PaulEC

Sorry, can't help with templates! Hopefully someone else may be able to suggest something.

Try "View" - "Studio" and make sure that "Show Left Studio" and "Show Right Studio" are ticked. You could also try "Reset Studio" if that doesn't help. If it's the Toolbar that's missing, make sure that is also set to show it.

Right hand end of Context Toolbar at top of screen.

Pretty basic question (but it's a bit difficult to tell exactly what you're doing from your screen shot) is "Protect Alpha" unticked?

A couple of thoughts. Firstly, Photo is probably more comparable with Photoshop than is Designer. Personally I would recommend using both if you are comparing with Photoshop. Secondly, Serif's own videos, although not a "complete course", are a very good place to start. (They can be accessed via the "Affinity" tab at the top of this forum page, then click on "Learn".)

Copy one of the files and try changing the extension to.jpg and see if that will open.

What file type(s) were they?

Maybe a bit OT, but at the moment I'm trying to learn how to use a bit of software called Scrivener. I know someone who uses it regularly and they think it is really useful. I spent half an hour or so playing around with it and couldn't get the hang of it. It does look like it could be useful for me, if I could just get my head around it. Now my problem is, should I just give up, should I put some effort into trying to learn how to use it, or should I find a user forum for it and tell people who are already using it what a load of rubbish it is, because I don't understand it?

I must admit I've fallen foul of this several times, but I don't think it's a bug, it's "by design"! It's one of several settings in the Affinity apps that I really wish Serif would either make sticky, or have an option for the user to set the default behaviour.

I think Ray S. probably has the best solution, but here is a way using Blend Ranges, in case you want to try it. I'm assuming all the stamps are the same, or at least single colours, if not it may be a bit trickier. My_project_1_2021-02-27_12-56-54.mp4

By the way, this is a destructive process, so work on copies, not on the original files! - Best of luck.

One way: Use the Flood Select tool. Untick the Contiguous box. Click on the white part, then delete, Click on the blue parts, then delete. You may have to go in close to see any bits left over, click on them until you only have the black part left. You may need to try adjusting the Tolerance setting to get the cleanest removal of unwanted areas. To get rid of the black borders you can use the Erase brush.

If you don't have the fonts installed then you either need to install them {from Google Fonts) or use different ones that you do have.

You select the brush tool, choose which brush you want, pick a colour and paint with it. The best thing is probably to start with a blank page and just try out the various brushes. Use the [ and ] keys to make them smaller or larger.

Yes - if it works for you and does all you need! Sometimes using an all singing, all dancing app to do something simple is just overkill. Going back to -- If all you want to do are a few simple drawings and paintings, there's not much point buying the most expensive software on the market, of which you will probably never use more than10% of what it is capable of doing. 😉 It isn't! -- Most drawing/painting apps will have similar tools, functions etc, but, although, once you get the hang of basic concepts, it becomes easier to transition from one app to another, they all need a certain amount to work to learn how to use them.