MikekPhoto

I regularly scan negatives color & black & white using my Epson V700. I scan negatives for both archival and current production. Yes I still shoot medium and large format film and mostly print digitally. I have worked over many years developing my workflow which starts in the camera. For color & black white negatives I scan using the Epson software that came with the scanner. It is pretty good if set correctly. For negatives or transparencies it is important than the shadows and highlights are not clipped. On every scan after preview and selecting the image I bring up the Histogram and make sure the output is set to around 10 for the shadow and 240 for the highlights. This can result in a flatter scan but easily corrected in post. I scan the image as 16 bit RGB tiff (even if it is a black & white image). This ensures I have plenty of leeway in making adjustments in post. This can result in really big files, especially scanning 4x5, 5x7 and 8x10 negatives. But you can always reduce the file size later. I then open the image in Adobe Camera RAW, heresy in the forum but near with me. For color scans I first set the white balance, then set my black point by holding the Shift Key and double clicking the black slider. I use the same technique to set the white point. Now I will adjust all the controls to fine tune as pessary, exposure, highlights, shadows, white and black adjustments until my image is where I want it. I have found the noise controls in ACR to be pretty good in reducing, noise and grain - but only small changes are needed - grain is a natural part of the image. I have tried keeping my workflow totally within AP but not there yet. Wish there was an Affinity Camera RAW. For new work, especially black & white I start my process in the camera. Making sure that I get an good exposure, normally I set my important shadow detail at Zone IV (which is one stop over) and use a highly compensating developer, usually Divided D-23 which ensures good detail in both the important shadow and highlight areas. The development times for most of the films I use is 4 mins in Bath A and 4 mins in Bath B. The short development times ensures minimal grain even with fast films and due to the dilution the acutance is pretty good as well. The resulting negative contrast is reduced, but can easily be adjusted in post. With this technique most of my scans do not require anything more than a Curves Tweak. Couple of examples - First a color scan of a 35mm Kodachrome Slide taken around 1984... The second a black & white scan from a 4x5 negative Cheers - MK

Well I have and tried all the settings and cannot find a way to do this. So maybe you can point me in the right direction? Here is my scenario which I somewhat described in my original post. I have two Affinity Designer Files Open. The design is for a two page flyer. Affinity Image 1 is the front page, Affinity Image 2 is the rear (back page). Needs to be printed double sided and my Commercial Print Shop wants a single two page PDF. I cannot find any settings where I can specify create PDF export from the currently open files Note Files not File I know I can export a PDF from a single open file. So if you know of a way to do this I am all ears. My current solution is to export the files as Photoshop images. Open them both in Photoshop and use File/Automate/PDF Presentation and check use open image. That creates a multi-page PDF - great, my job is done. But I don't want to use Photoshop, I want to use only Affinity Products. Yes I have tried using Art Boards, but very time consuming and I have struggled to get Art Board that gives me the exact dimensions with bleed. Art boards I am guessing were not designed to handle print jobs but UI design for the web and mobile solutions. Much more efficient to be able to export a multi-page PDF from open files in Designer. Thanks MK

Reading the AD forums regarding the ability to create multi-page documents is unlikely to happen as this would be a feature for Publisher when it is released. But what about the ability to export to PDF docs that are open in Designer to create a multi-page document. I am working on a two sided and four sided spread and while building each page in Designer is relatively simple, getting the PDF's created for the print shop is a regal pain. But if there was a PDF export option where would select "all open file" that would do the job as well as not infringing too deeply on the Publisher design goals. The same logic could also be applied to Photo as well. Possibility? MK

Not sure if this will work for AP/AD but in System Preferences for the Mac you can change the scroll direction, and on Windows 10 with Microsoft Mouse & Keyboard Center under advanced options you can change the direction. Maybe this will work for you? MK

+1 for this/ Can we add persistence for the position of the Window - remembers where we placed it the next time it os opened MK

I have the Intous Pro Small and use it on both Mac & Windows systems for AP/AD as well as other graphic applications. I have found the wireless connection to work as well as running the Tablet wired. I have a pretty busy studio and my desktops can get really cluttered with all sorts of cabling for image/video/audio capture so having the ability to eliminate a cable is a god send. It also nice to be able to lean back in my chair in a more relaxed mode, put my feet up and be able to retouch a portrait without having a cable draped over my feet :) I find the internal battery lasts a long time. When I have finished for the day I just plug it into a USB charger so it is fully charged for the next day. MK

There is something squirrely with this image file. In MAC Finder the preview looks great. Opening with AP 1.5.1 using the AP RAW Engine the file looks terrible and not much can be done. Opening in Adobe Camera RAW - image looks great. So given Finder preview looks good, went into AP and changed the RAW engine from AP to Apple. Restarted AP and went to open the image. Immediate crash in AP Tried this a couple of time all with the same crash. Not sure why using Apple RAW would cause AP to crash with this file, while the AP RAW just shows a really bad image but does not crash the application. Let me know if you need the crash dump...... Cheers MK

In my quest to ditch a well known Photo program I decided to use AP Photo to process a series of paintings for a local artist. I always start by including an X-Rite color patch with each painting to be photographed. I use this to set the white balance and if needed a custom camera profile. My question, with Adobe RAW the White Balance tool gives me a temperature of 4500 with a +5 tint, whereas the White balance sampled with AP 1.5.1 gives me a temperature of 6580 with a 41% tint. AP 1.5.1 gives a much lighter exposure than ACR (which is easily fixed) but at a loss to explain why there is such a difference in color temperature. I would have thought they would have been the same or pretty close? Cheers MK

Well, you should be able to fix this in camera with your flash. What you need is a diffuser on your flash which will give you wrap around lighting as well as not having the flash directly hitting the eyes. Same technique for eliminating red eye. For informal images I use a Gary Fong diffuser, works very well it raises the light above the lens and gives really nice wrap around lighting- tad over priced for what it is but pays for itself in not having to eliminate eye problems in post. For more formal shots I use a small translucent umbrella either shooting through the umbrella or bouncing light into it. The trick is not to have the point light source directly over the lens. Attached is a shot of my adopted pooch using a Nikon Flash and translucent umbrella..... No pet eye :) Hope this helps

I am running an iMac Retina 5K 27 -inch with Intel Core i5 with 24 GB memory with a regular spinning hard drive and both Designer & Photo fly. It came with 8GB of Mac memory then added and additional 16 GB of third party memory (OWC) and what a difference that extra 16 GB made. This set up was an upgrade from my Mac Mini. I am hooked on large monitors and love the screen real estate; and if one of our Windows machines is idle will connect a second 27" monitor to enable applications to run side by side at full screen. My most useful accessories are: Wacom Pro (Smal) tablet for detailed photo editing and portrait retouching Two Fast external hard drives a 4TB drive for backup and an 8TB drive for media storage, my video projects just chew through disk space x-rite i1 Pro Color Profiler I have had this set up for about six months now and loving every day. Which is good as I usually spend 5+ hours editing. Hope this helps in your decision making MK

Just an FYI, but pulling together some system info related to the Bug I posted about AP RAW and the Pentax 645Z. Right clicking an image in Adobe Bridge and selecting AP to open the file - Bridge tells me it is version 1.5.2 - but right clicking in Finder to open it shows as 1.5.1 which matches About AP. Same for Designer, Adobe Bridge is telling me I have version 1.5.8 whereas I have 1.5.4 installed No big deal but wonder how Adobe figures this stuff out :) Cheers MK

Thanks for replying and yes I see it now and apart from AD suddenly quitting after creating a new Asset Category, Works - shame about the crash, but I think this is a know bug and fixed in the next release. Sometimes you cannot see the wood for the trees :D MK

This probably a dumb question but I am either confused or not understanding how Assets work. The latest version of AD comes with a number of preloaded iPhone assets which is cool. I would like to create assets for my Flyer business. So in the Assets panel I created a new group called "Print" all well and good so far. In Designer I created some assets I can us across multiple documents. Like phone, email, and badges like Equal Opportunity Housing. So now I want to import them into my newly created Print Assets folder. But how do I export thee new created assets so they can be imported into my newly created assets folder. I have tried everything and not having any luck. I have tried SVG and EPS but when I try to import you can see the files but they are greyed out. I can load them into Symbols just fine. But Symbols are not persistent and only work on the open document. So clearly doing something silly and any help/guidance would be appreciated Cheers MK

Thanks you nailed it..... MK

Opening a Pentax 645z RAW (PEF) file in Affinity Photo there is a black border at the top and bottom of the image. This does not happen if the file is opened in other RAW processing software (DXO, Adobe Camera RAW). Not sure if this is an issue with the Pentax but the border stays with the image after export. Is there a RAW preference I am missing or could this be a bug? You can see the black border at the top and bottom of the attached image. Cheers MK

The method I use is the lone tool set to darken. Set the flow and opacity to around 25% and work from an area that has a similar tone that does not look out of place. Takes a time to build up with these settings but it does work. Another method is to create a new layer, select a color from the forehead that is not burned out and with low flow and opacity paint on the new layer to cover the burned out highlights. Experiment with the layer blend mode to get the most pleasing result. Hope this helps MK

Thanks of the tip... If I use ⌘ 1 the dialog box stays open, if I use the Magnifier in the tool bar the dialog box disappears - would be nice if it stayed open to save a few key strokes - but clicking the layer brings it back Again thanks Mike

Working on an image in AP. Decide to apply the de-noise filter than zoom in on the image to 100% to see the results - and where did the filter dialog box go? It shows in the history but i cannot find a way to get to the dialog box to make adjustments. Am I missing something here? MK

This would be a great addition to AP as well. It's easy to do in Photoshop and there are a number of scripts available. My favorite, and free is Tych Panel, the other tool I use, unfortunately Windows only is Qimage Ultimate - where you select the images and it will automatically resize them to the paper size selected, to you can specify the image size, like 5"x7" and it will place two images per 8.5x11 page. If you select more images it simply creates more pages. Adding a feature like this to AP and AD would be a great time saver and help folks wean away fro Adobe :)

Well it was working for me before the upgrade to the latest release.; checking the Library/ColorSync/Profiles folder it is definitely no there. Wonder if Affinity was having problems with this profile and removed it with the update. But very curious is the fact you can I can open a JPEG which is sRGB and go to Document/Convert ICC Profile and low and behold RGB Prophoto profile is listed. So now very confused as the Profoto profile must be hiding somewhere on my system - just not in the ColorSync Library. Downloaded the profile from the link you provided and yes, I can now create a new document with the Profit color space again - so big thanks. Maybe someone from Affinity can explain why this profile was dropped with upgrade not allowing a new document to be created in that profile, yet you can convert a document to Profit profile - seems like a bug to me. Maybe I should open a thread in the Bug section of the forum Mike

Just updated AP & AD to 1.4.1 and when I create a new document in either application the Profoto profile is not listed. However opening existing document when I go to Convert Profile, the Profoto profile is listed? Did something change with this update as I am sure I could create a new document using this color space. Running El Cap Version 10.11.3 Thanks Mike

Adding a vignette to images can be s challenge depending on how you create them, as well as the bit depth - more likely to see banding with an 8-bit image, 16 bit can be better. One way to reduce the appearance of banding is to add some noise to the Vignette, not perfect but it does help. Here us is a link that may help https://fstoppers.com/post-production/learn-how-fix-color-banding-using-just-one-simple-tool-7946 Cheers Mike

When using the up and down arrow keys for fine tuning exposure the increments are Full Stops of exposure. For fine tuning it would be great to add more control and make the increments a 1/3rd of a stop or smaller. Using the scrubby control works great but having keyboard control would be a great addition. The other controls in the Develop Persona have really fine increments when using the up and down arrow keys - just not exposure :( Thanks for listening.. MK

I bought a Magic mouse and Keyboard to go with my new Mac Mini - hmm think that was a mistake. Stuff magically moving in front of me - not sure if I will ever get used to this beast and I have been trying since Mid December... Ben thanks for the heads up on the Logitech mouse, will check that out. Finally managed to get my Wacom Tablet working, so life is easier working on documents MK