brucet

Command J no longer makes a new layer from a selection. All it does is make a new layer of the whole page. Used rectangular marquee to select a portion of the image. Then tried Command J and got a new layer, but it copied the whole image as a new layer, not just my selection. Same thing with Layer>Duplicate selection; duplicates the whole image, not just the selection. How can I fix this?

Thank you, Lisbon, that is exactly what I was looking for.

Photoshop clone tool had a submenu of variations, among which was "color" With that, one could click a source area and then paint over the target area to change its color to the same as that source, but without changing the pixels of the target; so modifying the pixels' color values, but not replacing them. I suspect that there must be some tool in Affinity Photo v1 that can do the same, but I've not yet found it. Can anyone help?

Original 1780 x 900 file seems stretched in width. In Photoshop I could click on "layer" "copy layer", then CMD+T to select it for manipulation of width/height/rotation, then grab one side and drag until objects in the image look properly proportional. Finally, I could crop and merge layers before saving. I'm sure that the same result can be done with AP, but I can't figure how to make a copy of the background layer, much less to select it and grab one side to squeeze it to proper proportions. Select All seems to do nothing at all. How does this simple task get done in AP1?

Thanks for the move tool suggestion. That has the elements of PS Cmd+T and helpfully displays pixel size of the modified layer. No skew, distort, etc. Though. I have viewed many of James Ritson's fine Affinity videos, but - not to fault Affinity - their titles are not written to accommodate some old PS user trying to find a particular functionality, so finding what I want to know can be difficult. I never would have thought to look at a Move Tool video to find resizing and rotating. If there is one on Mesh Warp tool, I could not find it in the list.

Thanks, all, but none of the videos is helpful; most about Affinity 2 or text, etc. I sometimes need to select a portion from one side or the other of of a scanned old diapositive image image shot with a wide angle lens, where the image has been distorted by the edge compression of the lens. I simply want to find a way to do what could be done in Photoshop CS5 where Cmd+T brought a sizing box with which one could drag to enlarge/reduce size of a layer image, stretch laterally or vertically, and/or drag to move it around. Also under the edit tab (I think) were a series of distorting tools; Skew, Distort, Perspective, etc, which enabled selectively changing dimensions of various parts of the image. Closest I have found is Mesh Warp Tool, which is interesting, but not the same.

I tried that, finding a half dozen or so, none of which was on subject.

Photoshop made distorting, skewing, warping, etc easy. I found distort filters, but have no idea how to use them or what they can do. Affinity "help" is no help at all, just a summary list of functions without any explanation how to use. Can someone point me at instructions or a good tutorial?

Yeah, good point. I don't have clients, just cleaning up scanned family photos and such. Many of them get emailed, so huge files are a problem and I can't control initial size while scanning because I don't do all of them myself. I guess the real problem is that the only way one can control the sizes of files when saving them is by Export. Photoshop allowed file size control (in arbitrary steps, not as wonderfully precisely as Affinity's Export) in Save or Save As. Affinity Save may either increase or decrease file size by some unpredictable amount.

How is that possibly a "feature"? Most people want to open a file, modify it and then save back to the folder it came from. I can't even think of a situation in which such a stupid behavior could be useful.

Mac 1.10.5 When saving a file by exporting (in order to control file size) Export saves it not to the folder it was opened from, but instead, to the last folder Export saved a file to. I don't know if Save command does the same thing or not. It should default to save (actually replace) to the same folder the file was opened from.

Now I clicked on "Toggle Function?" at the bottom of the view dropdown list and all of the tabs at the top disappeared. Is there some way to return to default settings?

I assume that I must have accidentally hit some keyboard command that did it, but have no idea what or how.

Mac v 1.10.5 I opened an image file and Affinity Photo screen was all black. I managed to find view tools to restore those, but the right side boxes that display layers and allow access and toggling on and off are gone. How do I get them back?

Thank you to all of the members who responded to my questions about Affinity Photo, some even with screen shots to show me exactly what to do. Your generous sharing of your skills and knowledge have proven to me that I no longer have to allow Photoshop CS5 to hold me back from being able to upgrade from OS X 10.11 El Capitan to Big Sur, with its newer version of Apple Mail whose security protocols my email provider accepts, and browsers that are fully supported by all web sites. You folks are great!

Thanks. That's a stunning image you created.

More valuable information. Especially the last explains why, whenI tried blur and sharpen with no apparent effect; I probably had an adjustment layer highlighted instead of a pixel layer.

Thank you for your detailed progression through the steps. It will help greatly me to conceptualize how Affinity works so I can speed the transition.

Thanks for your detailed suggestions and links. I'm sure they will be helpful in making the transition from my familiar Adobe to Affinity.

Thanks. That might solve the problem of having to select for each of several correction layer types. What are Blend Ranges?

So, if I understand correctly, I would have to paint the target area in each adjustment layer separately with black in order to do color balance, brightness, saturation? Or is there a way to apply an adjustment layer to another adjustment layer? Still, this will be a valuable tip for images where I want to vary the effect of a single adjustment layer. Can I apply a gradient to one of these adjustment layers to apply its correction more strongly on one side than the other?

Thanks. Photoshop too. I omitted the step of inverting the selection after applying the red overlay.

Imagine you have a digitized image of an old Kodachrome slide of people at the beach. There is considerable uneven red shift from 60 years in a closet somewhere. Some of the subjects have deep shadows on their faces from straw hats. What is the best way in Affinity Photo to apply color correction to certain parts of the image, leaving others alone. You don't want better skin tones at the cost of turning the sand cyan. What is the best way to select out just the facial shadows, maybe feathering along the cheeks, but sharply defined at the hat brim? One of the tutorials deals with using a mask for brightening all but the waterfalls, but if most of the image is already bright enough, I need to make a layer of just that portion to be adjusted, but it doesn't seem to be as easy in Affinity as in PS CS5 where I can go to Quick Mask and paint the target area with red overlay mask using a soft brush tool for feathering and switch to erase to remove overlap outside of the sharp demarcation of the hat brim. Once selected I can create a new layer, brighten, desaturate if needed to get away from garish color, and apply edge blur filter to smooth out the "pointillism effect" from low resolution in shadows, then merge it back in once I'm satisfied. I find that Quick Mask defaults to masking the entire frame, even if only a small part if the image is selected. This makes my go-to technique impossible. How would you go about it?

Thanks @RC-R and @RonP for the helpful tips. I hadn't noticed the status bar info.