AffinityJules

I do not know how Walt does it. I just memorized all his answers so as to give me the appearance of vast knowledge. [smiley face emoticon]

Then possibly you want the 1.7 brushes that disappeared in 1.8.
You can find those (and an explanation) in Affinity Spotlight: https://affinityspotlight.com/article/get-legacy-affinity-brushes/

Gorgeous!

Gorgeous!

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.

Ran across a youtube video using the attached photo in a photo restoration video (watched about 30 seconds and had to try it myself). I found a copy of the photo and downloaded it.
The after pic took a few hours spread out over a few days (I'm  back working at the furniture store 😣) so it's a little each day..
Any constructive criticism welcomed, It was a lot of fun and I learned. Preferred the Black and White to the Sepia of the original, so converted it after I felt I was done. There was more I could do, but decided this was a good stopping point.

Digital painting brush work testing
link https://gumroad.com/l/nsCEh

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. 

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 devils in the detail, I was just doodling with brushes and smudging and came up with this, the other guy is begging to be captioned lol

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.

That’s pretty cool Jules, like the portal and the bit after turning black and white, oh and the swirly portal effect.

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! 😀

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.

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! 😀

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! 😀

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! 😀

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! 😀

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

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

I made these using black & white photos found on the internet as guides. Although I usually work in Photo, I did a lot of the vector work in Designer, as I find it easier to switch between the Pen and he Node tools; then again, some things are easier or only available in Photo.
She wasn't just a comic dancer: she was a decorated war hero of the French resistance, and set up and funded a number of philanthropic projects, as well as championing civil rights back in the US.
And she really did have a pet Leopard named Chiquita.
This first one was made entirely from vectors with flat fills and no outline (apart from the text, of course).

 
For this one, I got a little more ambitious. It's made with Vector shapes, gradients and brush shading.  I had the style of Gaspar Camps in mind, but it's a lot simpler than his work. Still., I'm learning!

More ambitious still! Made the same way as the previous pic, but with a lot more brush shading and gradients. Here I was thinking of Alphonse Mucha; see previous comment!
I made two image brushes for the leopard's rosettes (spots to you and me). The 'leaves' are supposed to be feathers! I've tried out a couple of alternative colours with HSL adjustments, but I can't make up my mind which I like best..
For the shadow, I created a new pixel layer in Photo with 'Merge visible', converted it to black (Levels), stretched it with the Move tool (and a little adjustment to the feet with the Mesh Warp tool). I then applied a gradient and a Box Blur live filter, also with a gradient to make it lighter and more blurred further up the image.

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.