BobMoyer

'Oberon' (watches Titania while she sleeps)
Oberon to Robin Goodfellow (Puck): "...Fetch me that flower; the herb I showed thee once."
from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare.
Created in Affinity Photo using my free 'Nature' brushes.

Another image taken using a similar approach. The background album cover on this one is from "Hot Tuna" (Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, from Jefferson Airplane). This is an sRGB JPG for "accurate" presentation on the forum. Again, the DCI-P3 version is much more vibrant, especially the reds, but will not display properly here. 
 

Photo of water flowing slowly from our kitchen faucet, shot with a 100mm macro lens, using a strobe from the side. I placed an LP Album Cover (I forget which album) in the background for color, which was made sharp by the flowing water, which acted as a lens. Shallow DOF threw most of the background album completely out of focus, except that part which was "focused" by the water. The camera was mounted on a tripod, but I had to take many exposures, since the water was weaving back and forth, some in focus, some not, plus the shape kept changing as the water flowed. I liked this one the best of this series. Fun shoot. The attached is an sRGB image exported from AfPhoto, but the original DCI-P3 export is much more vibrant and dramatic. 

I'm going to spec a new windows PC.  Prime use is Affinity Photo (and other image manipulation software). I've not currently got a GPU and understand from James Ritson that Affinity Photo can make very good use of a GPU.  Certain of my processes are very slow with my current CPU (30 secs or so), Tone Mapping and Focus merging specifically leave me twiddling thumbs.  I expect any new CPU and GPU will speed my work. With regards to GPU, I've not been able to find what type of cores make the difference in speed; so how would a NVIDIA GTX 2070 or 2070 s, compare to a rtx 3050, or rtx 4060?  (The price of a new 3050 is about the same as a used 2070).  Thanks for any relevant comments.  I think I've ascertained that the 5000 series is currently problematic.

If I can do this, "professionals" can certainly do much, much more with Photo. Found an old faded photo taken in 1976 in the gardens of Middleton Plantation near Charleston, South Carolina.  It is a centuries-old tree covered with Spanish moss. I used the Perspective tool, Crop tool, Haze Removal filter, then some adjustments of Brightness and Contrast, Levels, Curves, and Clarity, followed by Erase White Paper, some Inpainting, and then JR Daytime Sky 32 from the JR - 8Skies asset pack, with some final correcting with the Clone Brush Tool, and last, an Outline, followed by a High Pass Filter.
Whoever (in other sections of these Forums) said Affinity wasn't ready for prime time?  Maybe I'm not, but Photo is!!! 

 

Here's a fun composite. I saw a cool tutorial online for making solid objects appear glass-like, which I used for this composite. The original pottery was black, with yellow/orange flourishes, and photographed in a studio setting. The figurine inside the 'glass' was a Meso-American clay figure I photographed in a museum. I warped the background a little in an attempt to simulate refraction of light passing through glass. I thought it was an interesting technique and will share the link to the YouTube Tutorial for those who are interested. There are a number of good, similar tutorials on YouTube.

 
 
 

Some small adjustments, a macro and nothing more.
 

Drawn in Designer, edited in Photo.

 
 

i installed the new Beta Version 2.6.2.3.... yesterday. it has the same issues as the stable release. I open up Affinity -> load a photo -> mouse stutters and PC is not working/responding any more. 
Had to hard reset the mashine. If i switch off Open CL support there is no such behavior.

just to let you know.

I have no idea what's going on with that illustration. It is all a blur.

My latest illustration (yeah, I know....another moth! 🙄). Reminds me of my youth, when my brother and I used to seek out butterflies and moths.
Done in Designer v2.5.7 and the Pixel Persona.
 

The smoke is actually a flame .png I then embedded the character inside.  The mystic is just a stock image and it's blended in with my purple gradient background via masking after applying a blend mode.  Her nose was mostly absent because no flame was in that area so I had to figure out how to apply a pixel layer and then sample a nearby color to paint it back in.  Added some color adjustments to everything and boom...waifu summoning session.  

Been learning with the Design Method YT channel for a few days.  This took a few hours. 

Trying out Affinity Photo with a classic design concept style sci-fi.

Merry Christmas! 2024 and thanks to all the Affinity Staff for their tremendous efforts to create some marvellous apps!
....which I make mad vector things with!😀
....and the tireless Forum members who contribute to the testing!😀

Female Dancer (using Symmetry & Pattern Layers in Affinity Photo)
I wanted to create a set of images that evoked 'La Belle Époque', a period in Paris from 1871 to 1914 which really fascinates me, in which writers, composers, artists and poets were struggling with their craft, and architects created amazing structures like the Paris Metro and the Eiffel Tower, many of whom were notorious absinthe drinkers.
Artists Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, John Singer Sargent, Henri Rousseau, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Gustave Moreau Gustav Klimt and Pablo Picasso, Illustrators Gustave Moreau and Aubrey Beardsley (who illustrated the 'Yellow Book'), Composers Eric Satie, Claude Debussy, Writers Guy de Maupassant, Gustav Flaubert ('Madame Bovary', 'Salammbo', 'Sentimental Education'), Émile Zola, Victor Hugo, Ivan Turgenev, Marcel Proust, Colette (writer of the 'Claudine' novels), André Gide, Théophile Gautier,  Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Joris-Karl Huysmans ('À rebours' (Against Nature) and Oscar Wilde, Poets Charles Baudelaire ('Les Fleurs du Mal').
I wanted to use the colours from the painting 'The Man in the Red Coat' by Julian Barnes and 'Hygeia (Red Woman with Gold Snake)' by Gustav Klimt.
I found an image of a dancer, which I brought into Affinity Designer and first drew the full figure, then separated the vectors into Arm 1, Arm 2, Dress, Leg 1, Leg 2, Hair, Head, Fingertips of Hand so that I could fill them separately with textures and overlays.
I created several textures for the background and created a gold circle using my free 'Byzantium' Gold brushes and set it into the centre of another shape I had made using a Pattern layer in Affinity Photo. I overlaid the background with a couple of textures, using HSL Adjustment layers and Layer Blending Modes so that the gold looked tarnished.
I flipped the 'wallpaper' that I had created and made a 'floor' for the female dancer, then found an image of a sofa and masked out the fabric and overlaid a squares pattern and then changed it all to red/magenta.
I filled the dancer's body/face with textures, which I overlaid and again used HSL Adjustment layers and Layer Blending Modes. I did the same for her dress and hair, but used different textures, patterns  and colours.
Female Dancer w Red Sofa on Gold (Symmetry & Pattern)

Female Dancer w Magenta Sofa on Red (Symmetry & Pattern)

Female Dancer on Red & Gold (Symmetry & Pattern)

Female Dancer on Gold (Symmetry & Pattern)

Female Dancer on Gold 02 (Symmetry & Pattern)

Inspiring!

Made with Affinity Photo 2.5.6 from various stock photos and my own stuff

(re)edited in APhoto 2.5.5, for colours et composition

I have been experimenting with the Pattern layers in Affinity Photo for a while now and wanted to create a set of dance/sport/catwalk model figures filled with texture and edged in gold with gold backgrounds using my 'Byzantium' Gold brushes.
The Pattern layers in Affinity Photo are really cool, and you can add to the pattern once you have created it; as you paint on the Pattern layer to update it, your brush stroke is duplicated across the Pattern.
However, I wish that you could edit the objects/brush strokes once you have created them (ie space the objects/brush strokes out, resize them, move them around or rearrange them) rather than having them simply duplicates side-by-side.
I know that you can have several Pattern layers in one file, but I would like to be able to position them and move the objects/brush strokes around the other Pattern layers.
I have resorted to dabbing a brush stroke and duplicating it where I want it, but it would be so cool to be able to move the objects/brush strokes around to fit in amongst the the other Pattern layers (if that makes sense)... as if the objects on the Pattern layer acted like 'Text Wrapping' in Word when you resize a picture in a paragraph, the text shuffles along to make room for it. Even if it were random and you didn't quite know where they would all shuffle to. In fact, that would be even better - to have a 'Random' setting would be so cool...  
So here are a few... (More to come)
Ballet
Contemporary Dance
Jamaican Dancehall
60s Ska/Reggae Dancing
80s Ballroom (Vogue-ing)
Diving
Swimming
Skateboarding
I drew the figures in Affinity Designer, then brought them into Affinity Photo and filled the shapes with textures that I created in Affinity Photo by making a selection of the figures and creating several layers, then painting on the layers (but within the selection) with brushes from my free 'Nature' and 'Byzantium' Gold brush collection and changing the Layer Blending Modes, changing the colours using HSL Adjustments and adding Bevel and Emboss. Then I outline the figures with gold.
DelN
Patterns: Gold


Patterns: Dancers on Gold



Patterns: Skateboarder on Gold

Patterns: Catwalk Model on Gold

Patterns: Ballet Dancers, Catwalk Model & Skateboarder (figures only)





This one reminds me of the painted figures on Egyptian tomb art... 😀

Gold. You can never have too much...
 
 

A litlle bit of cropping, enhanced some colors, a little bit of contrast, vibrance, levels and curves adjustments.

My thanks to @StuartRc for sharing his fabulous Monster and Ghoul creations, which I obviously used in this design. Just in time for Halloween and too good to pass up. This will be this year's Halloween Card to my friends and family. Thank you, Stuart!! 
EDIT: Image updated (added another zombie)
 
 
 

... for all (or some) of your musical needs.

Musical Brushes.afbrushes

Practice drawing on affinity design, using blurr