IanSG

I don't know how extreme the effect you're seeing is, but JPEG files have sharpening applied to them in camera - I'd expect them to be sharper than their RAW counterparts.

More a workround than a fix - try using the Adobe DNG converter to produce "safe" versions of the iPhone files. I've seen posts that suggest the problem is associated with viewing thumbnails - maybe installing a different DNG codec would help?

Could you provide a link to the one that's giving you problems, please?

Your passport photo can be submitted online - let someone else deal with the printing

Probably - it's been a while, and my memory is what it was . I often use a zoned approach to sharpening and blurring, but I never use the brushes.

I haven't used the blur brush for years - the effect was too subtle.

There's usually more than one way of doing what you want in AP. In this case I'd duplicate the layer, untick it so that you can see the original, apply a blur to the original (which is now underneath the duplicate), tick and select the duplicate, and then use the erase brush on the duplicate to reveal the blurred face.

I don't know! I've always treated DNG as a RAW file format, and my only experience has been with LR (uses XMP sidecars with DNG), RAWTherapee (uses pp3 sidecars with DNG) and AP (doesn't use sidecars).

Are you sure about that? It's been a while since I used LR, but I saved all my files as DNG and there were associated XMP files.

That's interesting! It rather undermines the conspiracy theories that are knocking about .

That's never been disputed. And it's never been a case of Serif not putting the time and effort into it, either. (Most) RAW support in AP is provided by Libraw, an external package used by many image editing programs, and CR3 has only been added to Libraw in the last couple of months. Some CR3 support has recently been added to AP by Serif working directly with Canon, but I don't know the details and I don't expect to be told! How Adobe were able to offer CR3 support immediately while Libraw took 2 years isn't clear - CR3 is complex, but there have been mutterings about Canon encrypting the files!

What do you do when you've finished making changes in the Develop persona? You can save as .afphoto files or export in a number of image formats but the original .dng files are never changed.

You need to double click inside the area you're going to keep. You'll see the cursor changes to a cruciform "move" symbol when you're in the right place.

Regarding unsupported lenses, have look at this post. It doesn't look like the EF-M 18-150 is supported by lensfun (yet). How do the Adobe processed CR3 files differ from the DNG files you've processed in other apps? Are the differences consistent enough to allow macros to sort them out?

Printing to pdf isn't an Affinity feature - it will be available via some other software you've installed. Exporting to pdf from Affinity will give you much more control.