Starbase1

GarryP, thanks for that - you have hit the nail on the head with the question! This is why I was thinking of the kind of controls you get in the dust and scratches. It's a 50 year old document on cheap paper that someone pointed a low res phone camera at from what I can work out! Not the best source quality... Nick

Very interesting! That's a lot better than the last time I looked at conversion to a vector format. I'd still like to know how to do the selection though. Thanks, Nick

I'm currently working on cleaning up some old archive images, that are very poor quality, (I attach an example). What I want is to preserve the lines in the diagram, clean-up breaks in them, and lose the grey blotches in the background. It occurred to me that this is basically the opposite of a dust and scratches filter, i.e. I want to keep the fine lines! The obvious first step was levels, but darkening the lines made the blotches more visible. So, is there a select option that will allow me to select the sharp dark elements, like I would if I was selecting scratches? That would seem to be an excellent starting point... Thanks, Nick

I'm having problems cleaning up scans - and the scans are not by me, so I can't just do them again properly. My problem is that I find myself often working with scans where the are near the fold in the book is distinctly darker. And while adjusting the levels helps, there are also grey images on the pages, which lose subtlety with a contrast stretch. Now, I can generally get to good enough, by mucking about with lots of selections, but I'm wondering if there's a better way. The shading is very regular, so I think there may be a way... I attach an example, which may help clarify. Thanks, Nick

Thanks to al who helped with this. That whole style is new to me, but I was able to get something I was very happy with, which I attach, in case anyone is interested.

Thanks to all, Blueliner, that is particularly helpful! Nick

Hi All, I do most of my work in Affinity Photo, but this feels like a Designer question. (I have that too). I'm redoing old Soviet space illustrations, translating as I go. I attach the one I am currently working on in case it helps. I think it would look better if I changed the arrows from straight to something with a bend in, probably with the tail horizontal, to lead to the captions. Now I found tutorials on curved arrows, but that's not what I'm after here. I want one with a bend in the middle, (or maybe not the actual centre!) Can affinity handle this? If so, how please? Thanks, Nick

Wow! My first product here seems to have gone fairly well! 🙂 Happy to listen if anyone thinks something needs improving, or if you'd like some kind of a follow up...

Hello All, I'm a CGI artist, and fellow of the International Association of Astronomical Artists, and I've put together my first resource product! I dislike using long exposure photos of the night sky, as they really don't look much like what your eye sees. So I decided to make a big collection of both accurate constellations based on the real night sky, and fictional ones, (I have generally made these a lot richer). High resolution, (over 6k across), mostly lossless PNG, some PSD. Some star fields are provided with multiple layers you can turn on and off for even more variety. https://starbase1.gumroad.com/l/NightSky The star fields are big enough for you to pan around them, or zoom in and out, even with 4k resolution video. I've also included high resolution renders of the Moon in all phases, and two styles, (realistic and dramatic). Also views from directions other than from Earth, for spaceflight scene2. 1.5 Gigabytes in total, for a mere $3.99 There are also tutorial videos, using my favourite image software, Affinity Photo. These are intended to help people get the most out of the resources, and cover things like blending the Moon into a sunset sky, adjusting the star fields for specific purposes, adjusting star colours, and working with the multilayer files. I attach a starfield with added Moon seen from the far side, to give you a better idea of what's in there. I hope you like them. Nick

Here's an example I found - to my untrained eye this example seems to preserve whites while under-representing blue tones. I'm really not great at colour. So I'm hoping to buy something that would let me apply a colour change to a "well balanced" modern image, and turn it into something like this. Ideally for several different specific film effects. Nick

Hi, Is anyone aware of Affinity plugins that will give a period film look? I'm hoping for something that will make my CGI work look less CGI. For example, the old Polaroid instant photos had a distinctive colour balance that I struggle to reproduce. Similar for early colour photos from NASA, and I can see it being really useful to process a video image sequence for that period look. Please feel free to suggest commercial solutions! Thanks, Nick

Thanks for the suggestions! The table seemed elegant, but my first attempt has the picture frame elements floating above the cells, rather than inside them. Nick

I'm looking for a way to get a set of square images in an array 4 across and 2 high, preferably with a small gap between them. End destination is Publisher, but it's perfectly acceptable to arrange the elements in a Photo image file. Desktop versions. Any clues please? Nick

Wow, the video is super helpful, thank you! It's probably easiest to find a font with numbers in circles for the label end...

I looked at pen and node help / tutorials, and found nothing relevant, so I'm probably thinking of the wrong commands. I want to add a key to a diagram, with a line leading to the part I am describing, so I want attach something to a line. I drew the line with a pen tool, no problem, but I can't see how to (for example) attach an arrowhead to one end, or a circle to the other, (which I will put a number in). If some kind person can tell me the command I should be able to find a tutorial on it, Thanks Nick