jimh12345

I can mostly get what I want with Rectangles and Layer Effects. My frustration is mainly with the Crop tool. But now I've seen a couple of workarounds. Regarding the Fotor site and app, they are unfortunately an example of what I meant by "scammy". I quickly found posts from people saying Fotor's "free trial" resulted in immediate charges to the CC which were a hassle to get back.

Problem is that after I'd tweaked the frame it was no longer centered in the 'canvas' so resizing wouldn't have worked. Seems like there should be a way the Crop tool could 'snap' to that rectangle, but none of the Snap tool options had any effect. So I cropped it manually and that's ok, but this is far from a one-click solution so I'm still looking for an application or web site that generates frames automatically.

And it works, mostly. Here's my confusion: each of those 3 layers is (to me) some sort of a vector object. 2 are Rectangles, one is a "Curves" (?). But when I drop a photo on it and try to adjust it I see that it actually has a pixel size, 1600 x 1200. I need it bigger. So I resize the canvas to be larger than that "Frame", and now I can resize it to the size and aspect ratio I want. So far so good. But that frame is now within a larger "Canvas" which shows a white background. I want to crop the image to just the frame - in other words, 'snap' the crop to the Frame I've created. And I can find no way to do that. Sure I can drag the crop rectangle around and get pretty close to the exact edge of that frame, but what a pain. There has to be a better way. Here's what I have. The frame is the dimensions I want, the photo is in it, but it's inside a larger document. How can I crop it out precisely? Isn't there some way to 'snap' the Crop to the contents of a layer?

Thanks, I'll fiddle with that. As a mere photographer I don't know what a Rectangle or a Style "is", or what I can do with them, but it might be worthwhile for me to get into these things a little bit.

I'm just a photographer, not a designer. I use AP mainly for the things I can't do in Capture One, via layers, adjustments, masks. Going beyond that, learning more advanced stuff in AP, doesn't have much payoff for me. I guess I'm knocking on the wrong doors here. There are phone apps that will slap a realistic frame on an image, but they look scammy. Ditto for web sites that offer framing if you'll just "start your free trial' with a VISA number. I'm still looking.

Ok here's an example. A POD site which I use adds these automatically when people are shopping for print options. I want to be able to do this for myself. In this one the black frame has little or no texture, but some options would be nice.

The "White Border" in Styles might be useful sometimes, but I don't see anything there that looks like a mat and frame.

I need an easy way to add a realistic frame and mat to images in AP. (Yes I know Publisher has a Frame tool but I don't have Publisher). I'll need to do this often so I'm not interested in learning how to create them myself, with rectangles, 'emboss' etc. I just want to slap a mat and frame on an image, for my photography web site. I've seen posts from people saying you don't need AP for this, there are all sorts of free online tools that do it. And I've been unable to find a single one that isn't either a scam or a complex mess like Canva. This is one of those things that you'd think would be simple.... but apparently is not. Any ideas out there?

Easiest way (and it's not that easy) I've found is to add a Recolor layer and create a Group with that layer, your adjustment layer and its mask. Then move the mask up to Group level so it affects both adjustments. Now the color overly matches the mask and you can turn it on and off.

Thanks guys, I will take the plunge shortly, including the Workspace thing.

I need to get rid of the sandboxed 'app' version and get back to a standard EXE installation. I know this is now possible, but I've been putting it off. And now it's like a lot of things: there are so many old posts about it that you can't find the answer. I realize it's probably simple but I don't want to screw up my system and have to fight my way back. There's probably a 'best' way to to do this. Is there a post giving the official steps?

Yeah I saw that immediately. So this is useless. The only thing that works - and that I'll be able to remember - is to put the masked adjustment in a Group, add a Recolor adjustment tied to the Group, and toggle it on and off as needed.

To say the least. But ok - assuming I remember I have to right-click on the icon, not the layer label, and I get Refine - I can see the mask and edit it. But I have to click Apply or the edits are lost - and isn't Refine then doing other stuff to the mask that I don't want?

Yes V2.

Someone, please explain this. To me, "context menu" means right-click, but when I right-click a mask there's no "Refine" in the menu. I am today going totally mad from being unable to see the mask as a red overlay, as is possible in every other photo editing application since time began. The workarounds posted here are far too complicated. In Capture One, for example, I just hit 'm' to turn the overlay on and off...

Haven't used AP macros, but hey, here's a repetitious task that seems like a natural. So I enabled the Macro panel, clicked "start recording", clicked File/Export.... and got a popup saying "can't record Export Item". Well, that sure ended quickly.

But it doesn't. I just tried it, no matter what I put in that field, AP ignores it and creates the file in whatever folder I pick with File Explorer. I'm giving up on Export Persona, it is at minimum a huge overkill for just exporting JPGs of processed photos. Photographers don't need the "slice" stuff, that's for "designers". Affinity should improve File/Export to fit photographers' workflows, and model it on Capture One's excellent Export.

I don't get it at all. If I click on the path, I see this dialog: If I mouse over it, a tooltip says its "a common path for items exported from this slice". But it's ignored when I actually export.

Of course. As I said, I've been on Microsoft systems since the 80s. Today, Windows 11 works very well, boots quickly, and never crashes - it's not the same old Windows we came up with. I did use a Mac for a while, on a project, years ago and found it pretty smooth - although the Linux file system was a head-twister, and some of the UI conventions seemed a bit contrived.

Then I'm even more confused. I created a preset. I define a path where I want exports to go. I see that path: I click the little "export" icon to the right of the file name. And up pops File Explorer, asking me where I want the export to go, and defaulting to the folder I last used (the one from which I opened the file). The path I entered in Export Persona is ignored. It doesn't seem to be used for anything.

Windows has no codec for PSDs. Adobe won't give one out. So Windows users can't see thumbnails of PSDs in File Explorer. I've switched from PS Elements to Affinity Photo, which handles my old PSDs just fine. But finding the old PSD I want is a real pain without thumbnails. There are a couple of 3rd party codecs available. One is in Sage Thumbnails, which I foolishly installed once, and it messed up all my file extension assignments, jumped in on various right-click menus, and screwed up my system in other ways. I uninstalled it. I'm not expecting anything to change here, but it doesn't hurt to ask once in a while - is there anything from Affinity that can create the missing PSD thumbnails?

I think you nailed it with that video. Since the early days, Apple always courted the creatives. Microsoft on the other hand quickly aligned with corporate business, treated home users as a bit of a nuisance, and ignored creatives entirely. Microsoft didn't sell software to users, they sold licenses to managers. And they never confused their "users" with their "customers". And they never, ever got "design". Their software was always as ugly as it was irritating.

It would actually be fun to get an Apple - just to keep my aging brain working. And I could run Windows apps on it via some sort of virtualization...right?

Well that's disappointing. 😡