AffinityJules

This is so atmospheric - I like it.

I'm convinced.

Ah! I thought you were using Photo and not Designer. As I am not a Designer user, I can't help you with that. Someone who actually uses the program will be more useful than me.

Yes. Place a live blur layer on top of the layer stack.

You can use a live gaussian blur filter if that's what you mean? Or go to the 'filter' menu and select gaussian blur - both methods will blur out the entire image.

Thanks. This was one of those pictures I couldn't decide on when it was finished. Then I thought, to hell with it, it's done!

Nice. Would they be the new free download "Dreamphography" brush pack?

Image concept entirely created with Photo.

I'd rather have Kirk banging on my window than seeing Negan tapping it with Lucille rapped in barbed wire.

"If you go down to the woods today" dee dum dee dum dee dee. Loving the textures.

Source photo (desert and woman) from unsplash. All structures created in Affinity Photo with shapes, textures, and an assortment of brushes. Planet built using Luna Cell (unfortunately Affinity does not support this plugin).

Very nice. In actual fact I still use - to this day, a Tascam MSR 24.

Affinity Photo V2 with a little help from GMIC plugin.

I marvel at the speed in which you produce these other-worldly images. Just to satisfy my own curiosity - how long do you spend on an image?

This is album cover material of the highest prog-rock quality and, a subtle nod (not intended I'm sure) to ELP's "Brain Salad Surgery"

I had a model kit of NCC-1701 in my youth, I can see it now hanging from my ceiling.

Going by your descriptions it sounds like you're working with an image layer rather than a pixel layer. Making a selection from an image layer and pasting it to a new layer will result in the entire image being copied. Doing the same thing with a pixel layer will work as expected - only the selected part will be copied to the new layer.

This is such a well executed picture and I like it very much, but for me there is one thing that spoils the overall aesthetic and balance of the picture. Yes, it's our old friend the shadows again - the recurring nightmare for any compositor creating a picture - I know because I speak from experience and many failures. In this picture there is one light source, and this light source (sun) is rather hazy because it's punching through a dusty atmosphere. This will result in soft shadows being cast off each and every object in the vicinity. The prime example here are the buildings, the shadow trails are soft in appearance with no hard edges because of the light quality. The two figures in the foreground have shadows as if from another light source, and not from the sun. Their shadows are darker with harder edges and they look somewhat out of place. Their shadows should match all the other shadows in the picture in as much as the colour and intensity as they hit the ground. When I first looked at this picture it was the first thing that caught my eye, I wasn't going to say anything about it because I really dislike criticising other people's work, but because I like this picture so much it's a shame to let an opportunity pass that will help give it a more authentic look. So excuse me and my interruptive opinions about what makes a good composite good, I just want to see this picture become as good as it can be.

Have you tried altering the spacing of the brush you're using? Click on the more tab and try increasing the spacing.

I'm curious. . .have you ever had the task manager open during these episodes to check if the CPU or memory have maxed out. In my case it usually is and until the computer recovers from these performance issues the program will inevitably freeze.

I see you're using the inpainting brush and not the healing brush, they both behave differently when processing. Using larger file sizes I always experience the very same thing you have pictured here. I have found no cure for this because it all comes down to the computers processing speed, and my laptop's performance is severely lacking graphically speaking. But as far as the inpainting brush goes, and its behaviour, it has become a normal thing for me to see. It takes as long it takes and that's all there is to it.

Your product key can be found in your account - the account you created when you purchased the software.

It's certainly a step in the right direction. If you look at the top tree on the left hand side of the picture and study the shadow cast, it shows the correct angle. One thing to note here is: where there is a dip in the ground or a sudden change of pitch, this will make the shadow skew off a little to reflect the change of angle. The case in point is just behind the Buddha where the ground begins to rise, it wouldn't make much difference in this picture but it's something to bear in mind in the future. Study the shadows in the foreground and try to match the colour tone in the shadows you have created, they are obviously green but have a different tint. Like I said. . .this is by no means easy and takes a lot of trial and error before you reach the point that touches upon realism. And thanks for the plug, but I am far from being an expert - just an enthusiastic hobbyist trying to make sense of the digital age like yourself. 😀 Tip: When I need to know if I am getting close to a colour match I use the colour picker and take a sample from the background and compare it with a sample from my own shadow layer. Double click the colour circle and when the window pops up it will show you the colour range, and more importantly, how close your shadow tone is or should be when held against the background picture. Advanced tip: Because the shadows are falling on grass it's useful to use a grass brush (if you have one) or the masking brush that comes with the Affinity package on your shadow. Mask the layer and zoom right in on the patch of grass and mask out parts of the outline trying to match the angle of the grass blades where needed. Again, this will result in a more realistic finish.

As a quick example of what I mean. . .I didn't take as long as I normally would over this, but it illustrates the idea of retaining the ground information in the picture.