BiffBrown

Hello alescspra—
 
The gradient map lets you selectively color luminosity ranges of a photo (either color or b&w). Very crudely, the left end is the darker ranges; the right is the lighter ranges; the middle is, well, the midtones. If you select one of the stops on the gradient map, you can change the color used to replace the tone you're working on. I realize that might be a bit confusing, so you might look at the video I made that uses the gradient map to give a photo a vintage look. The first thing I do is apply a gradient map, about 10 seconds in:

 
I will try to make another video showing a more robust use for the gradient map—you can use it to create sepia tones (sort of what I did in the video) or selenium or tinted b&w.
Best,
Darin

Alecspra—
 
I've finally had a chance to make a short video showing one way to use the gradient map. In this case, I used it to convert a color image to a cyanotype image. You could also use the gradient map to create selenium or sepia or Van Dyke or other tinted monochromatic images (e.g., tinted B&W images). Once you have a gradient map that offers a nice starting point, you can save it as a preset and then use it to color other images, adjusting it as needed for each image.
 

Hi all,
I'm not sure why this blend mode was left behind. It's probably an oversight.
I will fill a feature request for this. Thanks all for the heads-up.
 
@Yevgeny Makarov
Welcome to Affinity Forums
 

This is a way to do a little more creative vignette effect.
You get lots of control over how and where you want the effect.
If you've made it on one picture you can simply copy it to other images.
 
Cheers :)
 

I’ve created a macro that can simulate the look of Infrared Photography. It expands on the method that James outlined in his tutorial video, adding a few additional flourishes. The macro is attached and can be imported into Affinity Photo.

To import the macro, select the “hamburger” icon at the top, right of the Library panel. Choose “Import Macros…”



Start by choosing a Pixel layer. Click the macro and you will get a lovely infrared-looking image.

1) If you adjust the opacity of the layer named “Infrared Inverted” you can add more or less color to the image.
2) True infrared images have a softness and graininess to them. Because of that, I have included a Noise layer and a Diffuse Glow layer. Feel free to adjust them, or turn them off.
3) If the image has too much pink to suit your liking, open the HSL layer and switch to the Reds. Lower the Saturation until the pinkish color is muted or gone.
4) I have placed a Lens Filter adjustment at the top of the layer stack. It is a blue filter, which will cool the image a bit. By default, it is turned off. Turn it back on to apply it.

Here is the macro in action:


 
Infrared.afmacros.zip

I've recently started making tutorial videos for Affinity Photo, putting them up on YouTube. The channel is 'InAffinity'. There's already nine videos there.
The focus is mostly on short, specific 'how to's, including 'How to do X in N different ways'. Mostly because that's what I like. I'm an old engineer, photographer and educator, and have a tendency to seek detail and then share it. Once I get going, I'm usually pretty persistent. My 'other site' is ChangingMinds.org, which I've been writing for over 15 years.
For the technically curious, I'm using Camtasia as a recording/editing system, capturing at 1920 HD.

In response to a question in the "Questions" forum, I created a short video showing how I use the gradient map to create a cyanotype image. I thought it might be helpful to post a link to the video here in the "Tutorial" forum too (perhaps not everybody lurks in the various forums just waiting for a new post of some sort).
 

Today, let’s have fun with Gradient Maps…
Gradient Maps are a great way to color grade photos, since they map dark, light, and midtone values according to a pre-defined gradient. This can easily define a “look” for photos that might otherwise be hard to accomplish.
Although I am not a user of Photoshop, our “arch rival” has a wonderful group of gradient maps called “Photographic Toning” that are specifically designed to color grade photos. Although you have to drill down through a few panels and dialog boxes to find them (and you sort of have to know they’re there in the first place) they are a truly nice addition. Also, they are easily obtained by anyone.
But, as they say, there’s the rub. Affinity Photo cannot import Photoshop gradient maps. Affinity Photo can store pre-defined gradients in the Swatches studio, but for some unknown reason the stored gradients are not available from the Gradient Map studio panel. Gradient Maps can be stored as presets, and can be chosen from the Adjustments panel, but I don’t believe they can be easily exported from one computer and brought into a different one.
So… after a long couple of days of transcription, I have created a set of Macros that apply each of the 38 Photographic Toning gradient maps. Since macros are easy to store, and to share, I am making them available for anyone who wants them.
There are actually 2 sets of Macros included - each as an easy-to-import Category from the Library panel. The first group of Macros is called “Photographic Toning Gradients” and these are named according to the gradient map they apply. Each macro creates a Gradient Map layer, applies the appropriate color values, and names the layer according to the gradient map it applied. The second set of macros is called “Photographic Toning Gradients - reduced.” This category also applies the gradient maps in a similar fashion, but then reduces the opacity of the layer to 30%. This reduces the effect of the Gradient Map, and produces a much subtler effect.
Here is an image that shows the full-strength versions of all 38 gradient maps.

And here is a photo to which I’ve applied a full-strength gradient map, and also a reduced-strength gradient map.

These macro categories are included in the ZIP file attached to this post, along with a Letter sized JPG that includes samples of the gradient maps. Also included in the ZIP file is another macro category that includes one more macro. It’s called “Obama Hope Poster” and, as you might have guessed, it turns any photo into an Obama Hope-style poster. Just because…
Please enjoy them!
Photographic Toning Gradient Maps.zip

Aye, you're right, Alfred. Unclear language. Fix implemented. Adequate?
It's a surprising effect anyway. I've just added a new video to my InAffinity YouTube channel showing the different effects of different methods of conversion to monochrome. Glowing praise welcome. Corrections appreciated.

Came across this youTube presentation which may be of some interest:
 
 
Regards,
Biff

Just as an exercise, I decided to explore ways to create vignettes with Affinity Photo. I stopped after identifying 20 methods. Attached are my notes for your pleasure.
Affinity photo Vignette V1.pdf

Hi everyone,
I put up a blog post about using blend ranges in the way people often use luminosity masks. You can check it out here: http://theeagerlearner.com/blog/
 
Hope it's of some use to you & cheers,
Simon

I did some macros for a 5-level luminosity mask set here:
 

Hi djk, here's a brief rundown of each filter:
 
Unsharp Mask uses the traditional approach of comparing and subtracting a blurred (or "unsharp") version of the image (or pixel layer). It's the most configurable of the sharpening filters as you can control the factor (strength) and threshold (how much to subtract based on the comparison). For most use cases, this is your go-to filter for sharpening.
 
High Pass is a little more straightforward: it simply passes parts of the image (or signal) above a certain frequency and attenuates anything below it. This filter is used as part of Photo's automated Frequency Separation filter for retouching, but you can also use it for detail enhancement. Applying it as a Live Filter layer then altering its blend mode (e.g. to Overlay/Hard Light) allows you to be somewhat creative with your sharpening: use smaller radius values for fine detail sharpening and higher radius values for local contrast enhancement.
 
Clarity has had an overhaul in the Develop Persona, so it now behaves differently compared to its implementation in the Photo Persona. In Develop, it performs quite a strong local contrast enhancement (punchy mid-tones, increase in "perceptual" sharpness). In Photo as a filter/live filter, it's basically Unsharp Mask with a blend mode - or at least it should be. As of the latest release version, it no longer appears to be any different from Unsharp Mask, which is a bug and will be reported...
 
Detail Refinement in Develop is basically Unsharp Mask - the percentage suggests it might be adaptive but I don't believe this is the case, just treat it as the radius.
 
Hope that helps!

Hi Dodonizer,
 
Welcome to the forums,
 
The Tone mapping can be used to get a similar effect to the one you get when you use the Tonal Contrast tool in Snapseed. I will include some Tone mapping tutorials below
 
https://vimeo.com/192632826
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrYi089tY6k
 
Thanks
C

Try using a Gradient Map adjustment layer:
Before...

After...

Chris, a workaround you might not know about is that if you double click on either of the color circles you will get a color chooser panel:

This allows easy conversion from different color formats and the insertion of hex RGB codes.  The format is larger than the color panel, so is easier to make certain color selections.

I read this great post from MEB, and here is fast steps for cropping without masking:
- select Rectangle tool (or other object from toolbar) and draw it (ex. like canvas size)
- drag drawed layer and drop to your layer as cropping/clipping, but not child layer! 
 
That's it! If you need destructive results, just rasterize layer!

Original black and white photo and source:
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/04/world-war-i-in-photos-soldiers-and-civilians/507329/

You can record your macro and after stop recording adjust the radius setting for the macro. So when the macro is later executed it will always popup with a radius setup panel first.

Since there is no repeated run and auto increase factor setting, you would have to rerun that macro either manually several times and alter the radius in the popup panel accordingly, or record a macro where you already applied the frequency separation several times with different applied radius values.
 

I'm a full time photographer, and I work primarily with people.  I do a -lot- of skin smoothing and fixing, and one of my most powerful tools is the Wavelet Decompose plugin for GIMP.  It's essentially the equivalent of using Frequency Separation, but with a one-step process to generate a user-definable number of layers.  For the 36-mpix images from my D800, I use 7 layers.
 
Each of these layers gives me the ability to reduce the detail in varying degrees of courseness.  Typically I use layers 3-5: 3 for small facial detail, 5 for the blotchiness us humans are so good at, and layer 4 for all things in between.  For really large areas like thighs, I use layer 6.  This is 4 layers I use on just about every single image.  I flick up and down the layers and adjust different layers of detail depending on where I'm working on the body, and how effective the changes are.
 
Frequency Separation, as seen in AP and Ps, seems like an intensely cumbersome way of accomplishing what is a smooth process in GIMP.
 
I'm looking for advice: is there a way to do something like this in AP?  (I've never used Ps, (I have a philosophical objection to Adobe) so I don't have this experience to bring over).
 
As near as I can tell, the process in AP requires me to manually select a degree of separation to work on -every time- I want to make a change.  Separate, edit, merge, separate differently, edit, merge, separate the first one again 'cause I missed a bit, edit, merge, repeat ad nauseum.
 
Is this really how it works, or am I missing something?  Any recommendations would be cheerfully accepted, 'cause most of AP is great, but this is like 80% of my workflow and as I understand it, it's ...  less than ideal.  #totesdiplomatic
 
Thanks in advance.   ^_^

AFAIK there aren't any informations available or ever published for the AP PS-Plug-ins interface here, NO dev code samples, NO tutorials, NO howto guidelines or whatever docs etc.

Hi BiffBrown,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Currently Affinity Photo only supports Photoshop plugins. To develop them you need to use the Photoshop SDK. As long as you are developing basic image filter plugins - Affinity Photo doesn't support any other plugin type nor automation - it should be able to run them.
 
ON1 PHOTO 10 plugins are not compatible/not supported by Affinity Photo.

http://contagiousart.com/?page=8&tut&lng=en
perhaps?

NO !