dominik

Not sure how you did the merge
But I cut out the foreground (trees, etc) to a new layer
Then found that adding an exposure adjustment to the sky layer made it look less "smudgy" 
(Affinity file attached)
 
 
 
trees.afphoto

Hello @Aleksey Popovtsev,
it looks like you first have to activate one of the 'Align Horizontally' buttons. Once you tell which way to align you then can choose to align to what.
d.

Hallo @Thanos,
Deine Frage ist nicht so einfach zu beantworten, weil Du nicht schreibst, mit welchem Affinity Programm Du arbeitest. Da Du ein PNG Bild bearbeiten möchtest, nehme ich an, Du hast Affinity Photo.
Was Du brauchst ist eine Maske für das PNG Bild. In der Ebenen-Palette kannst Du dem PNG Bild eine Maske zuordnen. Dann nimmst Du den Pinsel und machst ihn sehr weich (Härte = 0%). Dann malst Du auf die Maske mit schwarzer Farbe um die Figur herum. Du wirst sehen, der Hintergrund wird sichtbar, die Figur bleibt erhalten.
Mit etwas Übung kannst Du so die Figur 'freistellen', sodass sie vor dem Hintergrund steht.
Hier ein Videotutorial (leider nur Englisch): 
 
 
Hier auch noch ein Video auf Deutsch, aber eher allgemein gehalten:
 
 
d.

Hello @Amy Choue
Regarding your initial question, there are two different places of particular interest, as underlined above.
In the Contextual toolbar, next to the image name, you will find the image definition (its own dimensions, in pixels) together with its enlargement (in percent) and resulting resolution (ppi). — Circled in orange. In the title bar of the window, next to the file name, the window zoom factor. — Circled in blue.
  To view how large your page will be printed, choose View > Zoom > Actual size (100%)

To view how good your page will be printed, choose View > Zoom > Pixel size (or roughly 400%)

 
I totally agree with that practical advice. In my experience — and given my sight ability, my material,… —, I consider in general approach that:
« Whatever I can discern under very close scrutiny on my screen with a window zoomed at around 400% (or probably better, as you say, set to Pixel size), I will see it also when printed on a good press (art books). And what I can't see on screen at this zooming factor will be indiscernable on print. » 
(This is more or less corroborated by maths, but I prefer not to elaborate on this part as it gets soon confusing, and is quite useless if you respect the above rule of thumb…) 
 
I prepared a document showing @Amy Choue's examples. (I used JPEG for exports but definitively TIFF is safer in real conditions…)


Robespierre-demo.afpub
 
Please, look first at it with menu View > Zoom set to "Real size" or 100% ; then set it to 400% or Pixel size, and compare if it still looks correct. 
If it's good in the two views, it will be good on print (at least for what concerns resolution, details and sharpness of the image). For colours, it's another bargain… 
On the first spread, you'll find the images as they should be sized for a perfect professional printing: On the left your image placed at normal sizes for quality printing: i.e. @300 pixels per inch — a round value easy to remember, thus commonly recommended — and @254 ppi which is perfectly enough, given the quality of modern printers (2400 dpi).  On the right, the same page exported @ 300 dpi and placed back for comparison. There are not much difference to note, even when viewed at pixel size. Quality on screen is still correct, thus you can print it without fear regarding its resolution. There is only one major visible defect (lost guides?)
  On second spread, the image has been resized to fill the page (6" × 9"). On the left — where the image has not been upsampled, only enlarged — you see easily how the pixels are now so big you can see each of them, even when viewed on screen @ 100 %.
But to have an good idea of how it will look printed, you still have to toggle to zoom at Pixel size. And there, you really see the pixels but also many glitches, JPEG artefacts inherited from history of the file, etc. (the file on Wikipedia was not excellent but it did not appear till you enlarge it too much…) It is very poor quality. It will never print correctly. On right, after exporting @ 300 ppi, the image is apparently larger (it has more pixels) but it isn't more detailed at all.
The upsampled image is a little bit more flattering, because squarish pixels are now rounded, everything is a little more blurred, but in fact it is not any better. Affinity's algorithm has just created intermediate pixels to fill the gaps.
Your image is only diluted, like an old single malt drowned in soda water… There is no additional information, quality is not really improved after upsampling, even if lack of information is not so obvious at first sight. — So don't trust the resolution calculated on the left on your screen (300 ppi, as circled in orange on my screenshot above), trust what you see when zoomed around 400% (as shown in the blue circle)!
  Original picture (440 × 610 pixels), resized  @ 417 %, i.e. placed  @ 72 ppi || After artificial upsampling @ 300 ppi (1800 × 2700 pixels).
 
Both are ugly.
Toggling view (zoom in): 
 
 
 

I want to add to the other good answers and suggestions that it helps to do test prints if possible. E.g. on a book project some time ago the print house involved offers free prints except for the cost of one example (they call it their 'free' or 'fun' plan for non commercial publishings). That way I was able to do a test print with exactly the same paper and printing machines as with the final product. This was very helpful to get an idea of what the differences between screen and print is.
Over time you can develop knowledge of what on screen will come out in print.
It also may help to order paper samples from your print house if they offer any. Some also offer colour tables on different papers from their machines.
d.

Hello Mark,
do you want to keep the picture frame? Then look at the layers palet and make sure the triangle at the left side of the picture frame layer points downwards. This reveales the placed image. Click on the image and hit delete.
If you do not want to keep the picture frame the simply delete it.
d.

Hello @bobdobbs,
with Frame Text there is an additional 'corner handle' at the bottom right. If you drag this you can change the size of the text. See picture:

d.

Thanks, I've just reviewed your log.txt file and it looks like 'Pointer Support' is enabling itself on app startup, this is a setting specific to Surface Pro tablets to allow them to use the stylus pen, but it's currently broken and can cause the app to crash on start-up when enabled on certain devices. I've not ruled this as a potential factor up to this point as I was aware this isn't a default config setting that should be enabled in Affinity apps but this doesn't appear to be the case (maybe it's enabled by default for certain devices that support it).
Evidently there isn't a way for you to turn this setting off currently since you can't get into the app, so Instead I've made sure this is turned off in my copy of Photo and i'll PM you a copy of my UserInterfacePreferences.XML, with photo closed if you delete your existing one and put the one i've sent you in it's place and then start your app, this will hopefully allow you to launch the app. The XML referenced can be found in %Appdata%/Affinity/Photo/2.0/Settings
Fingers crossed on this one.

Hello @bobdobbs,
with Frame Text there is an additional 'corner handle' at the bottom right. If you drag this you can change the size of the text. See picture:

d.

Moin @Pianutbutterjelly und willkommen im Forum.
Ohne genau zu wissen, wie Dein Dokument aufgebaut ist, ist das nicht einfach zu beantworten. Wenn Du z.B. Textstile verwendest, dann könntest Du zentral die Farbe ändern.
Eine Sache, die wahrscheinlich funktionieren könnte ist die Auswahl bestimmter Objekte. Das findest Du im Menü 'Auswählen' und dort 'Objekt auswählen'. Du müsstest einmal alle Grafiktextobjekte und einmal alle Rahmentextobjekte auswählen und jeweils die Farbe anpassen.
d.

Hello @Amy Choue,
this is my fault. I accidentially created the file in the beta version of Designer. Attached is a file created in version 2.1.1.
Learning to work with a design application is a long process and furthermore doing book cover design is so, too. Looking at samples is certainly a good way to start and I'd even advice to rebuild a design that you like. You can learn a lot just from replicating something. Sometimes very simple looking things can turn out to be quite tricky to accomplish. In my opinion it is also important to have an understanding of some design principles (symmetry, golden cut, colour harmony). I do not want to discourage you, quite the opposite. There are so many resources on the internet where you can learn from.
Good luck with your first cover!
d.
simple-book-cover.afdesign

Hello @Amy Choue,
I think there are different workflows depending on a person's preference. Here's how I do it:
I use one artboard of the dimension of the entire cover (backcover plus spline plus frontcover plus bleed). There I place three rectangles from left to right of the sizes back cover / spine / front cover. The most important thing is to figure out the width of the spine. This depends on the number of pages and the thickness of paper. Often printers offer some sort of calculators to find that out. These three rectangles are my 'drawing boards' for everything of the design that goes on top of them. I lock these layers (= rectangles). They can be filled with the required colour of the covers and the spine respectively. Does this make sense to you? I attach a simple Designer 2 file that demonstrates the above setup. Make sure to show bleed and margins.
d.
simple-book-cover.afdesign

A workaround to preserve editability: use the vector Compound as a vector mask on a 'white' raster Mask inside the Compound Mask.
Masks edited.afphoto
 

 

Yes we will run with the scope of tools we have now for 2.2, but indeed there are other tools we plan to add to including text frames, table tool, possibility pixel marquee selections, etc. Tables and text frames could have additional parameters such as rows, columns, gutter, etc. These will hopefully come in 2.3 cycle.

From following this discussion and my own preferences I do support this suggestion.
d.

The built-in Help is already on your computer as HTML files, unless you're using the iPad version of the applications. You simply need to navigate to them with a web browser and open the root file. No need to mirror anything down.

Apps: Publisher and Designer
Platforms: All
In the layers panel if you alt-click add new layer when you have a selection, all items in that selection are moved to the new layer created. In other words this behaves similar to grouping, but rather than creating a group it puts your selection into a new layer.
Additionally for desktop versions you will find a new option in the right click menu for "Move Selection to New Layer" which achieves the same thing.
 


This makes it far easier to organise your work into layers, without having to create an empty layer first and drag the items you want into it.

Thanks!! I realized this after playing with it. I'm glad it is in there. It works just fine. 

Well, @walt.farrell beat me by giving you a good answer (thanks for that).
The only thing I can add is that this way of creating grids is more of a visual technique. There is no way to control distances precisely during  their creation. That is not a bad thing. It is just good to know.
d.

Well, @walt.farrell beat me by giving you a good answer (thanks for that).
The only thing I can add is that this way of creating grids is more of a visual technique. There is no way to control distances precisely during  their creation. That is not a bad thing. It is just good to know.
d.

Logically, converting the text to curves should be the very last thing you do just prior to exporting your file to SVG, that way, if you do need to make changes you're not going to lose everything you did after you outlined your text. A couple of thoughts...
If you enable Save History with Document from the File menu you can then at least go backwards in the History panel to the point just prior to converting your text to curves even if you've closed your Affinity file in the interim.
  You could also look at the Cycle Future option in the History panel which allows you to set History branches which may or may not help. Personally, if I know I'm going to end up outlining text in a file I always make a duplicate of the non-outlined text and hide the layer knowing I may need to come back to it to make changes, so my file will have both non-outlined text layers and outlined text layers or, as @Oufti has suggested, I would make a duplicate copy of my Affinty file once complete and just prior to exporting, naming one with an 'outlined' text suffix and the other with a 'non-outlined' text suffix so should I need to go back and make changes post-converting to curves I can simply open the duplicate version, make my changes and apply the same logic again prior to exporting any text to curves.

Where is the lens flare tool? I mean seriously? Do you expect us to screw around wasting serious amounts of time with pathetic brushes when all you have to do is include a simple all-in-one lens flare tool for photo work?
Whats going on at Affinity?

You’re very clearly confusing frustration for aggression. Please don’t. 
How many years has it been now that Affinity has deliberately not offered/included a basic lens flare tool that other software has as a built in fundamental? Since day 1.
It would be nice if you could offer help as opposed to legalistic judgement. Many thanks. 
Continued requests (in the nicest way possible) are the hope for this absolutely ESSENTIAL feature in their photo-editing software that may one day find its way there... When they are blatantly ignored, that simply raises levels of frustration. After all Affinity asks it’s community to make software requests to improve the usability of the software. Am I seriously the only one who thinks this should be included under basic tools like EVERY other photo editing software out there? There’s a reason they all have it - and don’t use brushes to skirt it. 
Pretty please Affinity, add in a Lens Flare Tool for us all to enjoy.. Please. 
 
 

Sometimes it happens to me that I need to move several objects the exact same amount of space. Here's my quick and dirty way: use the arrow keys and count.
E.g. arrow left moves an object a given amount of pixels to the left. That given amount of pixels (or any other unit) is defined under 'Options > Tools'.
Hitting five times arrow left and hitting five times arrow right on the other object gives exactly the same movements in opposite directions.
Note: you can use Shift + arrow key to multiply the distance by 10.
d.

Hello @MotRettop,
V2 of the suite introduce a measuring tool that allows you to measure distances between positions on screen. Unfortunately it is a not finished tool (in my opinion) and measured distances vanish once you switch to another tool. But maybe you want to try it out and see if that is of use for you?
d.