WeiPhotoArts

Smadell, Thank you kindly for sharing your macro Graphic Novel. It is really cool. Again you've outdone yourself, and I appreciate your efforts. What I also found impressive was your use and order of sliders. It was almost like using an "app" in AP from an SDK tool. If only Serif would provide one...hear us, Developers?

Bug in Affinity Photo 1.7.1 Mac Problem In the Develop Module under the Toolbar Before/After with the 3 icons: When the far right icon (Swap) is pressed, the Before and After images are swapped, which is correct. However, notice that the written designations for After/Before on the bottom of each image do not change, but remain as After/Before (rather than Before/After, which is the swapped image). Request That the Swapped icon, when pressed, reflect the correct Before and After image, as well as the written designations on the bottom. WeiPhotoArts

To RCR, I neglected to thank you for your clear, to-the-point explanation (that worked) to make my AP Beta 1.7 work. Thank you. Wei Chong

I've been using Affinity Photo 1.6.7. I now am trying to use AP Beta 1.7 (Mac). However, it requires a product key. I don't know how to retrieve/find my product key. I tried to go to the Affinity Site, but it doesn't even have my purchase of Affinity Photo (probably because I bought it from the Apple App Store). Both apps are in the same directory, and they used to work when in my main MacBook Pro Apps directory. But I moved them, so the Beta requires a Product Key. How can I get my Product Key? (I certainly can't purchase the Beta from the App store...) Wei Chong

I agree with RCR's suggestion. And being able to order the presets would be a boon; why should we be stuck with the original order we put things?

I wholeheartedly agree. I use Gradient Maps, and the default is this garish red-green-blue, which I (nor anyone else) never use. I support the option that users should be able to set their own defaults for adjustments--and they would be able to RESET them in preferences, if they deleted or replaced a former default. Also, users should also be able to change the positions of the presets, so if I want my B&W gradient map to be first in line (MY default), I should be able to, rather than have the order in which I added the preset. The order is a pain to use. BTW, I use the Apple version of Affinity Photo.

Thank you for these 2 tutorials, dhayton. I've added the gradient maps (including the touch of opacity reduction) to my collection. It is very useful to have such a collection, as one can easily add the color to see the effect on the B&W image.

Worked like a charm. Thanks! Didn't realize there were well over 300 gradients to choose from. I appreciate how much work you did to create these. Thanks again for sharing.

I downloaded the zip file, and unzipped it, with the result of a file uiGradients.com.afpalette. I tried to drop it into Affinity Photo, but AP said it wasn't an AP file. I tried to open it, with the same result. Could you walk us through how to read it into Affinity Photo and use it? Thanks in advance.

DHayton: two great videos on how to create Gradient Maps for certain monochrome looks. Thanks.

My bad. Thanks PaulEC. Re-did my workflow and opened them in Library. Worked like a charm. Wei

Just learning to use Gradient Maps for Toning. So I found these Toning Maps today and downloaded them. After I unzipped them, I went to Affinity Photo 1.6.7 and tried to download them from the MACRO tab, just like I had in other macros. However, both of the macros in the zip file were blurred out, so I couldn't download them. Any suggestions? I have an older (mid-2009) Mac Book Pro running macOS 10.11.6 (El Cap). What may I be doing wrong? Everyone else seems to have no problem. Wei Here's what I unzipped: Photographic Toning Gradients - reduced.afmacros Photographic Toning Gradients.afmacros

It might be easier to read in this pdf: dmstraker-Forum-Note-20180516.pdf

Hi dmstraker, I’ve been intrigued with luminosity masks as applied with Blend Ranges in Affinity Photo. I’ve had some discussions with smadell before locating your work recently on these Forums. Thank you for sharing your findings and macros. The curves you provide, including the multiple additions of the 5-curves, were a good addition. Your 5-Stage Curve Previews macros have been most helpful to me. I noticed that the previews are like the Toggle Quick Mask in the Toolbar, using White as Mask. But as I went from Blacks to Shadows to Mid-tones to Highlights and finally Whites, I found by the time I got to Whites I could not see any of the selected pixels. My screen was completely white. There are pixels selected, but what I needed was the Quick Mask Black as Mask. To better illustrate this, I’ve included a screen grab first from Highlights, then Whites. Finally I show the screen grab from Whites as viewed from Black as Mask. Here are screen grabs from Highlight and Whites from a your macros, followed by pictures from Whites, in Black as Mask mode (which I obtained from the Hack below): [Highlights-Preview-dmstraker.jpg] Screen Grab Highlights Preview [Whites-Preview-dmstraker.jpg] Screen Grab Whites Preview (yes, it’s all white) [untitled-.jpg] Screen Grab Whites (Black as Mask) from Toggle Quickmask My Hack, or workaround, was to go to /Select/Selection from Layer/ [Shift-Cmnd-O] and then select the Toggle Quick Mask from the Toolbar, and finally pick Black as Mask from the drop down. In general I’ve found that when viewing the lighter luminosity masks, Black as Mask works better, and with the darker luminosity masks, White as Mask works better. I’ve played with the macros to create the “semi-macro” Hack: Set Blend Ranges Selection from Layer ...and only then, after the macro finishes, manually picking Toggle Quick Mask...manually having to select the correct mask (Black as Mask, White as Mask, or any other that best shows the pixels selected by the luminosity mask). Might you have a better way to do this? Or to program the macros so that the “lighter” macros have Dark as Mask, while the “darker” macros have Light as mask? Wei Chong / WeiPhotoArts

Is Affinity listening to us? Will they put out a dashboard for 2018 for DAM? With the past 2 months since the last post, it's getting discouraging.

We all are impatiently waiting. Just a dashboard of what we can expect in 2018 must be provided. I say 2018, because your competition has drawn a line in the sand. Affinity's progress in the last 18 months (or more) has been very slow in providing the same superb, front-of-the-line technology when it started with 1.0. We will pay for 2.x, but it has to come soon, and with many more front-leading features. Not just marginal features and fixes. You're probably working your behinds off. But is there a possibility of more resources? Your competition just increased their resources by 50%+ in the last 6 months. Pls send this to your management, if they are not seeing the elephant in your room.

I also vote for the question Kellyjanderson had on July 29. Here's my take on it: In Affinity Photo 1.6.6 Adjustment Panel has 20+ adjustments, not organized alphabetically nor in any order that makes sense to me. I only use about 8 adjustments, so I don’t need the others, except in infrequent cases. Is there anyway you can allow users to organize the Adjustments Panel so we can place those I use most in front? Or perhaps alphabetize them so we don’t have to go tediously searching every time I need them. Or tag them with some sort of coloring dots/scheme? Or group them into sub-groups that make sense to us? Other photo editing software has developed user-oriented work spaces that personalize how people work on images. And no, we don’t mean creating shortcut keys, because most “normal” combinations are already taken up; it’s hard to remember something that is not consistent, even if personal. WeiPhotoArts

This topic must have been brought up many times, because many of us AP Desktop users want this rather simple addition: Add visible names to Brushes. Yes, we know one can hover the brushes to get the note name. But what if the one you want is 12 down from a list of 20? Not many of us enjoy hovering 12 times before finding the brush we want. And that's after we've separated the brushes into categories. Can we have the feature soon?

Littletank, Thank you for your process of burning/dodging in Affinity Photo (AP). Sometimes forum members like myself don’t view the forums often. But when we do, and when we see something valuable, we tend to ask many questions and probe the topic a bit. I hope you will indulge my questions. I’m just trying to understand what you’re saying, as I have not used the Un-Do Brush (History Brush in Photoshop) in either software. FYI, I’ve left Photoshop a while ago, and am picking up with AP. My primary focus will be on B&W burning/dodging. Regarding your burning/dodging workflow in AP: 1. Let’s say I’m in the middle of my developing a B&W image, and want to burn/dodge. Have you found any difference between inserting a blank pixel layer or inserting a merge visible layer? Have you found the effects of burn/dodge to be the same on the merged visible layer, as opposed to the blank pixel layer? Are they the same same when viewing burn/dodge real-time? 2. What is the purpose of taking a Snapshot at the beginning of the blank pixel layer? Must the Un-Do Brush refer to this Snapshot layer? Can it be done any other way? 3. I’m curious as to why you set your Un-Do Brush at 15% opacity and leave the flow at 100%. Have you found it to be different if you set a 100% opacity and flow at 15%? Or are they the same thing…? 4. You give some good blend modes. Did you mean any difference between the “local” area of your Multiply and Screen blends and “small” areas of your Color Dodge/Burn. In other words was there any difference between “local? and ”small?” Or are they the same, if the brush strokes were over the exact same areas? Have you applied the Color Dodge/Burn to B&W images? Or did you apply only to color images? What effect did you experience, if applied to B&W images? How did you develop the blend modes as applied to areas needing burn/dodge? Trial and error? Or were there others who suggested these uses? Thanks in advance for your considerations. Wei Chong

Has there been any serious thought to provide users with personalizing their UI. For example I’ve been trying to use Photo for B&W conversions and tonality changes. The Adjustments tab provides 22 possible adjustments, but I hardly use any of them, and definitely not in the order the UI provides. Software is getting more personal, and it would be effective for me to be able to choose which Adjustments I want, and in what order for a palette. Perhaps I could have a B&W Palette of Adjustments, as well as a Landscape Palette of adjustments for color. This suggested also applies to the Develop module. I know I can move around the palette tabs, but it is within each tab that I’m suggesting personalizing.

Thank you kindly for your contribution. I'll be going through your pdfs soon. Lots of hard work on your part to organize and notate each vid.

Hi ve2cjw, Super Duper! Thanks a Bunch. Wei

OK, smadell, here are my short questions: 1. Have you tried curves for the midtone selections? I feel the feathering in darks and lights, both being curves, are more natural. No proof, just a feeling. 2. Have you experimented by limiting your curves on the left or right? What I mean is that you change the Blending Options graph (say midtone-1, which is a symmetrical graph pointing up in the middle, but tethered to the bottom left and right points. Have you tried pulling the left (or right, or both) points away from their ends and towards the middle? If so, what have you seen in your images—and did you expect the result? 3. How do I “see” the Blending Options graph in your Luminosity Selections? I know I can “see” them in your Luminosity Blend Options for Adjustment by pressing the gear option in Layers; but when I do that in your Selections, the graph that appears just has 2 straight horizontal lines on the left and right. Wei

To AstroMax, I've already asked Tony Kuyper about porting not only the macros, but the 3rd party menu of his TK3. This will not be done until Serif of Affinity Photo allows 3rd party html-like menus. So this is a very long-term wish. I have a request into Affinity Photo. But with the current Dashboard, given the many requests for 3rd party plugins like Topaz and Tonality Pro and others to work (they mostly don't, right now) the need for a database/browser, and the upcoming Version 2.0 later in 2017, I think this won't happen for a couple/few years. And you can be using smadell's software in any case. Wei