barninga

geoffrey, the size of the image in inches has little to do with the actual file size, since it depends on the dpi setting, that you can modify at any time without affecting the file size itself: it has more to do with printing. what is the actual resolution of your image? i mean its size, base x height, in pixels? and what is its color depth, i mean how many bits are used to render a single color? the most effective way you can reduce the file size is saving it in a file format that features a strong compression. jpg is a format very suitable for that, but it lossy, that is the compression algorithm throws away some information to make the file smaller. you have a trade-off between quality and effectiveness: you can obtain a very small file (compared with the original) if you accept a loss in quality. in my experience, setting the quality level to 80% gives a strong compression and the resulting quality loss starts to be noticeable. you can determine what setting best suits your need with some experimenting. that give, you can obviously reduce the file size by scaling the image down. again, this is feasible if you can tolerate the decreased resolution of the image.

i've read somewhere else in the forums that dodge/burn doesn't work on masks. i use to paint setting the brush opacity as needed.

do you mean you have three black and white pictures you want to "assemble" to compose a color image? it looks like loading them into three pixel layers, applying the right recolour adjustment to each of them and (optionally) lowering the exposure of every single layer sould allow to build a colour image.

and here https://www.google.com/search?q=cracked+canvas+texture&newwindow=1&espv=2&biw=1664&bih=1289&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifj7HvhbfLAhVDEywKHYG5DBIQsAQIGw#imgrc=beDvse-qIsROPM%3A you can find some nice examples of cracked canvas textures.

have you tried png? it's a non-lossy format and features a good compression; in addition it retains transparency information.

the image looks like you already used the inpanitng brush on it: there are some visible artifacts below the girl's left elbow. i think that in this case the inpainting brush is not suitable to finish up the work: you'll have to use other healing tools, and particularly the clone tool and the patch tool. i'm afraid there's no way to have the job done automagically. since the job is complex and could require some trial and error iterations, my advice is to work non destructively: create a new pixel layer above the image and use the healing tools on the new layer, after setting their layer option to "current layer & below". even so, some blue will be still visible through the girl's dress, and i think it would be an overwhelming job trying to correct it spot by spot. here, you could try the recolour brush: since it doesn't affect black, there's a chance that you just paint over the dress, leaving alone the black and changing the blue to green, or whatever. the recolour brush is destructive, so you might want to apply it as the last touch to the image, after consolidating the work already done (use snapshots, or a merge visible command before you start using the brush).

place the distortion layer (i.e.: live perspective filter) above the layer you want to distort together with its mask: the ndistortion will be applied to all the underlying layers. if you don't want to distort the layers beneath, just group the distortion layer and the layer to be distorted.

you don't need to paste anything actually, just select the layer you want to mask with its own red channel and select the menu item like attached. EDIT: just like JimmiJack showed a couple of minutes ago :)

my advice is to do color, exposure and noise adjustment in the develop persona, the develop the image an deal with the crop and perspective in the photo persona. you could for example use the clone tool or the inpainting brush to fake the low-right corner portion of the image, the distort it with the perspective tool so that it becomes rectangular, then crop the background. if you use the live perspective layer, you'll be able to tweak the settings without going through undo/redo cycles.

luts do work, but copying/pasting adjustment layers allows to tweak them once pasted.

yep, three main reasons.

i got it now. AP works that way with adjustments, you paint black/white directly on the adjustment layer to hide/show it but, as far as i know, a mask is needed to hide/show parts of an image (what in AP is called a pixel layer). you could suggest an implementation like that in the feature request forum.

well, not considering habits and personal preferences about tools usability, i am not sure -but i may be wrong- that the editing method you describe is actually non destructive. if you use the tool as an eraser, you erase parts of the images. then, you switch the tool mode (with a modifier key or whatever) and paint over the area you erased to make it reappear. i think that AP implements this as an undo brush, but this is not the point. let's say that you perform a different kind of editing on the same image, like applying adjustments, and so on. then, you realize that you'd need to paint back something you erased earlier. i'm not sure that the brush/eraser tool would work... i'd say you need a mask for this, and you paint over the mask, not over the image itself.

maybe i don't get the point. do you mean a brush tool that can alternatively paint or erase when used with certain combination of modifier keys? i came to affinity photo from a program that organized its tools in a similar way, having a brush that paints and another brush that erases. this is, i think, mostly a matter of habit. for me, it's harder to remember lots of modifier keys than selecting a different tool from a a toolbox. in these kind of tasks i don't think that photoshop can offer real advantages over affinity photo. the trick is to use non-destructive editing when possible, which means in most cases. coming from the gimp, that doesn't implement non-destructive editing -if not to a limited extent- it took me a little while to understand its benefits and how to take advantage of it, and now i use it all the times.

the afphoto format saves the state of your project, with layers, selections, adjustment settings. if you later reopen an afphoto file, you'll be able to start your editing work exactly where you left it. these are regular files, that are stored in the filesystem of your mac, wherever you decide to. jpeg is a good format for finished jobs, if you don't need full quality (jpeg is a lossy compressed format) but you need to save disk space (since jpeg compression is more effective than, for example, lzw compression or tiff files).

the eraser is destructive. you can bring back what you erased only through the undo command (or undo brush). my advice is that you use add a mask to the layer you want partially erase and paint with black on the mask (click on it to select, first) where you want to hide the layer. this way, you can paint on the mask with white at any time where you want your layer back.

you can resize the document (from the menu) using the non separable lanczos method. this should give the best result.

click on the adjustment/filter layers while holding down the cmd key, then press cmd-c. load the picture where you want to paste them, and press cmd-v.

in the low-right corner of the window, click on channels (if the channels panel is not there, make it visible from menu->view->studio), rightclick on the red channel and select "copy to mask layer".

i think that a good strategy would be watching the tutorials. at least, they will give you an idea of what the software can do, and how (at least, in general). you possibly have images that you edited with the gimp or ps and it will be easy to compare the available workflows. i came to ap from the gimp (no ps) and in a very short time i understood how to overcome the gimp's limits, and what new (for me) possibilities ap was offering. even if you should decide later that you feel more comfortable with hiring when it comes to graphic art and photo retouching, at least you'll have a fair knowledge of how things are done, so it won't be a blind job for you.

+1

the two main reasons for a tool not to work, is that you don't have any layer selected, or you are working on a layer different from the one you want to.

you can select the part you want to use to get rid of the people, copy it (ctrl-c) and paste it (ctrl-v). it will be pasted as a new layer. then select the new layer and the move tool to get it into place and resize as needed. you can apply a mask to it to adjust its borders, fade them, etc. lower its opacity to place it precisely over the background.

if you are trained in photo retouching and graphic design, 150 hours should be more than enough to get practiced with affinity software. if you know photoshop, you'll find that there are many similarities with AP. i think you are already aware that you are facing a make/buy alternative for this aspect of your business; it is not just a matter of learning a new program.

:) "macro" means macro-program for geeks, while it means macrophotography for photographers (and maybe digital artists). what about geek photographers? :) :) :)