not only getting the V2 apps launched, but also of course finally bringing Publisher to iPad. 
With this being our first paid-for upgrade there has understandably been a lot of feedback / questions around future updates and our pricing policies. I thought it was worth addressing / clarifying our position on some of these personally...
Updates to V2 moving forward
Buying V2 not only gets you all the new features you have seen, but we have various updates planned – including many more new features and improvements – which you will get for free. This will continue until such a time that V3 is released. We’re not sure exactly when V3 will be, but I can confirm we are not going to move to anything as regular as an annual upgrade cycle as has been speculated.
It’s worth saying too that V2 does include many under-the-hood changes to our underlying technology, and we have also been investing in several new areas of research recently. Some of these haven’t manifested themselves into new features yet, but overall V2 does give us a better platform to develop on moving forward and I’m sure you will be pleased with the updates V2 will receive.
Updates to V1 moving forward
While we did say on the FAQ that V1 would no longer receive any updates, I want to clarify that was about new feature updates. We will be updating V1 to fix any critical problems caused by operating system updates in the future. So if the next version of macOS breaks V1 we will endeavour to fix it. There will be a point in time when continuing to maintain V1 in this way will not be tenable, but certainly for the foreseeable future we will continue to patch. In fact, we have an update to V1 queued up for release very shortly with some fixes for Ventura and issues caused by a recent Windows security / quality update. 
We will update our FAQ shortly to make that clearer for everyone.
Offer period
In case you didn’t see, I’m pleased to confirm we have decided to run this initial launch offer until 14th December to give everyone the best chance possible to get it if they wish / have a decent amount of time to trial it. 
Upgrade pricing
It’s been really hard to see some of the comments about us not looking after our existing customers – we’re pretty devasted that anyone feels like that to be honest. But the fact is we felt our hands were tied somewhat with being able to offer upgrade pricing in a fair way. The main reason for this was App Store customers (which make up around 35% of our userbase). The problems with that are two-fold: firstly, we didn’t have a way from within V1 to validate an App Store purchase receipt to reliably ensure customers who were entitled to an upgrade could get one; and secondly, we could not find a good way for people to get that discount via the App Store. Us pushing upgrade customers to go exclusively via our own site (including customers who were previously acquired via the app stores) may also have put us in violation of App Store Ts & Cs which we were obviously concerned about.
I’m not saying that these issues were completely insurmountable, but any solutions we came up with would be messy, and most importantly could have resulted in some bona fide V1 customers struggling to get validated and claim their discount. We certainly don’t have the support resource here if we ended up needing to manually validate tens of thousands of receipts for example.
The only option we felt was safe to move forward with was a general launch offer, which would guarantee that every V1 customer could get the discount, whether they purchased directly through us or the App Stores. We knew a side effect of that would mean some new customers would end up receiving that same discount – but we felt that was a better option than V1 customers missing out. It’s also worth saying that while there has been some good press about V2, all our main marketing has been via email and through social media to our followers. In other words, we felt ok about it because we knew the vast majority of people who would find out about it or take advantage of the offer would be existing customers. I would be surprised if over the offer period customers upgrading from V1 didn’t make up more than 90% of our sales.
Overall I do believe us giving a 40% discount, along with the addition of the new Universal Licence of course, is offering fantastic value for money for those who want to upgrade. 
However, taking on board some of the feedback there is something extra we can do – we will offer a new free bundle of content exclusively for V1 customers upgrading to V2 as an extra thank you for your support. I’ve seen this suggested by a number of customers and it’s a great idea as it does remove the App Store conflict entirely. 
We’ll need a little time to put something together, but all customers who previously registered or purchased V1 and have since upgraded to V2 will receive a voucher code for this via email as soon as we can.
A comment on no subscription
I do want to say that some of the points above are exactly the reason why software companies move to subscription. Whatever you do with upgrade pricing, you still have the issue of customers who bought the previous version 3 months ago vs. those who have had it 2+ years. Offering perpetual licences also gives the additional overhead of needing to maintain the previous version longer than you would if everyone was on subscription / generally always on the latest version.
We are a small team so some of these complications are not ideal — all we really want to do is focus on developing our latest codebase, push out regular updates and continue with our mission to make great creative software accessible to everyone. 
But it does need to be funded somehow. We know you love our no-subscription model, but there also needs to be a level of appreciation that the alternative is having paid-for upgrades from time to time. That unfortunately comes with its own problems.
All of that said, I have to say we have been blown away with the response to V2 - around 3 times as many people have upgraded in the last week than we expected - and we really can't thank you enough for the support you have shown. More than anything the success of this upgrade puts us in a great place to continue investing heavily in development which is ultimately what it's all about, and we’re super excited to crack on with some great updates coming next year!
All the best,
Ash

A response in another thread that Javascript will be used in the future for scripting.
 

A response in another thread that Javascript will be used in the future for scripting.
 

I fancied drawing a camera and decided on this one. The lens reflections were a bit boring on the reference so I used ones from a different photo where I didn't like the camera body. But between the two it looks OK.

I know this is old, but for others you can probably do something like this in Affinity Publisher making a template with Photo Frames. Then all you’d have to do is place your images inside the frames. The frames have controls that allow you to move/zoom the places image within the frame fairly quickly. The. You’d just export the document. 
 
Publisher also has some data merge options you may be able to use for automatic placement but I’ve not messed with this. It’s commonly used for place text and images for something like a catalog layout. 

See this post about creating a shortcut and then adding it to the share menu.

Simple enough to make a shortcut using the Shortcut app. Here are the required inputs.

Like many others in the forum, I have discovered the power and usefulness of the Procedural Texture filter (go to Filters>Colours>Procedural Texture).




What I want to do in this thread is show how it can be used to create artistic effects like some of the artistic filters in Photoshop. In fact, I’ve discovered that it is better in some respects than PS, because there are so many ways which you can change them. Let me say right now that I have no, repeat NO knowledge of the maths (British spelling☺) or how to write the equations. All my discoveries have been made just by examining the existing equations and tinkering.
The aim here is to give some examples, show how they can be used and get input from other users with examples and uses, how they might be improved etc.

That said, here’s the first texture filter:
Notes:

You may want to first create an Art FX category in the Procedural Texture dialogue. Do this by clicking on the burger icon under the Reset button top right; select “Manage Presets” and “Create Category”.

I prefer using it as a live filter, making re-editable which is better for trial-and-error purposes (Layer>New Live Filter Layer>Colours>Procedural Texture).

 
Perlin Paint Patches Txtr (Procedural Texture)

This will create fully resizable patches of colour which can be varied from rough to smooth. These can be used as displacement maps (example below), colour overlays with layer blend modes, texturizing using the Emboss filter combined with layers modes, as a glass filter or any way you would use a texture in Photoshop (but better!).

Note: When using the Displace filter, if you set the strength value high enough you get an effect very similar to the Glass Filter in Photoshop. Also note that the colours of a texture used as a displacement map do not affect the colours in the image being displaced.


 
STEP 1
Create three equations by clicking on the + sign under the equations box. Note that each equation turns on and therefore will affect first the red channel, then the green channel and then the blue channel.

Copy and paste the equations below into the R,G,B equation lines.

perlinhcubic(rx/((w/2)/b),ry/((w/2)/c),7,a)

perlinhcubic(rx/((w/2)/d),ry/((w/2)/e),7,a)

perlinhcubic(rx/((w/2)/f),ry/((w/2)/g),7,a)



Create custom inputs to control the height and width of the noise patches in each channel, and another custom input to control the noisiness/smoothness of the noise. To do this click on the custom type indicated below by clicking on the relevant input type below the Custom Inputs section.
The first column is the input type, the second is the input parameter it affects in the equation, this is followed by the input name, and finally, the input value.


Custom Inputs

Type   Parameter       Name                                   Value

R          b                          Red Pattern Width         7          NOTE: Higher numbers make SMALLER patches

R          c                          Red Pattern Height        7

R          d                          Green Pattern Width    9

R          e                          Green Pattern Width    9

R          f                           Blue Pattern Width        8

R          g                          Blue Pattern Width        8

-1,1     a                          Noise Smoothness         Set slider to far left.

Save this as a new Procedural Texture preset by clicking on the burger icon top right, selecting ‘Create Preset’ and saving it the Art FX category you created earlier. A name such a Perlin Paint Patches might be suitable.

NOTE: The rx and ry in the equations makes the texture click-draggable. Click in the texture area and drag the cursor to see different areas of the texture.

STEP 2 - Use with the Displace filter to create various types of random brush strokes as follows:


Create a new layer below your image layer (ctrl+shift+n). Turn your image layer off for the moment so you can see the procedural texture we’ll create in a moment. Fill this layer with your foreground colour, (Edit>Fill with Primary Colour). Fill the new pixel layer with random patches of colour created by the Procedural Texture filter (Filters>Colours>Procedural Texture and then select the Perlin Paint Patches you just created above. There’s no OK button – just click the X top right and the texture is created.

Select and turn on your image layer.

Apply the Displace filter to generate brushstrokes of varying sizes, depending upon the amount of displacement you enter but leave it at the default 10px to start with, though the strength amount depends on the resolution of your image. Go to Filters>Distort>Displace, make sure Load Map from Layers Beneath is selected and click Apply. NOTE: Don't do this step as a live filter, for some reason that produces artifacts at the edges of the image.

Zoom in to see what’s happened. With a 10 pixel displacement of the default Perlin Paint Patches texture you get very rough paint.

Smooth the paint, if you wish, with a low Median Blur – eg. 2px (this too depends on image resolution.)

Already you should be able to grasp the HUGE variety of paint FX just from these two filters each of which can be saved as a Macro to make a one-click artistic filter. With so many variable controls in just this one Procedural Texture there you know you're going to spend DAYS just playing with them to see what happens.

EXTRA STEP – Create sub-presets in the Perlin Paint Patches filter.

Change the custom input numbers and smoothness values to create different amounts and kinds of distortion. Click on the burger icon on the Custom Inputs box (below the Rad button). Select ‘Create Values Preset’ and give the new sub-preset a name.

EG. Change the values to the following:

Red Pattern width 799, Red Pattern Height, 100, Green Pattern Width, 901, Green Pattern Height, 873, Blue Pattern Width, 100. Noise/Smoothness slider in middle.

Rasterise this layer; place it above your image layer; change the layer blend mode mode to overlay; go to Filters>Colors>Emboss and set it to 5px at 50%. Now you’ve got watercolour paper texture!

It’s available online now.
https://affinity.help/photoipad

I recently watched one of @dmstraker Dave Straker’s InAffinity tutorials about “Pastel Colour Grading…” and it gave me some ideas. So, thanks to you for the inspiration, Dave!
I’ve attached another macro for creating a specific Artistic Look – this one called a Pastel Watercolor Effect. The attached file is a macro category (even though it only contains a single macro); you can import it into the Library Panel in the Desktop version of Affinity Photo, and it is compatible with the iPad version as well. (In my own preliminary testing, the macro works fairly well on an iPad, although there are some issues with missing items in the dialog box that appears for setting parameters.)
When you click the macro, it creates a number of layers inside of a group. The group is called “Pastel Watercolor Effect” and it can be turned on and off by simply showing or hiding the entire group. When you invoke the macro, you will be presented with a number of options in a dialog:
1-6] Lighten Color - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Red, Green, Blue
All of these color ranges are initially set to a value of -200%. As you move each of the sliders to the right, that particular color range will be selectively lightened. If you set any of the sliders all the way to 100% then that color range will go to white.
7] Set Amount of Pastel Blurring
This slider defaults to a value of 25 px. Setting it higher or lower will adjust the amount of “smudging” that the pastel layer displays.
8] Set Intensity of Outlines
This slider defaults to a value of 0.7. You can set it to values between 0 and 2, with higher values giving you darker and more intense outlines. If you set the Intensity slider to 0, the black outlines will effectively disappear.
9] Adjust Brightness
Brightness defaults to a value of 20%. You might want to increase it if (i) you have increased the outline intensity significantly, or (ii) to compensate for changes (particularly decreases) you might make to the Contrast.
10] Adjust Contrast
Contrast defaults to 0%. Adjust this to taste.
I’ve attached 2 photos (below) to show Before and After versions using this effect. Included in the photos are the settings that were used (which are a bit different from the default values).

 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
As with all of the macros I have submitted, please note that I am only one person and have tested this on a limited number of images on a single computer. There is no way to have foreseen every possible scenario. I am hopeful (but obviously won’t guarantee) that you’ll like the results.
If you do like the macro, please keep it and enjoy it. This is “pay it forward software,” the happy result of an abundance of learning gleaned from the members of this forum who are so generous with their time and expertise!
Pastel Watercolor Effect.afmacros

Hi @Aldeney,
Welcome to the forums
Unfortunately Affinity Photo doesn't directly support a built-in 'filter gallery', my apologies. This is something our developers hope to add in the future, however we cannot provide a timescale for this at this time
In the meantime, you might want to check out the Tone Map persona (shown around 3:30 in this tutorial) - which can add certain tonal creative looks to an image, but will not allow for the more 'artistic' looks, such as Coloured Pencil, Watercolour, Rough Pastels etc.
Macros are a predetermined set of steps that another user (or yourself!) has recorded against a document. When 'playing back' the Macro, the steps you recorded will automatically be performed on your open document. This means you can add multiple adjustment and filter layers to an image with one click and these adjustments/filters/blend modes etc can be set to create the 'artistic' looks you're hoping to achieve.
You may be able to find macros that perform these steps for you available to download in our Resources section of the forums, these are macros created by other community members for the Affinity apps, some of which I've linked below -
Pastel Watercolor Effect   
Graphic Novel Effect 
Add Film Grain 
Affinity Photo - Macro Bundle 1 (15 Styles)
Pencil Effect Macro
Classic engraving effect (copperplate engraving) Macro
B&W play Macros
Matte Colour Macro
Another option is to use third party plugins, such as the one recommended above by ashf
I hope this helps!

Hi fellow Affinity users.  Having been confined to the house during the Covid pandemic I have taken the opportunity to update the Designer PDF help file to version 1.9  There have been numerous feature additions in this version so you may benefit from updating.  I hope you find it useful.
I have attached a lower resolution copy of the PDF version of the Affinity Designer IPad apps built in Help file directly to this post. See below. (I have also attached a less compressed (higher resolution) copy's Dropbox “link” to a PDF version). 
You can open the PDF file in a reader or iBook allowing you to view and search the help file while working on a document in Affinity Designer. All links within the document should be working.
I hope you find it as useful as I do.
Please note that this PDF is not in any way supported by Affinity, nor are they responsible for any errors or omissions,  so please do not refer any errors or omissions in the Document to Affinity. Every attempt has been made (by me) to ensure the content is an accurate representation of the built in Help file, however some errors 'may' have slipped through .
I will  endeavour to keep it up to date (at least for a little while) . When Publisher comes out I may redo the layout (Pages is a little limited in the area of indexing).
My Dropbox account is basic and limits daily bandwidth, if you experience a problem downloading just try again next day.
Affinity Designer Help File 1.9.1 pdf
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c2ga6xfx26uhrs8/Affinity%20Designer%20Help%20File%201.9.1.pdf?dl=0
Enjoy
Dave 
Direct link (10mb file size version) linked below:
Affinity_Designer_Help_File_1.9.1.zip

Hi fellow Affinity users.  Having been confined to the house during the Covid pandemic I have taken the opportunity to produce a PDF help file for Affinity Photo (V 1.9.2).  If you find it useful post a comment below in this thread. If it is popular enough Affinity may see the value in producing an 'official' version for users.
See below. (I have also attached a less compressed (higher resolution) copy's Dropbox “link” to a PDF version).  
Affinity Photo 1.9.2-help low res.pdf
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z075osriqgkr18e/Affinity Photo 1.9.2-help low res.pdf?dl=0
I have attached a reduced resolution copy of the PDF version of the Affinity Photo IPad apps built in Help file directly to this post. (See file attachment below. Use Files app to unzip).
You can open the PDF file in a reader eg. Documents (Readdle) or iOS Books, allowing you to view and search the help file while working on a document in Affinity Photo. All links within the document should be working. Let me know if you find broken links.
I hope you will  find it as useful as I do.
Please note that this PDF is not in any way supported by Affinity, nor are they responsible for any errors or omissions,  so please do not refer any errors or omissions in this Document to Affinity. Every attempt has been made (by me) to ensure the content is an accurate representation of the built in Help file, however some errors 'may' have slipped through .
I will  endeavour to keep it up to date (at least for a little while) . When Publisher comes out I may redo the layout (Pages is a little limited in the area of indexing).

Affinity_Photo_1.9.2-help_lowest_res.zip
A higher resolution version link below:
Affinity Photo 1.9.2-help.pdf 
 

Have a great break and thanks everyone for your work.

Have a great break and thanks everyone for your work.

There isn't an option right now for a light UI on the iPad. There is a feature request thread here.

For the iPad updates would come through the App Store.

You will all hopefully be pleased to know that from this morning in the footer of any affinity spotlight page is a link to the page with RSS, JSON and Atom feeds for the articles
https://affinityspotlight.com/feeds/
 

If you are on a Mac you could also “Check” the ‘Stationery Pad’ box in the file’s Info window.
Every time you then open that file the OS will automatically duplicate it and it will be in the duplicated document that you will actually be working, leaving the original untouched.

Hi everyone,
 
I just wanted to let people know that I've put up a blog article explaining what layer blend modes are, how they are grouped together and what they do. I also give an visual example of the different blend modes so you can see the effect they have on your images. Here's the link - https://theeagerlearner.com/your-big-friendly-guide-to-layer-blend-modes/
 
Hope it's of help to you,
Simon

The Affinity Photo roadmap mentions "Non destructive Develop Layer" so it looks like there will be more non-destructive options in the future.