WeiPhotoArts

Thank you smadell ! Sorry for taking so long to reply after your quick and clear answers to my long post. I thought I would reply point for point. Then I thought to myself of a different situation I faced almost a decade ago—my switch from Windows pc to Apple iMac/OS. For almost a year after my switch I ponderously applied my Windows workflow on the iMac and MacOS. I don’t know when the clouds lifted so I could understand that I had a new system—so why don’t I dive in a try the “new” way? The iMac/OS became so much easier to use. And to this day I’m so glad I switched. Same thing here. I didn’t mean to suggest that your (or anybody else’s) software should duplicate the Photoshop workflow. After all, that’s why we all switched to Affinity Photo. Your explanations of how you came up with the Blend Options made me much more comfortable about applying it to my masking. So I thought it would be better if I would take the time (and that’s why I’m late), to test your two macros with many of my RAW images that had already been tweaked in Lightroom. But were looking for some tone adjustments and some luminosity adjustments. I began to learn how to employ both macros. Luminosity Selections to determine what luminosity mask(s) to use, and Luminosity Blend Options to implement the adjustments. In all of my test cases, the macros helped improve the images by providing the mask and feathering it automatically. I’ve also learned to “read” marching ants masks and use AP’s masking tools to visualize what the mask looks like, to be better prepared to use the luminosity mask adjustments. As an aside, I also learned how to change the Luminosity Selection masks, in case the marching ants did not exactly fit the mask I was looking for. So again, thanks for your generosity sharing your efforts, your software, your explanations, and your support. Please keep both macros active. I use them both! Wei PS: My efforts in applying your macros led to more curiosity questions, which will be in the next post. This time, a bit shorter than last time...

madell, Thank you kindly for posting both the Luminosity Selections and the Luminosity Blend Options on Adjustment Layers and Filters. Since the former Beta 1.5 RC-1, I’ve been trying to learn your Luminosity Selections for my future luminosity masking work on Affinity Photo. I have been able to test the selections and use them for masking in my work. I’ve also tested them on a grayscale with Tony Kuper’s TK-3 actions in Photoshop CS5. They match very closely in selection, and my AP use of the masking, though quite convoluted, also seem to match quite well. But I was wondering about the convoluted part, when your new Luminosity Blend Options came out recently. “smadell must have been listening to my requests,” I thought. So I have two rather long requests. If this is not the forum for this, Moderator, let me know and I can email smadell, if that is acceptable. Request 1 (Luminosity Selections): a. I’m not familiar with AP macros. Is it possible to easily edit your macros to add an extra channel and rename it? Can you explain how it can be done, or create macros that can? b. I can then probably create a small macro to Load my desired channel into the adjustment layer (that I’ve already chosen). This “mask” should then work. c. Question: Some of my selections of darks, lights, or midtones are so complex and busy, it is hard to see what areas are actually masked. I’d like your opinion of what I did to visualize the mask. I’ve tried to load this selections, say Darks 3, into Background Alpha. This seems to give an inverted mask, where all the darks I want are dark or black, and all other luminosities are in different shades of white. If I then right-click on Background Alpha and select Invert, the picture seems to come out with a white mask (where I want to affect with the adjustment layer to affect dark areas), and all other parts seem to be in muted colors. Is this the mask of the traditional luminosity mask in Photoshop? Regarding this point, I need to back out of this Background Alpha by 2 cntl-z ‘s, or the picture becomes totally mashed up. Can you confirm this happens to you, too? Request 2 (luminosity Blend Options) While my testing showed your Luminosity Selections closely follows the selections of the original Luminosity Masking work of Tony Kuyper, the work on luminosity Blend Options seems to differ. Please see the examples attached. They are jpegs that have been reduced in size for this forum to 1000 pixels on the long side, but the results show differences in the Luminosity Selections versus Luminosity Blend Options when adjustments are made and then viewed in full jpeg. 3 pictures below include the untouched gradient (0-AP-BW-Gradient-20161211), and luminosity mask (1-AP-BW-Selection-L1-20161211), & luminosity blends (2-AP-BW-BlendOption-L1AF-20161211), each applied to the untouched gradient with the same Levels Adjustment. This same levels adjustment was applied to photo 01 and 02 as such: Levels-Applied-to-1&2.jpg It may be due to the fact that I’m not following a correct workflow. And I did notice when editing your macros for Luminosity Selections that you do use blend options there, too—as compared to the tradition Kuyper slicing and dicing of the luminosities by working selections on themselves. To better understand your Blend Options, I’d like to ask how you came up with the right had graph of the blend options screen? It appears that some pixels across the board (of luminosities) are selected, when in fact some should absolutely be excluded. Or maybe I’m just reading the Blend Options graph wrong. For example, in Darks1 for Adjustments and Filters, Darks1-Blend-Options.jpg the downward sloping line from upper left to lower right implies that some pixels from the left half of the graph will be picked (as they should, as this is darks 1), but some pixels (about 50%) from the whites will be picked also (in lessor amount), up to the highest luminosities. This is what I see in my examples above when I use Levels to test. BTW, I would like to understand how you came up with the other blend option graphs also, Darks 2, Dark 3 and Dark 4, as well as the midtones. Am just interested in how one works the blend to come out with a masking scheme. I tried a couple of months back, and all I could come up with was graphs with vertical & horizontal lines—before I gave up. On the other hand, Levels changes with your Luminosity Selections macros (turned into masks) confine most all the the Level changes (and I might add curves) to those area of the mask. Finally, when I get into the Darks 3 and Darks 4, comparing them to real images that I took, the effect of masking and blend options seem to be fairly near in effect, though not exact. Sorry for the long-winded explanation, but I’m just trying to understand this masking and how blend option (hopefully) can provide a more efficient (no channels!) and easier method to apply blends (masks) to images.

To Smadell and others, Please ignore my past two posts regarding trying to figure out how to "see" the effects of an adjustment applied without the marching ants. I finally figured it out. After selecting the adjustment (w/o adjusting) and just using the deselect button on the top menu bar (the dashed box with a red line passing through it.) Sorry to have caused any problems. Again Thanks to Smadell for the Luminosity mask macro, which I can now understand how to use.

Whoops, Here's the first Pic: Here's the second Pic: I hope these pics (links) take hold. If not, can someone help me get a picture from my computer to AP Forums. I tried a Dropbox Share Link. Don't know if it works....

Hi smadell, I decided to test your Luminosity Masks Macro on the current Affinity Photo Beta 1.5RC, before 1.5 was final. Thanks for the opportunity. I’ve used luminosity masks before in Photoshop CS5, but I would like some help in understanding how to apply changes, once your luminosity mask is created. In this example my image is loaded into AP Beta, your Macro is in the Library and I’ve chosen a mask (Darks 4) to use with my image. The expected luminosity mask is defined by marching ants: Unfortunately, the marching ants, having covered much of the image, is distracting while trying to apply a simple Adjustment, say Levels. The Levels works, but I can (barely) see the relative change on the screen, because the marching ants are so prevalent. I tried to delete the marching ants (cmd-D), but this not only deletes the ants; but any Levels adjustment is applied to the entire image, not only the Darks 4 mask. I tried to go to Channels and press the button denoted to the red arrow, but that didn’t help me visualize the levels adjustment, as the red mask is prevalent over the entire image: How am I able see the entire image, knowing the Darks 4 mask is there without seeing the marching ants, so I can judge the effects of adjustments I do? (It’s helpful to know how the masked areas adjustment changes relate to the unmasked areas.)

Forgot to mention, these are not files you normally would want to download, unless you were serious in testing. one set is 168mb, the other 178mb. Large, RAW Nikon NEF files.

Sorry for taking so long. I'm not used to Dropbox, and it took me a while to figure out the rather simple instructions provided by Chris_K. Anyways, I'm keeping this link open for 30 hours, and then closing it. Chris_K, please try to download the NEF files. If there's any problems, let me know through this forum. The link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0vy9vvnw2hi35rt/AABUeuHGJBhZlMTY9ShmscTsa?dl=0 Thanks for all the help, everyone.

To MikefromMesa, I converted the RAW files to 100% jpegs. In both the 8-Pano stitch and the 7-Pano stitch with jpegs, there was no difference that what was expected from the "New Panorama" screen after the "Stitch Panorama" button was pressed: The list of thumbnails and filenames were properly rendered. I've now done 3 runs of the NEF 8-Pano and 7-Pano stitches. Only the first pano run of each (done in that same session of AP Beta 11) were the file names Upside Down (actually the correct term I meant was "Flipped Vertical" in Affinity Photo parlance). I have not yet been able to replicate the problem since those first runs. Maybe the Beta 1.5-11 started to behave itself after all this attention...

To MikefromMesa, I have not tried to convert to RAW files to jpegs. and then Panos on jpegs. Will try to do that in a couple of days, converting with LR6 from NEF RAW to 100% jpegs. Will let you know results.

Hi Chris_K, I took MikefromMesa's advice and will be sharing my RAW files through DropBox. That being said, I'm not too experienced in doing this, but I do know I need your email to do that. Can you send that to me? Or does it need to be through this forum?

Hi Chris_K, I'm not sure how I can set up a process by which you can download the files. Let me mull on this for a day or two to come up with a solution. They are NEF RAW files, about 24mb each, and you're asking for 15 of them. Wei

I did more panos, and okay, this will be a hard one to resolve. Short story: I can no longer replicate the errors above. Here's what I did: 8-shot pano Pic-1 Upside down New Panorama Screen wording, only) 7-shot pano Pic-2 Upside down New Panorama Screen (wording, only) 4-shot pano Pic-2 Correct New Panorama Screen (nothing upside down) 5-shot pano Pic-2 Correct New Panorama Screen (nothing upside down) 6-shot pano Pic-2 Correct New Panorama Screen (nothing upside down) 7-shot pano Pic-2 Correct New Panorama Screen (nothing upside down) Yeah, the same shoot as above for Pic-2!! 8-shot pano Pic-2 Correct New Panorama Screen (nothing upside down) This is not Pic1, but Pic 2 Don't know what to say, except that you saw the problem, so I wasn't imagining upside down wording...

Ok, I tried pano photos I took today with Nikon NEF RAW files on Beta 11. Same thing happened (see attached photo). Note, I tried 7 RAW images (as opposed to 8 the last time). But the same thing happens on the New Panorama Screen, after I press the Stitch Panorama button on the bottom of the screen. Note, the thumbnails are ok, but the wording of the file name is upside-down, again. My finalized pano appears to be good. Did your panos have 7-8 images, or were they a lower number of images?

Only tried 1 panorama (that's all I had for the 1.5-11 Beta. I just shot a 7-8 pano today, so I'll try & report back.

I was testing AP Beta 1.5-11 on a mid-2009 MacBook Pro using Yosemite 10.10.5. When the 8 image pano completed in the "New Panorama" screen, the list of Images and file names were upside down. Please see the attached jpeg for an example. BTW, the pano came out great, with minimal lost areas (I was shooting with a Pano Head, leveled). WeiPhotoArts

To SMADELL, Thank you for your suggestion(s). I'll give it a try, once 1.5 is out of beta and I can test your macros. BTW, I actually "Know" the one or two luminosity masks I'm after. If I'm trying to curves adjust the darks, you're right, I don't need to lights or mid-tones. It's just trying to figure out which mask I need between the two or three. To MBd, Your suggestion is interesting. But given I've had such trouble last time trying to understand blend ranges, I'm trying to see how they apply to luminosity "masks." I've seen your previous posts and referrals to to videos, which I've reviewed again. But might you have a photo example ready to share? Thanks again to both of you.

Thank you kindly for taking the effort to create Macros to automate the creation of Luminosity Masks. As soon as Affinity Photo 1.5 comes out of Beta, I intend to start using them. I have a more general question regarding your effort. Each action will only do one portion of the selected layer, thereby saving space. I’m well-aware of the bloated files when one creates all the masks (or a large part of them). While in the end you can erase the unneeded (or all) channels, it’s a pain. However, could you consider expanding your options to include All, All Lights, All Darks and All Midtones? The reason for this suggestion is that when one first starts on an image, how does one figure out which mask to use? By having all of them available, at least at the beginning, one could determine visually which candidate masks to use. Unless you’ve come up with another method to do just that. I would like to know about it, if you have... Of course I could just go through all 12 Macros and open them myself, but I thought there might be an easier way. Again, thanks for your gift.

Is there an item on your Roadmap to allow 3rd Party Extensions through an API. So that "Panels" could be created that consolidate actions into a Nicely formatted point & clicks?

Thank you kindly for converting to epub. Wanted to have such a doc for some time. Just found it...

Thank you kindly for posting this rather fabulous set of improvements and new functions. While I don't usually Beta-test, I'm glad to know that soon we'll have some great stuff (after the Betas) to get our hands working. Like most on this forum, I can't wait for (the final) 1.5 to be released.

I just found out about your stacking feature. Please count another interested person who want focus-stacking added as an "automated" feature in AP. I also would like to save a bunch of time, rather than iteratively creating masks for the various masks to get the best DOF in images. BTW, the stacking feature does a splendid job aligning images. Thanks for that.

Hi, I’ve followed your directions regarding Topaz (and other) plugins, and almost all worked for my 1.3.5 install. I just installed the brand-new 1.4, and everything transferred over, but 1 plugin does not work: Topaz Textures. I asked Topaz Labs, but they didn’t want to give me an answer: (Topaz Labs) Dec 9, 2:36 PM weiphotoarts, Thank you for contacting Topaz Labs! At the moment, our plugins are not supported with Serif Affinity Photo. However, I will add your name to the list of customers that have requested this feature. Please let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns, and I will be happy to assist! Respectfully, Joe Fedric Customer Happiness Specialist Topaz Labs ==== So here is my question regarding the new Topaz Textures plug-in for Affinity Photo: I’ve an extremely technical question about Topaz Textures. All Topaz programs work for my softwares of choice, Lightroom 6, Photoshop CS5. However, I’m porting from CS5 to Affinity Photo. All Topaz programs except Textures, work fine in Affinity Photo as plugins. In Affinity Photo the Textures plugins do not have any Textured Effects, unlike my LR6 and CS5 installations. I believe the problem may be that Textures has a fairly weird installation, where the plug-ins used by Affinity Photo are in the Applications folder CS5, but the Textured Effects are in another folder, my MacIntosh HD/Users/wei/Library/Applications Support/Topaz Labs/Topaz Texture Effects subdirectory. In this Topaz Texture Effect are 2 subdirectory structures, QML and tgrc. In tgrc, subdirectory there are 1.81 gb of jpg’s (used for the collections, comprising 623 jpgs). Please review my Affinity Photo Preference Screen for Plugins, below. Preferences_and_Affinity_Photo.jpg Question 1: Why can’t Affinity Photo find the Texture Effects? See my attached jpg on how Topazlabs’ Textures appears when porting from Affinity Photo. Notice there are no Effects on the right-hand side, and none of the dropdown list, Featured, My Effects, etc, have any possibilities. Question 2: What can I do to get Affinity Photo to recognize the 623 Textures Effects? Topaz Textures Screen of no Effects: Preferences_and_Affinity_Photo.jpg

Super Duper! Glad I started w/Designer and Photo early. They both have been (and are) winners.

I've tried the Beta's (1.2.5.12 RC2) Panorama module lightly. Works fine for TIF, Jpg, NEF (Nikon RAW), & DNG files. The TIF version seemed to be slightly better at the edges than LR6. The Panorama is fairly quick if you do the images properly (on a tripod, with a panoramic leveler, manual focus, WB, exposure). It didn't do so well when haphazardly doing the overlaps--with no straight horizon. Yes, some of us do get lazy... However, there are four issues worth mentioning: 1) The crop feature after the Panorama creation is remarkably slow. It's hard to crop horizontally/vertically, and almost impossible to get any good rotation because of the slowness & jerkiness. 2) The color rendering seems to be not up to par, even with jpg files, but especially with RAW files. 3) a Nit: The Render Panorama screen doesn't seem to have a working progressive bar; hard to figure out if the progress is near the end. I exited it prematurely sometimes. 4) a lessor Nit: the New Panorama Screen progress could be more progressive (like nearing the end) than the spinning dial). Wei Chong

Mike, Thank you for your lucid reply to my question. You answered it perfectly.