dmstraker

Could we be allowed to add a shortcut key to toggle the macro panel, please? Edit/Preferences, Shortcut keys. Photo, View. Studio > Macro. Thanks!

Yup. Got me too. Amazing there's a person called Sloof Lirfa. Or maybe that's a con too. Gullible is my middle name.

Eh? Is this something to do with the time of year? https://www.footasylum.com/lowdown-worldwide-exclusive-sloof-lirpa-on-sneaks-style-and-beats

Hooray for Affinity Photo and for every single person working on it. At last a programme that is serious enough to let me slough off of the Adobe shackles. Hooray also for all the enthusiasts out there who contribute and make this a dynamic and friendly community. (maybe I should change my name to Henry ;) )

Related to this is the general question of Browsing, which could easily be another Persona. On1 does this well. A way of quick switching is to do background processing in preparing target images, doing thumbnails, etc. Just wait until the user is not doing any heavy processing, then steal cycles. Keystroke, mouse or tablet event pauses this, as does heavy processing such as transforming.

Update attached, with symmetrical curves. Comments? Curve Blends V2.afphoto

Thinking on about this. One way of dividing things is simply rectangular, so shadows stop at point X, where mid-tones take off. Could we alternatively go with the notion of some kind of graduated curve so shadows fade off into mid-tones in a gentle overlap, etc? We'd need some kind of curve for each. Assuming also that something approximately Gaussian is desirable, we could just draw a mathematical curve. But to sum to 100%, the half-curve, which is S-shaped, would need to be rotationally symmetrical. Something could be approximated to meet these requirements. Let's also go into the question of whites and blacks, so we can butt right up to either end of the spectrum and give some leeway in controlling the tones around these extremes. We could do this with a half-curve each. A pattern is attached. Thoughts?

Thanks, MBd -- I'm experimenting and your feedback is just what I wanted! The triangle is intended as additive in overlap and rectangular as wholly separated regions. The curves are an initial attempt at smoothing between regions. I'll continue to play and improve.

UPDATE: New post including macros here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/38379-luminosity-mask-selection-macros/ I've been experimenting with doing 'luminosity masking' with curves and blend ranges. Here's the result. Attached is a 'photo' file with three groups - just copy and paste one of these into any photo, either at the top level or as a child. Then open the group and double-click the curve to adjust just the named luminosity range (eg. 'mid tones'). As it's a curve you can also do it selectively by colour. It works by constraining the blend range on each curve. Click on the cogwheel to see this. There are three groups because I wasn't sure which way to chop up the spectrum, so I've done three ways: curved, rectangular and triangular. Please do try them and let us know here which works for you. I tried doing these as macros, but the macro system stopped me doing things like naming adjustment layers and grouping. I guess it's not mature enough yet for such actions. So I resorted to the cut-and-paste method. This forum also doesn't like you uploading .afmacros files (ahem). But if you prefer macros, I've put them on one of my websites here: http://changingminds.org/etc/affinity/Curve%20Blends%20V1.afmacros This is still in the experimental stage - please let me know what you think. Edit: Upated version in post below. Curve Blends V1.afphoto

You can also fill in a transparent border with Edit/Matte.

Updated notes, covering videos uploaded 29 March. See top post in this topic (file: 170329...).

Affinity Photo has some important terms that are not always easy to understand, such as 'alpha' and 'matte'. A short glossary of these in the excellent help system would be brilliant (perhaps in the 'Workspace' section?). This is particularly important in retaining new users who could abandon Affinity just because of the discomfort of confusion (yes, really). Many thanks.

When exporting to jpg I like to set the maximum quality and Lanczos resample. It's a real pain having to manually select these every time. Also, randomly, Affinity decides to offer me 85% quality. I don't know why and don't appreciate this as it's easily missed. It's a simple fix: have a checkbox on the export dialogue 'Keep settings as default'. The same principle could probably be applied to other dialogues too. Thanks!

If you're working on changing eye colour, here's a page full of charts you can use to clone or from which you can pick colours (there's also eye makeup colours for further work). https://www.pinterest.com/explore/eye-color-charts/

Pass. I clicked the upload and it opened with Affinity no problems. Are you using a Mac? I used Win10.

HDR is good, but could be better. Please. Attached is an example of combination of five images (+/- 2 and 4, taken raw with Sony RX100V): hdr_affinity: as it comes out hdr_affinity_edited: with a little shadows/highlights (burns around the sun) hdr_lightroom: Lightroom's rather superior result Coupled with LR's better browse and lens corrections, it looks like I'm going to have to use it as a front end. Darn. I'm trying to get away from Adobe! (The forum won't let me upload RAW files. If you want me to put them somewhere you can get to them, please do let me know.)

Attached is a simple file with two layers containing bars of colours and greys. If you're exploring blend modes, blend ranges and opacity, try selecting the top layer and just playing with the modes, ranges and opacity options. It can help make sense of how they all work. overlaid colours.afphoto

It's just one of those little usability bugbears. I choose the selection brush. Start painting. Nothing happens. Darn, I think. What's up now. I look around. Ah, it's still in 'subtract' mode. Yes, I'll learn, but others won't. There's a 'trial period' during which people are working out if they are going to use this product permanently, and little usability bugs like this are nails in the coffin. Please, when the selection brush is first chosen, check if anything is selected. If nothing selected, just switch it to 'add' mode. This also applies to the freehand lasso. Thanks.

You can double-click some sliders and they return to zero. This is great. Could we have this feature on all sliders, please?

Me too. I've a Sony setup and would be happy to contribute hours to get a better Chromatic Aberration result, at least.

Updated notes, covering videos uploaded 23 March. See top post in this topic (file: 170325...).

A photo/AP experiment while learning to use it. Kind of like the Warhol set of Marilyn Monroe, but having a go at emulating art techniques.

Wouldn't it be nice if (WIBNI) there was a luminosity selection brush. So I could just grab the brush and paint a selection based on a chosen luminosity/colour range. Something more controllable than Select/Tonal Range, more flexible than Select Sampled Colour, and easier than duplicate layer then Blend Ranges within a selection. eg. A new selection brush. Colours dropdown (Master, RGB, CMYK, LAB, etc.). Maybe colour picker? Value slider. Tolerance slider. Or some other way, but do keep it simple. The easier it is, the more people will use/value it.

To see the effect as you paint on the mask, just click on mask layer (which can be an adjustment) and paint b/w on it. A good way to paint in an effect is to first add an adjustment layer. Then ctrl-I to invert the mask on it (so the adjustment can't be seen). Then paint in white on it (or use a gradient) to expose the adjustment (and black to 'delete'). You can also manage boundaries by doing a selection then flood fill or paint within this. You can leave the adjustment dialogue box visible so you can tweak this setting as you go (or you can adjust it right at the beginning and then close it -- you can always re-open it by double-clicking the adjustment layer thumbnail. To see the mask itself, alt-click on it. You can then paint b/w on it.

My lists of shortcut keys here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/37423-affinity-photo-shortcut-key-full-list/&p=185658