FMR

Update: as you may note (I did belatedly) in my screen shot above, the preset choice has moved to a "hard" button just below the panel menu. This works as previously described by Domonik. This does show how to do this and thank you all for your help. However, I must say I agree with Hubas. This whole process is too time consuming. Whereas in Adobe Camera Raw I can make suitable adjustments and then synchronize a whole slew of like images and that synchronization takes place in a matter of a few seconds for tens of images and then a few more seconds to save adjusted images (with the adjustments saved in xml files, or perhaps 10 seconds to save each jpeg copy; in Affinity Photo it takes several minutes to 1) use the preset, 2) commit the Develop and 3) save (Export) a jpeg. I am working with 42 megapixel raw files from my Sony AR7III. It takes Affinity Photo 30 seconds to load these raw files. Once adjustments are made, hitting Develop to commit the changes takes about 45 seconds to get back to the main Persona to do the export. I cannot understand why Affinity takes so long. I have been using Affinity Photo to do focus merges and, though the process takes a bit longer than Adobe Photoshop Align, Blend a stack, the results in Affinity Photo are much better. If I load raw files into the focus merge "engine" the process takes very long. If I load jpeg copies, the Focus Merge takes place much faster (this suggests that Affinity Photo stores raw versus jpeg files in different forms in its working memory. For now, to take advantage of Affinity Photo's superior focus merge, I will have to use Adobe Camera Raw to process the files into jpegs, then use Affinity Photo to do the focus merges on the jpegs. Please Affinity, if you are listening, improve the raw file importing speed and change the Develop module so it works more efficiently.

Does anyone know of a tutorial that covers this basic process?

This is what my settings panel looks like. No little lined box.

Where is Settings in that? Nowhere anywhere is the word "Settings" It sounds like it should be easy to do what I want to do. A tutorial on adjustment synchronization would be an important one to have. Where is it?

Where is the "Settings Panel"? I have looked throughout the Affinity Photo Develop Persona layout and cannot see anything like you describe. I do see a small lined box that when I click on it says "Advanced". Nothing about settings. There is no choice anywhere that I can see in the elaborate menu system about "Settings". This layout and process should be included in tutorials somewhere (perhaps it is and I've missed it - if so can someone point me in the right direction). It would be part of most people's workflow. Very important! Why can't I find the details and demos on this? I want so much to be able to fit Affinity Photo into my workflow and eliminate my dependency on Adobe.

I am confused. Is there no way to do this? With Adobe Camera Raw, I can make adjustments to raw images and then synchronize (choosing exactly which adjustments to synchronize) settings to any number of other similar raw photos. Without this ability, I just don't see why anyone would want to use Affinity Photo at all.

Is there any plan to add the aligning and blending of photo stacks in this? This is something I would need to use the program. Particularly nice if it included tools to adjust resolution, sensitivity, etc. tools that are missing from the aligning/blending features of PhotoShop.