MTfrog

I have been using PhotoPlus since it's beginning. I have been upgrading up to PhotoPlus8 witch I  thought was the greatest.  Now I'm faced with Affinity which is a tremendous challenge. I see many similarities to PhotoPlus8 but lots of the tools and methods are hidden or done in a different way. How do I find them? I can't look at all the tutorial to find a certain tool or methods. One of the tools I use a lot is the straitening tool and the inbrush. 
 
Maurice

SF
Let's see if we can clear the fog a little. I'm not anti RAW on any level. I simply have no particular need for it. I know a few old school tricks for torturing JPEG images. RAW format has its place, although it's become a subject of some pretty intense snobbery, over recent years. For the record, I also use PNG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, WMF, TGA, PSD, EPS, SCN and 3DS files when needed.

That being said.....Let's try to lift the veil a bit....LOL

RAW files are the digital equal of the old fashioned film / negatives. All of the information the camera / sensor  captured was stored on film / negative and the same is true with a digital RAW file. Today we don't have to convert the film content to a positive image, so that part of the process went to the scarp heap of history. We now have digital positives, right out of the camera. RAW files are the modern film. RAW post processing is designed to let you make some very effective but basic corrections to a photo, such as noise reduction, exposure, tone etc. This is accomplished in Affinity Photo within the "Develop Persona" which is where a RAW file first opens. When its "Developed," you click the apply button and the image opens in the Photo Persona.

Like the days of dark rooms, once the negative had been "developed" there were many archaic processes that skilled photographers practiced. They "masked off" some areas so they were protected from light while they blurred the focused and in general manipulated the image in any number of ways, Photo Persona is where you can achieve all sorts of black magic. Most users never do much more than scratch the surface of what is possible in this remarkable place. In effect it is just like the darkroom where those old guys did their magic.... but without the red light.
Now that you've gotten the final image to look as you want it, those previously mentioned save options come into play. You don't have to "Save" or "Save As" if you decide that you don't want any of those pesky reusable project files hanging about. However, I've never met any photographer who just tossed out those valuable developed negatives. Who knows... that Bride might just decide she wants a 11 x14 to go with her bridal package. This is why you save as and then save over and over again, as you work with those .afphoto files.
Everyone knows what a finished paper photo looks like. That was the only way they had to store a usable image so that everyone could hold and see it. Today, we "Export" images from AP into any of several image formats so that various browsers/viewers can display them.  We also have the option to print them, as well.
The absolute irony of all this is that after hammering on the image with the initial RAW editing tin he Develop Persona and fine tuning it inside the Photo Persona, getting everything possible from the image, we then convert it to a pixel crushing format like JPEG. Luckily, I like JPEG and I know how to work with them....LOL

TL:DR....
RAW = Film fresh from the camera
Developer Persona  = Dark Room where  negatives are developed and basic but very important adjustments are applied.
Photo Persona  = Think of it as the enlarger, where a photographer applied all the various tricks the negative in order to achieve visual effects
Save/save as  = Stores the developed negatives for future use
 Print /Export  = gives you the finished photo
No one looks at undeveloped Film (RAW) since it's not in an attractive user friendly format

Steve

SF
I've used other software that had their own "archive" files. I usually made it a habit to create a folder just for those files. With AF Photo, I created a folder called "afphoto-files" as the destination for my "save as ( .afphoto ) formatted files. It makes for a clean and easy to access single location for them to accumulate.

As for opening files In AP, you have several options......
File- New  = a blank page
File - New From Clipboard = anything you have used a "copy" command (CTRL- C or CMD - C) is pasted into its own new screen.
File - Open = an image somewhere on your computer
File - Open Recent = Files you've recently had open in AP
File - Open folder in explorer = you are taken directly to the folder where the active image on screen is stored.
You can also copy and paste layers between the various images open on screen.
Not everyone has a need for RAW editing. I'm not doing any publication projects and I'm just too old to care about trying to impress my peers, so I shoot and post process using JPEG. Besides...with a close to a half million images already stored, I really don't want to store those HUGE RAW files on or off the cloud.
As strange as it might sound, I'm re-experiencing a bit of what you are dealing with, in that I'm having to learn where all the goodies are hiding too. It's just another learning curve to conquer. Don't let it get to you.

Steve

I got the Affinity book for Windows. Their is a lot of information in it. It tells me about a lot of tools that I had no idea what they were about. There is so much that can be done with Affinity if you have a good imagination and are creative.  At my age, Affinity can do more then I'll ever need. It dose meet my needs and I have gone beyond what I have been doing. Hopefully, with this book, It help me beyond what I do now. This book is a great learning tool. Now I would love to master Affinity fore IPad. But, the small IPad is too small. I do have Affinity for IPad but I have difficulty using it. If I had the 10 inch IPad, maybe I could master it. 
 
 

Thank you but the tool can get in the way. I have fooled around with it and I do see it as a good thing. I like Affinity for IPad and I would like to learn it. I did get it for my IPad but it's hard to use as everything is too small. It is perfect for IPad 10". I need to learn more about Affinity for Windows before I (if) can work on it enough to be comfortable working with it. It would be perfect for working with it on my lap. I need to better correlate better between my Window computer and Apple. All of my photo are on my Window computer.   
Maurice Tremblay

TomWolsky,
I've also have all of them listed by category here. They are also in this same thread (first post).

There was a time not that many years ago when corporations provided user manuals and instructions for their products. The tech industry has led the way in the elimination of this valuable aspect of a product. Without instruction manuals, many, many products -- PARTICULARLY tech products -- are completely worthless. As others have commented, video tutorials are not adequate. There is no easy way to look up the information one needs because there is NO topic index referring users to the correct videos and time on the applicable videos to lead users to the information we need. Furthermore, I know from using videos to teach online courses that the excuse that constant updates are necessary is not adequate. It is MUCH easier to edit text than it is to edit video. In fact, instructional videos require scripts, and those scripts are initially text. Since the text must be produced and revised before the videos can be produced and revised, it simply makes no sense that at least an online manual can't be made available and kept up-to-date more quickly than video tutorials.
 
As a consumer, I'm sick of paying corporations for products and then having to conduct research, buy expensive manuals, or simply muddle through learning how to use the products. It is fantastic that consumers often post instructions on YouTube. But I'm not paying the consumers to teach me how to use products; I'm paying corporations to do so.
 
Our economy is increasingly unconcerned with consumers and, therefore, quality and service. What a delightful culture technology has created.

Now I know where it went. There are so many ways to hide things in Affinity. Thank you very much. I spent two years in Germany many years ago. I liked my stay.  

I have been using PhotoPlus since it's beginning. I have been upgrading up to PhotoPlus8 witch I  thought was the greatest.  Now I'm faced with Affinity which is a tremendous challenge. I see many similarities to PhotoPlus8 but lots of the tools and methods are hidden or done in a different way. How do I find them? I can't look at all the tutorial to find a certain tool or methods. One of the tools I use a lot is the straitening tool and the inbrush. 
 
Maurice

Hi, Allan.
I'm sorry to hear that you don't get the help you need.
Usually someone is quite quick to offer help.
 
If you don't, maybe it will help to bump your post. 
There's a big amount of posts each day, more and more now that the community is growing from day to day.
 
EDIT
 
I looked at your posts, and I see that you have got response for all of them, but one.
If you put your question in your own thread, the question is more likely to get response.
Just a friendly advise. ;)