John Rostron

For each triplet of exposures at one focus point, load the three images using Load new HDR stack. Process these to your liking and the save as an .afphoto file. You could save this an 8-bit or 16-bit image. Do the same with each of the other triplets using exactly the same parameters, especially in the tone mapping phase. Again save as before. You should now have five HDR-processed images. Load these five images into a new Focus Merging stack and process. You should now have a focus-merged HDR image to export or save as you see fit. John

I find that Adobe (pax) Bridge, which is now free, does all the metadata editing that I need. You can set up templates to include your copyright information. John

No, Affinity will not work with automation plug-ins. They use a different interface to those plug-ins that do work. John

I doubt that it will, and I also hope not. Trying to edit directly from the camera is a recipe for disaster. I would advise you to follow @Madame's advice. Better still, use a card reader to copy your images onto your HDD. Only then should you begin to edit. John

I use 1-bit for scanning old(ish) music for cleaning up. I might use 8-bit for intermediate processes, but I use 1-bit for input and export. For this, I have to use my old copy of Photoshop CS5. John

It is good to see actual photos in this forum. Most submissions are designs. I do feel that, in submitting real images, then it would be very useful to explain how Affinity Photo has helped you create the image shown. John

I think that @ralex's original problem has been solved in his original thread in Questions. This does not resolve the continued absence of 1-bit capabiliies in Affinity. Could I add my support for this facility. John

Does this happen with all filters? Or just with a specific one? John

No. This has been requested several times in the features request section. I suggest that you add your support to the latest one. John

Glad you liked it @Maxxxworld. I have placed a Tutorial and a Macro covering this here. John

In a recent post in Questions, @Maxxxworld asked how he could warp an image to apparently wrap it around a bottle. I posted a solution to his problem there, which I expand upon here. Consider the facing semicircle of the bottle as seen in this diagram: The visible part of the label extends from -90 degrees (on the left, not shown) to 90 degrees on the right. This will correspond to the width of the original image. This will project onto the final width of the image (the line below). The final width is less than the original width by a factor of pi/2. A bit of trigonometry shows that the sine of the Angle indicated is given by (x-halfwidth)/halfwidth, where halfwidth is both the label and the final image. Putting this together and re-arranging a bit gives us an Equation: x=(asin(2*x/w-1)*w/180)*pi/2+w/2 A bottle is typically viewed from above, so that the label has a curve, typically with a dip in the middle.This can easily be simulated using equations, using: y=y-Const*x*(w-x)/w/w The Constant determines the depth and direction of the curve. I have used the expression w*(0.5-a) as a scaling factor, where a is a parameter chosen at runtime. This will change the curve from negative (curving down) at the default a=1 to positive at a=0. Inserting this into the equation gives: y=y+(0.5-a)*x*(w-x)/w Note that the w in the numerator and denominator cancel out. The value of (0.5-a) determines the curvature as described above. As an example, here is the Great West Window of Chester Cathedral. I chose this because it has lots of verticals to see how the filter affects it. (It has verticals once I had put it through the Mesh Warp.) And here is the image after the filter: Before filtering I cropped it close to the sides of the window and then Rasterized it to remove the invisible sides. I then added space at the top and bottom to allow room for the curvature part to operate. I then followed this by Clip Canvas to remove surplus transparent ends. The calculations for this filter are complicated by the algorithm that Affinity uses to effect these equations, which I explain in this Tutorial here. I have created a macro that effects the filter, and then uses Clip Canvas. By clicking on the cogwheel, you can alter the degree and direction of curvature. EDIT: I have discovered that this macro will only perform once (per Affinity Photo session). I add here a version recorded in version 1.8 which does work properly in Photo 1.8: WrapAround1.8.afmacro I alos onclude here the original macro, recorded in version 1.7: WrapAround.afmacro John

I have used Filter > Distort > Equations to transform your label. I first cropped of those parts that would be invisible, then Rasterized it. This is necessary to set the actual dimensions to the cropped dimensions. I then added some space above and below the label. This allows room for any perspective curvature. I then went to Filter > Distort > Equations and applied the following equations: x=(asin(2*x/w-1)*w/180)*pi/2+w/2 y=x-0.4*h*x*(w-x)/w/w The 0.4 is a scaling factor for the curvature at the top of the label. This could be positive or negative depending on which way you want it to curve. Note that there are transparent areas at the top centre and the bottom corners.This is what it looks like: John

@SF Charter Boat, you ask aout losing these stops of information. The dynamic range within a RAW file will depend on how many bits of each colour it records for each pixel. This could be from 10 bits upward depending on the camera. If you aim for an 8-bit final image, then you are losing at least two stops. For a 16-bit final image you could, in theory, preserve up to 16 bits from each original RAW pixel. To what extent this can happen depends on how much processing you do to your RAW image at the develop stage. Consider, or example, the pseudoHDR technique. Say your camera takes 12-bit RAW images, but your target image is going to be 8 bit. You can develop the RAW file to show the shadows clearly, but block out the highlights. You then save this file. You then return to your original RAW file (remember that this has not been changed) and develop it to show the highlights (but blocking out the shadows) and save that. You might even develop another file to focus on the mid-tones. You can then merge these two or three files using the 'Merge to HDR' item in the file menu. This should give you a final image including an approximation to the full range of tones in the RAW but compressible into 8 bits using one or other of the tone-mapping algorithms on offer (or try your own). Have you lost those extra stops in this process? Yes, but it looks as if you have not! Hope this helps. John

I am a Sony user, but with an ancient A55. I have never had any problems loading ARW files. If I understand what is being said then when @Moonie and @p_mac open one of these newer AWR files it opens 'as a tiff'. Does it not open in Develop persona? How do you know it is a tiff? Does it have a tiff suffix in the tab at the top? I understand that the DNG format has some commonalities with tiff. I wonder if these newer Sony AWRs do this which is why the RAW engine recognizes it as a tiff. John

If you can parameterise the transformation (which should not really be difficult if you are happy with the algebra), then you could create the necessary wrapped image usng Filter > Distort > Equations. If you could post a full-size version of your label I could have a go. John

There is no forum post below!

You do not give details of what you wish to acheive with your macro. Would it be possible for you to create your selections or masks as named layers and then apply a macro to do the remainder? John

I recently had difficulty in getting the Distort > Equations Filter to work as I thought it should, I was convinced that there was an error and posted a Bug report here. After comment from members @shojtsy and @walt.farrell and moderators @Andy Somerfieldand @Patrick Connor, I finally got it sorted. I thought that an item in the Tutorials might help for others coming to this problem anew. Consider a simple pair of Equations: x=x+y*0.2 y=y*0.7 My original thoughts were that these represented algebraic transformations, that the value of the pixel at position (x,y) would be moved to pixel position (x+y*0.2, y*0.7). Applying this to the image: gives: The bottom right corner of the image is transparent. My expectation was that the height of the text would be reduced to 70%, but it is actually expanded to approximately 140% (1/0.7). I originally expected the slant to be anti-clockwise, but it was clockwise. My original thoughts and expectations were wrong. What actually happens is quite different. For any pixel at position (x,y), Affinity Photo will find the pixel at (x+y*0.2, y*0.7) and use the value of the pixel value there to apply to the pixel at (x,y). Following this logic, the results are consistent with (revised) expectations. John

Fraid not. The Distort filter offers no options for a resizing method. You can write a macro for Document > Resize, with a specific size and include the resizing method of your choice, but you do not have the flexibility of the Equations filter. John

It would help if you were to explain what you did to create each image. I would guess that #2 is an HDR and that #5 is a panorama. John

Havevyou tried the Retouch Pro website. Some members do specialise in what you want. John

Works for me on Windows. John

I have an Android tablet. I just double-tapped on your word 'understood' which became highlighted. Just above this there appears a bar bearing options 'CUT COPY SELECT ALL DEFINE', and below there is the forum 'Quote this' bar. At either end of the highlight there is a blue blob pointing up. I can drag on these blobs to expand the selection left and right before tapping the 'Quote this' bar. I could have used the COPY option, then select some other text, double-tap and select PASTE. Note that I have to select something that already exists to paste onto. I usually just type 'xxx' and select that. This is useful for copy/pasting urls. Here endeth the Android lesson. John

Just the one it would seem! John

So it does, even on my tablet, below the text with the tablet's options above. Very useful to know. John