justwilliam

Thanks for the link, rmar; I just watched this and the follow-up video. This is pretty much what I have been doing for my small(er) prints. I am really more in need of understanding what dpi/ppi would be appropriate for such large prints - they will be viewed both from afar (20-30 meters away) and from fairly close up (3-6 meters away) and on whether my global sharpening adjustments are better done in the Develop or the Photo Persona.

I have been using Affinity Photo for editing my product shots (for the web) and some of my own Fine Art prints (nothing over 40cm X 60cm as of yet); but I just completed all of the shots for some work for a large local company (who had mentioned in the brief that they planned to make 'large prints' with a couple of the images) and they informed me today, whilst we were making selections, that they plan on three of these images being 1:1 format and 4 meters by 4 meters! I have never edited an image for a final print that size and am now concerned about what I need to be aware of in the editing process. Should I perform some type of preliminary noise reduction, sharpening, and chromatic aberration corrections on the RAW images in the Develop Persona before doing the 'creative' adjustments in the Photo Persona? Are there any things I need to focus on when Output Sharpening? I am not even sure what options to choose in the Export Persona for such enormous prints (should I have the client contact their printer/sign-maker regarding any special requirements/suggestions they may have?). Any help that those with experience with such large prints can offer will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I was so excited this finally arrived :D - unfortunately, I am still using an iPad 4. :( I am still excited about this app, :wub: but will have to wait for funds to somehow miraculously appear so I can pick up an iPad Pro. :mellow:

I can not share the edits I made as I deleted them after seeing how much I could accomplish with the jpgs. I made the edits only so I could let you know what I had done and then that was answered by others. But I can share something better than the edits with you that will help you greatly from now on and will help you to see the value of 'playing' with each and every slider to see for yourself what they do. I hope I can write this clearly enough to be understandable. It will help with white balance only, but it will make clear the principle to use on other sliders. Open a a copy of the unedited image of the couple in AP. Go to Develop persona. Under the Enhance panel, slide the vibrancy slider all the way to the left and then all the way to the right and notice what it does to the colours. Do this a few times. Move the slider all the way to the right and leave it there. Put a check mark in the White Balance panel's box. The panel will open and show you two sliders. Move the top one all the way left and all the way right a few times and notice what it does to the colours. Move the bottom one all the way left and all the way right a few times and notice what it does to the colours. Put both sliders back to the middle position. Keeping an eye on what should be white in your image (and on the colours a bit as well), move the top slider until there is neither too much blue nor too much yellow in the whites. Keeping an eye on what should be white in your image (and on the colours a bit as well), move the bottom slider until there is neither too much green nor too much magenta in the whites. Continue moving these sliders until you are happy with the whites. You should now have a pretty good starting point on your White balance. When you have completed this adjustment, move the vibrancy slider back to the middle position. (Important step!) If you have lost too much saturation (or gained) you can fix that in the Photo persona later. That's it! Well, as far as White Balance. Use this same technique to make other adjustments. For example Clarity. Zoom in to the woman's eyelashes and adjust clarity until they look right to you (probably 1 - 2%). Same for exposure, black point, contrast, etc. Obviously the order in which you make these adjustment not only depends upon the image but it will also affect the outcome. But, once again, trial and error will teach you. Following someone else's advice on which order to use will not teach you. Knowing 'why' is better than knowing 'how'. Doing it yourself will teach you the 'why'. A good way to start might be to start at the top with the exposure slider and work your way down. But that is only one way to do it. When you teach yourself you will develop your own workflow. I hope this helps. :)

Chintan, The grey card could be somewhat helpful to you; but not so much in a shooting situation such as that. If you shoot.jpg, then setting a custom white balance using anything white would be better than the grey card for a wedding. Best option, depending on your camera, is to save as RAW and take care of white balance in post for each individual image - things happen fast at weddings and parties. rmar's mention of the NIK collection now being a free download is something you may want to act upon quickly; one never knows what Google may do next. As far as these particular images go, some simple adjustments in contrast, brightness, HSV, and a negative adjustment to vignetting made vast improvements. Regardless of what camera you have and even the skills you develop with editing in AP, the thing that will help to improve your images the most (of course, I am speaking about future images) is for you to shoot as much as possible and get to know each and every setting on your camera and what they do and then to be able to change them almost blindfolded. Secondly, look at images of the type you plan to shoot and see what you like and what you do not like while also learning as much as you can about composition - after which, you can forget everything you learned about composition and those images you do not like so that you can shoot images that you yourself do like. But your question was about what more you could do in AP to these images. I might suggest, and I am being completely sincere with the thought only to help you here, is that you open the original files in AP and then one by one see what each slider does in the develop persona. Then do the same in the Photo persona. Seriously, as you move each slider you will see, "Oh, I like that" or "Usch, I don't like that" and then be sure to make a note of what you did and what that did to the image. There is no formula or set of adjustments that make all photos better; in fact, so called 'presets' only work well on certain images. You will want to know how to adjust each image to your own liking. I would even be so bold as to say that presets can even prevent you from consistently creating good images. The NIK collection has some presets that can sometimes be good 'starting points' for an edit but if someone only uses these presets what will happen the day NIK no longer works? There are a lot of great tutorials made by Serif for AP and they have even stated that there will be a workbook, similar to that which they made for AD, coming out soon. Plus, the 'Help' files in AP are very complete and should be able to answer almost any question you may have. And then, as you have already done, there are the members on this forum which should be able to provide the answer to any specific questions that may come up. I edited the photo of the hands and of the couple, with slight adjustments to the compositions as well, and they turned out well. The close up on the eyes is hindered by the fact that she appears to be wearing coloured contacts. But I thought your compositions were OK and I hope to see you showing off your images here after you have gotten a handle on AP. :)

OK, I'll play, too. I wasn't that pleased with the three random selections I got but I suppose it doesn't matter. I thought I would include the CDs since not everyone can play vinyl these days. :rolleyes: Fun idea Robchoc!

Very good to hear!

:) :D :wub:

Most of the bird/wildlife shooters I have met here are 'scoping' (using an iPhone mount on a scope) and claim it is mostly because of the difference in T-stops. A scope, they say, just lets in that much more light. Is that something you have tried; any opinion? ... Admittedly, I sometimes still compare the RAW conversion from Aperture with that of AP and often prefer that of Aperture; but this could be a user-related thing.

Some great shots here, Kodiak. It is quite amazing what we can do with today's camera, lens, and clothing technology; especially considering the camera shake induced by a long lens (and cold weather) and the high ISO you would have needed in in order to maintain a 'just fast enough' shutter speed in these lighting conditions even with a wide open aperture. Having a tool like AP to go from RAW image to that which we envisioned with ease is the icing on the cake.

Madame, Your info shows that you are in 'Scandinavia' but not where. I ordered the book last week and it was delivered early this week. So if they ship to Sweden I do not understand why it wouldn't ship to you.

I just this moment placed my order; I hope the delivery is quick as others have stated, but as I am in Sweden maybe it will take the full 5 - 7 business days. I was a bit confused about this when placing the order (hadn't read through this thread) and so gave a new password. I suppose now I have two affinity accounts? Regardless I hope I benefit as much from this workbook as I anticipate. :) BTW, any plans for a 'workbook' for Affinity Photo in the works? :rolleyes: I could definitely use that as well.

Is Sfx working as a stand-alone app for you?

Yes. Go to this thread: Downloadable Affinity Photo Help 1.4.2 Epub for IBooks (May 2016) https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/13112-downloadable-affinity-photo-help-142-epub-for-ibooks-may-2016G

Fantastic work; very creative and expertly accomplished.

@doeboy Although these images (and their quality) are certainly nothing to write home about, I hope they will help to show you, as regards freckles and the like, what can be easily accomplished in Affinity Photo with Contrast, Levels, Curves, etc. (and just a few other tweaks). I do apologise for my lack of skills both behind the camera and with Affinity Photo.

Exposure to direct sunlight. :rolleyes: (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that urge.) Levels and Contrast for some minor adjustments (especially for B&W; as would adjusting the filters in the B&W adjustment); for colour you might want to try Curves though.

I'm there; thank you so much! (I'll be sure to provide any comments after completing this course in this thread, but two hours of material may take some time [days/weeks] to make it's way into my little head.)

You're very welcome, Ronnie. The first part of my post were heartfelt comments on the positive qualities of your piece; those last comments flowed from my critical photographer's eye and yet they were meant merely as a bit of silliness - and even jealousy for the ease in which your work can be tweaked, adjusted, and refined; in a way it is never 'finished'. Whereas for me I have all of the time I wish to take in setting up a shot, adjusting the lighting or composition, and getting my camera settings where I am pleased with them. Then I press the shutter and the set-up is taken apart never to be replicated again. Of course, I make adjustments and corrections with software but I never have the freedom which an illustrator has. I do have AD and experiment in it as much as time allows - I think that it has even improved my ability to 'see' light because in AD I must 'create' the light. Here is an example from yesterday (lo-res file): about 15 minutes to set up the items, about 30 minutes to set up the lighting (reflectors, gobos, etc), and then (after the shutter release) about 30 minutes on the computer. But then I am done. I can always go back to the RAW file and make different adjustments but I can never go back to the exact composition and lighting easily. I can examine this photo and find a butt-load of mistakes I made or changes that I would like to make in it but it is too much work so I must try to remember these errors and simply not make them the next time. Whereas you could simply go to a layer or object which you feel requires tweaking and do so. Yep, a smidgen of jealousy.

Looks really good, Ronnie! The backdrop was well done and the colour of the surface under the bottle works well together with it. The gold and green on the 'wrapper' really help to sell it as far as attempting to be photorealistic. Hiding your 'virtual/vector' strobe behind the bottle to light the backdrop was an excellent choice as well to help define the edges of the bottle. I would kill to get a backdrop looking like that in my little studio! However, were it I who was actually trying to photograph such a bottle on such a surface with such a background (which of course it is not) I might have went with slightly different lighting. The reflections on the sides of the bottle appear to be mimicking light from two reflective cards (one on each side) as do the two on the neck. Replacing that imaginary lighting setup with two strobes with reflectors shooting through vellum placed at an angle would provide a nice diffuse gradient to those reflections rather than the rather sharp edges reflected by the (again, imaginary) foam-core boards. The reflection of the bottle on the surface seems to imply a diffuse light from above and towards the front but that should have given some reflection on the 'shoulder of the bottle as well. I suppose that if you had the virtual money to throw around you could also get a 'virtual' Broncolor Picolite with a spot mask to throw a small pool of light onto the label as well. I guess that all of the cross-contamination I get from using both AP and AD is making me loopy; now I have an urge to shoot a similar bottle shot, edit it in AP and then try to reproduce it with AD - if only there were eleventy-seven hours in a day instead of a paltry twenty-four. What fun one could have! :rolleyes:

Just a suggestion (scruffily accompanied by illustration) but perhaps a 'chaining' of the thought bubbles together could better imply a 'chain-of-thought' or a 'thought process'. But not in the clumsy way in which I altered your banner. Since it is about her wanting to start her own online shop perhaps some dollar signs could go in an additional (final) bubble.

I can certainly make good use of simple focus stacking for a portion of my images (mostly for my medium-sized product shots but it is not such that I must have it - like for jewellery, etc.). I have been holding off on purchasing Zerene Stacker (or even Helicon Focus Lite) in the hopes that it will become a feature in AP and not only then save me time in that workflow but also enable such a workflow to 'flow'.

Thank you for sharing this, retrograde. I've looked at the related videos and although this is not something I need nor would use that often it is definitely something that I want to have available for when it will help me. I will definitely be downloading it. But I can't help thinking that this would be a wonderful tool to have as an option in the colour picker within Affinity Designer- wishful thinking.

I find it difficult to comprehend that there aren't more voices crying out for this feature and I do not know what value adding my small voice may have; but here it is: Focus stacking feature. Soon. Please. Thank you.

I like how the harmony of the repeated rounded-rectangles lends a certain feeling of uniformity, the vertical elements in the main character provide balance between the horizontals employed throughout the rest of the illustration, and especially the punctuation of the semi-circular curve of the arm taking the eye from sort-of centre and leading it into the character's expression. The eyes (those three that we see) really add a bit of humour and create the story. As retrograde mentioned, your use of noise provides a nice 'finish' to the colouring. Well done!