toltec

The fill layer you have selected is not a "pixel" layer, you can't do much with them, except colour them as Alfred say's above. Well, unless you rasterize them first but there's not much point in that. Just make a new pixel layer first or use a fill layer and click on any colour you fancy. Like black! The flood tool works on any pixel layer. Actually, I find fill layers very useful, I normally make a black one and a white one for every document before I start editing. When I am cutting out or masking part of an image I can see what it will look like on the appropriate fill layer rather than the chequered transparent background. But that's just me.

A bit hard because I don't know what you are seeing or if on a Mac or PC. This is what you get on a PC Here we have two pictures open, showing them in tabs "Penguins" and "Tulips". I just went File - Open for each one. Simply click on the second tab and this is what you (should get) To select the sky, I used the flood select tool, (mine might be in a slightly different place as I have customised my tools) but it is shown here as the third tool from the top. A little magic wand. If you click on the sky, hold down the mouse button and drag it to the right , or down. This increases the tolerance so you gradually get more sky selected. When you are happy, let go. You can then go to Layers, New adjustment layer, HSL adjustment and adjust the colour. It has missed a bit of sky between the tulips because I had contiguous" selected on the context bar. Uncheck it and it selects all similar colour,

Ah yes, that's a great idea. I just tried that but clicked on one on my own presets, rather than "default". As long as I have "New" selected in the Selection brush context panel, I don't need to deselect the previous selected area first, as soon as I click on the image layer and start to draw a new selection, I get just what I want. Clicking on my preset brings up the HSL sliders with the HSL values already close to what I want and I can easily tweak the levels. Great!!! That's exactly the sort of time saving workflow I like. Sorry, the second, identical HSL Layer in the first screenshot was because I had been playing around and forgot to delete that layer before grabbing the screen. Great observational skills, Sherlock ;)

Hamburger? What sort of hamburgers do you eat ;)

Try Edit - Preferences - Miscellaneous - Reset Brushes Not 100% sure though.

I like the clone tool. The only problem is, knowing what should be there, i.e. in the head between the eyes. Once you get a bit of detail in you could select the area and use HSL Adjustments to darken it, or change the colour. Play around with the brush size, the opacity and the hardness. If you set the opacity of the clone stamp lower, you can go over the area two or three times to blend it in. A bit of blurring using the blur tool (droplet) at very low opacity, say 20% can blend in the odd artifact.

Selecting by using the selection brush tool, usually. So, here we have a precise selection of the wheel using the selection brush tool and a subtle hue shift using the HSL sliders. If I then deselect the wheel and draw a new area, (the sand), when I adjust the HSL sliders again, this happens. So, I click on the layer "Wheel", but the adjustment slider panel has gone. I have to close the HSL panel Then open it again to get the sliders back and do this adjustment i.e. my second selection brush area of the sand. If it wasn't for the fact I might have to perform this routine 30 or 40 times I wouldn't care. And to be honest it's not that much of an issue, I just wonder if there's a better way. There nearly always is :)

I always hated that about Macs, having to be a contortionist to use modifiers. I remember some bizarre combinations, and the trips to the physiotherapist ;) I started off with an Acorn RISC PC and they make proper use of a three button mouse, don't know about you but I have more than one finger. So much more productive! Simple things like left clicking to move the window up and down, right click to move left and right. Lots of good stuff. Sigh! Going all misty. Using a Mac seemed like trying to type with one hand tied behind my back. I had to use them for 20 plus years but never liked them.

Yes, so far so good, but when I have made my HSL adjustments (by slider or preset), I click on the image layer to make another selection and the sliders disappear. Can I get them back a bit more easily ? I seem to have to click on the panel HSL Adjustment bit, then click on it again. I know it's not a huge deal, but when i'm doing that sort of edit, I might literally select and tweak 30 or 40 small areas. I'm sure you know how some bits of hair get discoloured by the background showing through and the discolouration can vary quite a lot (hence the multiple selections and adjustments). Workflow 1 I select an area, 2 Open the HSL adjustment panel and adjust that area (let's say, HSL preset No1) 3 Click on the image layer 4 Select another area 5 Open the HSL adjustment sliders again 6 Adjust using the HSL sliders (if preset No1 is not suitable) 7 Click on the image layer 8 Select another area 9 Maybe use HSL sliders again (I'm not that good at making presets) and so on In order to accomplish No4 or No8 I have to select the image layer first or Affinity just changes the last selected area again as that adjustment layer is still active. So, to get the sliders back I have to close the HSL bit in the panel and open it again. It would be OK if I was just using presets but as I said "I'm not that good at making presets". I couldn't even find them until recently :rolleyes: As I said, no big deal, but when when you are working around a models hair, that can be a lot of extra clicking as HSL adjustments can be a bit fickle.

Thanks but no. That opens up the adjustment for that adjustment layer. The issue is only when I want to make a new selection and adjust that.

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I'm having a very minor workflow problem. I am going over areas that require a bit of colour tweaking and am using the HSL panel with saved presets. When I first click on HSL Adjust, I get this, which is great. However, when I want to select another area to tweak, I have to go to layers and select the background layer again, or Affinity ignores my new selection and changes the last selected area. Trouble is, when I select the background layer, it shuts down the adjustment slider panel. Which I guess is to be expected. But, the only way to get the adjustment slider box back is to close the HSL Adjust bit in the panel and then open it again. this launches the slider box. Only a minor problem but I use that technique a lot to remove areas of tinting, like green tint from a greenscreen photo and keep swapping between areas of hair (eg) and use different HSL values or presets depending on the strength of the tint. Is there a better way to get the box open again? I need the HSL Adjust bit open in the panel so I can access presets.

Open in Wot 'e said but File menu. Open in Explorer (for PCs) This of course only helps if the file is actually open, as you know.

Do you have anti virus software that is preventing you ? Best to switch it off momentarily. I have software installation issues with Bitdefender because of their ransomware module, so I normally disconnect from the internet and disable Bitdefender briefly. Not !!! that I am in any way complaining about Bitdefender protecting me from ransomware !!!

I edited my first post to answer your question and avoid confusion coz Sima was right and had obviously found my missing plot.

Ah yes, I see what you mean now. I've amended this post because I'd lost the plot first time around. As Sima says, In the "colour" panel you need to make sure the top left colour circle is at the front (on top) before you start selecting the brush tool, then the colour picker, then the brush tool again, etc Right way when you start working That way it works as you want. It also works correctly when you Drag Alt/Click from the brush tool to select the colour. If the bottom right colour circle is at the front when you start swapping between picker, brush, picker (or Drag Alt/Click) it does indeed switch around as you said. Wrong way

No thanks, I had a look but I shall stick with Affinity Photo. Now I am getting the hang of it, I like it more and more. Bye bye Adobe !!!

I don't think you can. See this video by Serif about installing the collection Hmm. Link won't post but go to Youtube and search for affinity photo installing Nik collection

It's quite easy because the bird is black. Method 1 The best method really. Select the area with the green cast. Use refine edges where the feathers go into the green background. Go to HSL and you can select "greens" rather than "master" and knock down the saturation and tweak luminosity. You can use HSL for most colour tuning tasks. Method 2 Just to show there are always other ways of doing things ;) Use the "sponge" tool and desaturate the colour casted bit. In both cases, it will probably lighten the area a little bit so darken them to suit. I used a Shadows and Highlights adjustment layer for that. I used method 2 for your image (hope you don't mind me borrowing it for a short while) and selected around the area first because otherwise it would remove the green from the green. The main thing always is making the selections. I really like the way Affinity lets you select and refine areas. I selected the main area to change, refined the edges of the bird's feathers around the outside and feathered into the feathers :rolleyes: P.S. I did it very quickly as a challenge to myself as I'm still learning Affinity after migrating from Photoshop so it's far from perfect but hopefully it gives you the idea.

Indeed you can, you can do that with the perspective tool, covered in the Affinity help system (press f1). Basically you get nodes on each corner that allow you to "straighten" the picture. You can also do it in a very clever, non destructive way as a layer. There is a very good short video on this I'm not connected to Serif but I highly recommend you just buy it. Affinity seems to do 99% of what Photoshop does, and some things Photoshop can't.

Well, if he can do it, I can do it. Like Jhoy's method 2 but I like a bit more control over the shape I end up with. A strict oval can look a bit boring and blur the wrong bit. Like heads, which tend to stick out so the top gets blurred too much. Duplicate the layer first (as we always should). Make a selection on this layer of any shape, using any tool you fancy, ellipse marquee or a roughly drawn freehand shape around the subject. Go to "refine edges" and set the "preview" to white (or black if appropriate) so you can see what you are ending up with. You can then use the "Feather" option to feather the image. Play around with "feather" and "ramp" until you are happy. Apply it, duplicate the now feathered layer (Ctrl J) and that's it, no need to invert it or go near the delete key so you wont lose anything. You can now put the feathered image layer over anything. You can also "invert" the selection of the feathered layer and tweak the blended bit by using "curves". A bit like modifying a graduated tint.

That's a huge, complex and everlasting problem. I spent 30 years in the print trade and this issue never really went away unless everybody had calibrated monitors and the correct ICC profiles. I don't have Designer but I can tell you the basics of colour management so you can see where to start. Assuming all things are equal, your photo should be sRGB and we'll assume it is about right, from the colour point of view. Monitors are never consistent, they vary widely between manufacturers and types (CRT, LED, LCD etc). Brightness and contrast settings can be changed (by design or accident) and the display will vary over time as the LEDs wear and even the light in your office affects the way you see it. So, unless you calibrate your monitor, what you see will never be what you get. Calibration devices (Pantone Huey, Datacolor Spyder etc) are basically little scanners that are temporarily attached to your screen. The software that comes with them calibrates your monitor by displaying several colours, one after the other, and scanning their value. It then creates an ICC profile. It does not !!! adjust your monitor. Affinity can use this ICC profile to adjust what you see so it matches the RGB file. Basically, if your photo is red, but your monitor is badly set and displaying orange, Affinity will do it's best to adjust it's output so you see red. In a manner of speaking. ;) The next part of the equation is the change between RGB light (on your monitor) and CMYK ink that the printer uses. For a desktop printer, it will take your RGB file and convert it according to it's own preference. If the manufacturer knows it prints a bit heavy on Magenta ink, it's internal calibration will take your RGB file and convert it to CMYK, reducing the amount of Magenta on the way. It also makes changes according to what the printer settings are and the paper you are using. That's basically an ICC profile, but on the printer side. They both compensate for inaccuracies in conversion. What gets complicated for litho printing is that you should really convert to CMYK. Affinity does this but you need to use the right conversion table. Printer processes and paper varies a lot, all of which greatly affects the result. You will have noticed how much better the results are if your office printer has good paper, like photo paper, compared to cheap copy paper. The main issue with litho is a thing called "dot gain". Basically, the water and ink mixture soaks into the paper and like a fountain pen on blotting paper, the ink spreads. In the case of all of the dots making up your image, the picture will look darker. To combat this, in software like Affinity, there are conversion tables, go to "Edit" "Preferences" "Colour" and the "CMYK colour profile " decides which table Affinity uses to compensate for this. Using "US Web coated SWOP", which most software seems to use as a default, would result in the lightest printed result because Web Offset printing spreads the dot the most, the colour profile table compensates by reducing the dot the most. When it gets printed, the dot gain makes it look darker so it should end up as you intended. With something like Euroscale coated on a glossy paper, dot gain is minimal, so the table reduces the dot the least. The problem would be if you used the wrong conversion table. When if comes to an office printer, you could go to "Print" "Colour Management" and you will see what Affinity is using. You could set Colour Handling from "Performed by App" (Affinity decides) to "Performed by printer" and see what that does. Your printer might well have installed an ICC profile, make sure Affinity is using that. However, nothing is going to help you much if your monitor is way out.

As a footnote, you could also go "File" and the first menu item is "Personas" which allows you to switch between them.

Ah yes, thank you. Now I remember. If only there was a manual, or a half decent help file. I searched for "presets" and Affinity help offered me "Paragraph Panel" and "Tone Mapping HDR Images" :rolleyes: and at least I knew exactly what I was searching for.

Yes, but it is not too much trouble to load your selection file(s), save it as a spare channel then mix and merge selection channels to your hearts delight. Indeed, what you describe is a good way of using selection channels to make a complex selection but why would you want to create one external selection file in the middle of all those spare channels? Why not just use spare channels for the lot?