Kalense

Thanks for this. It helps. But you mention, for example, layers. In Photoshop you click Ctrl+J to duplicate a layer and it is easy to see and manipulate layers and their masks. I've no idea how to do that in Affinity. The "Layers" tutorial assumes that you already have a set of layers to work on. Not helpful. I'm really floundering without a simple set of "how to"s. There seems to be no more logic behind the current sequence of videos than there is in my attic. It starts with Maximum Stacking, followed by Global Cloning, then Subtle Toning and Multiple Colour Formats, and continues with Panoramas and Stacking: Noise Reduction. This is such a jumble, with no key to explain what's in them, and they assume so much familiarity when what is lacking is a really basic map of how to use the software, that I've got completely frustrated with them - and worse, with Affinity Photo. In short, I find everything so much easier in Photoshop (which is expected, since Affinity is new to me) but so little in the way of structured guidance that I'm rapidly losing my patience with Affinity. I'm coming up to the end of my 10 day trial, and so far there is nothing pulling me from your side to convince me not to continue to pay the hateful monthly license to Adobe.

Where is the tutorial that explains each of the tools? I can't work out what the little arrow does, for example - the tool beneath the open hand. It draws a box, then when you release the click, it vanishes. How frustrating is that?

I am a (very) experienced Photoshop user, but the Adobe license system is really evil. For this reason I would like to make the move to Affinity Photo. What is stopping me? It has been harder than I expected. When you have a set of automatisms built from years of use of one package, trying to do something simple - like selecting a background colour - in a new package becomes an exercise in frustration. What does the eyedropper do, then, if it doesn't copy a colour? The videos are good for what they do, so thanks for that, Andy, but (a) they're completely disordered which makes them pretty much useless from a "how do I do this?" perspective or from a "take me through a workflow" perspective, (b) any given video will almost certainly contain at least one unexplained thing that you need to find another video to try to understand, and © when you find one that seems to be relevant it seems to never quite get to explain the exact thing you want to know. The key to the videos is useful, but it is organised strangely from my perspective. The problem is that it tries to do everything, while a set of 5 or 6 more simple keys, each adapted to a single purpose and organised along work flow lines, would help a lot more. So for example a key organised simply to open an image, cut out a shape, float it above a background, and save the result without flattening the image; or one to open two images of the same thing with differing exposures, overlay the two images, and mask the one into the other using a gradient, and save the result; and a few other workflows like that. But what I would really like is one tutorial for each individual tool in the package.