AffinityJules

I myself have spent many an hour restoring photo's - mainly old family photo's and the occasional download for skill honing purposes, and afterward I sit back and pat myself on the back for a job well done. You should do the same.

That's another one of those Affinity Photo software mysteries that has also affected me at times. I have no explanation or remedy for it. Each and every time it happened to me I double checked that I had not accidently altered any of the settings like 'flip' or 'rotation etc.' Nothing had changed but the expected behaviour of the tool had for some reason best known to itself. As I always do under such circumstances, I closed the program and restarted it - that usually clears any temporary fault.

Gorgeous!

If you think that you're going to get help with talk like that then you may just as well leave these forums and never come back. jmwellborn was trying to give you solid advice with only help in mind. If you can do nothing but react like a child then you're really not worth bothering with.

If honesty is the best policy then I have to say. . .I avoid the 'refine' selection like the plague. In my experience it makes more work trying to clean up the mess which it produces. For some images it works fine, but when it messes up - it messes up royally. This tool needs some serious improvement before I sing its praises.

I can think of a few things that he might say. 😁

Thanks. My biggest headache was creating the oblong shaped portal entrance - spent days mucking about with that until I was happy with it. After that all I needed to do was put my special effects hat on and let my imagination soar.

Not sure about the stroke/fill, but the black & white shortcut can be set up under preferences/file/scroll to the bottom and click on miscellaneous/set fill to black & white - then choose your preferred key.

Once again I delve into the realms of fantasy and science fiction. All photographs sourced at Unsplash, special effects supplied by me and Affinity Photo. The main portal structure did not exist so I had a go at creating one in a perceived 3D space - I think I did ok. As for page turning - that's something I have never tried before until now, I actually held up a piece of paper and bent one edge over and copied it as best I could.

The base picture came from one of my many nature walks, and with a bit of imagination I tried to create a fairy tale type picture. Yes I know. . .I'm out there! 😀

Can you provide a screen shot with the tools/layers panel in shot?

I think you need to elaborate a bit more on what it is you are trying to do. Edit like this?? Like what?

Try using a mask with a black & white gradient. You can adjust the levels with the gradient control or brush away the parts you don't need.

What are you seeing now instead of the colour wheel? If I want the colour wheel I simply click on colour circle (or whatever it's called) in the tools panel and from the list select 'colour wheel.'

The problem when using the perspective tool is not new and is an ongoing unresolved bug (or something). I have problems whenever I use the Mesh Warp tool, and this problem goes way back to when I first started using AP. It happens with any file, any size, any format. I start to use the tool but after a couple of adjustments the bounding box moves but the image I am working on does not, then the program freezes and I have to shut it down and restart it. The only way I can work with the tool is by saving the state of the image before the freezing begins so when I open the image again after restarting I can continue from where I left off. I have not been able to resolve/understand/ why this happens, but as I said, it's an ongoing issue. I have come to accept it as either a failing in the software, or a failing of my laptop - I don't know which.

There are many roads that lead to Rome when replacing sky, and I'm sure that everyone who performs such editing has their own way of doing it. I get better results by using the selection brush only, I do not use the refine option because in my own experience it produces unwanted artifacts. Rather than use the refine option try just a bit of feathering instead. I had to shrink my selection with your picture because of ghosting that was already there.

How does one open this file? All I get is a message saying 'unable to open file.'

Ah. . .understood.

I'm curious as to why you never put the company logo on the head stocks? Or 'Gibson' on the truss rod cover plate. They're obviously a Fender Strat and a Gibson Les Paul. Would have been a nice finishing touch.

If you're using the pen tool to cut this image out and, because it has sharp clean edges, you will not need to use the refine option but rather use a bit of feathering - if needed, instead. When using the pen tool it's a case of WYSIWYG, but using the selection tools, in my experience produce unwanted artifacts.

Tell me about it. With so many sliders and buttons on offer across all editable tools, you can get lost in a veritable minefield of options. Even I struggle at times, but I saw your post and knew the solution. Glad to help.

Set the accumulation to 100%

I'm with smadell on this one. Using a 50% grey layer is my choice and it's totally non destructive in the sense that if a mistake is made, you simply paint over the grey layer to erase it.

Yes it's you. 😛

You can simulate a metallic look using the Gradient Map option. You can make it look like gold, silver, bronze, chrome, etc... Afterwards you can use recolour to finely tune the hue needed. It's quite startling to see how it affects the image when you hone in on the colours. Give it a try and experiment. Below is a quick and rough example of how the gradient map affects the coloured image (see settings). The only other adjustment I made was by using the 'Exposure' option.