codelearner

You have to click inside the Affinity window, then drag the pointer outside. You can't start from outside Affinity.
 
 

@walt.farrell I use a mac but I assume it's the same for Windows.  The color picker, not the eyedropper tool, works anywhere in the screen.  This works best if you are using separated mode so you can have another application visible behind AD/AP.  When you drag it around you'll see the loop being displayed anywhere on the screen.  It will then sample the color wherever.

Honestly there are more important things an image manipulation or vector manipulation software should do here, I personally won't expect those to offer the functionality or being able to replace other dedicated tools which are entirely specialized on these capture or screen recording authoring tasks. - In short, I won't expect AP/AD to offer here too what Snagit or other dedicated tools of that domain offer.
If I personally need such funtionality I take a dedicated tool for such stuff, since there isn't and never will be that one tool which can do and handle it all!

Well a basic screen capture tool would need implementation dependent more functionality from the underlaying screen windowing system, ideally it would then have to determine window sizes, orientations or offer free selection rects for underlaying screen regions...and so on. There are other specialized tools like Snagit and Monosnap etc. which offer this functionality.
Web browsers in turn mostly know on their own to handle their shown contents, either they can capture the visable page and/or also the whole rendered (even non visable) contents here and offer to save that into a pixel file or the pasteboard.
The color picker has it implementation dependent easier here, since it only has to determine an underlayed small predefined pixel area and takes the initial color values out of that one, these are then converted and shown up as other color model values too (RGB dec, hex, oct etc.). The AD/AP one can be used in an overfloating way, aka meaning it can read/capture the underlayed pixel value also from outside of the own app dimensions somewhere on the screen.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but certainly they can do cropping (using the crop tool) once you get the image into the application. I thought your question was how you get the image in the first place.

In windows, you could use the Snipping Tool. After sctivation, you can select  an area and then save it in a format of your choice. 
 
John

Have you checked  https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/11-resources/
 

Try the Clarity filter, or (for more control) the Unsharp Mask filter.

If the damage includes colour staining, then it is worth looking at the various channels to see if one shows less stain, and then using that one.

Depending on the image you may get reasonable results with the Inpainting Brush Tool, but in most cases you’ll probably need to resort to using the Clone Stamp Tool with a small, soft brush tip (at least for touching up, if not for the bulk of the work).

Hi codelearner,
You have to use the Export Persona to generate all the sizes you need for you image. It can generate them all with a single click.
Check the screenshot below. Clicking the Plus icon lets you add additional sizes. To customise the name of the exported slices, click the name of the slice then drag the variables you want to the path components on top to compose their name in the popup that will appear. On the sample image below i have created 3 slices: one with 1000 px width (just add a "w" after the size you want), and two more with 500 and 100 pixels width respectively. I also customised the names so the width appear at the end. You can also create setup export presets like these clicking the small menu icon on the top right of the slices panel for later reuse.
 

 
To learn more about the Export Persona and setting up slices check the video tutorials below:
Exporting: Layers Exporting: Slices Exporting: Continuous Exporting: Automatic Directory/Folder Creation Exporting: Multiple Outputs from a Single Slice Exporting: Transparent and Coloured Backgrounds  
PSD's have nothing to do with this in particular (foundation/bootstrap).

Where can I download the Skate of the Art sample used in the tutorials?  Thanks.

That is not really correct. By that logic, Powerpoint is a tool, but there are plenty of specialist jobs for Powerpoint experts, especially in London, UK..
 
In theory, it would be easy to swap between Photoshop and Photo, but constant questions on this forum are from people who can do a task in Photoshop, but simply can't figure out how to do the same thing in Affinity Photo. The opposite would be true, so a new employee tasked with editing 100 photos in Adobe Photoshop, with only Photo experience would need a steep (AND INSTANT) learning curve, or would be fired PDQ because they would not be able to do the job under commercial pressures. 
 
Coming from a commercial print background where everybody used Photoshop (and there was always very severe time pressures), a Photo expert would simply not be able to cope. It is true, the editing skills would make them very suitable for training, but they would need training, and not many commercial companies would not be willing (or even able) to do that. 

I just play with it, read tips and tutorials posted here, and watch some of the many videos which are available online. However, I wouldn't claim to be anywhere near having mastered it!
 

I don't have the Affinity Photo Workbook, but I'm sure you'll get plenty of input from those who do.
 
 
No.
 
 
You're welcome!
 

Try this as a quick method. Use Affinity Photo.
 
Open your photo, then go Layer > New Fill Layer. That will completely cover your photo.
 
Don't do anything else, just go to the Swatches panel and click on the white swatch to set the colour of the Fill layer to white.

 
Click on the little down arrow to the right of the Opacity box and drag the slider to about 50% or whatever you like.

Using Affinity Photo you could apply a Fill layer of Black or dark Grey and then lower the opacity, then use File > Export.

Try this in either app.
 
Use a HSL (hue/saturation/lightness) adjustment layer. Decrease the saturation. That dulls all colors down. Makes it grayer.  This similar to adding a semi-opaque grey or black fill layer as Lee D mentioned. Also increase the lightness to wash out the colors. If that is not enough, try contrast/brightness and/or exposure adjustments. Those can wash out the image more. 
 
There are many many more ways to make a good back ground. For instance, using a recolor adjustment to make the background have a sepia or cyan tone would allow text to stand out over it.

I don't think you can, but if you save it as a .png, then there are many online conversion facilities.

Some converters cheat by creating a PNG image and giving it a .ico extension, but here's one online converter that seems to work pretty reliably: http://www.favicon.cc
 

I'll add color contrast ratio analyzer, if that is not already in 1.6.

I'll add color contrast ratio analyzer, if that is not already in 1.6.

You can't do anything about the samples being 'Read only', but the inability to select that layer on the canvas is a different issue. If you visit the Layers panel you'll see that the 'Daub!' layer has a padlock on it, indicated that the layer is locked: click on the padlock to unlock it.
 
Many of us have posted here to suggest that locking should merely prevent layers being transformed or deleted, without also preventing their selection on the canvas. This would make unlocking (and other operations) quicker and easier, but such a change hasn't yet been implemented.
 

I hate Illustrator - always have.
 
I find it clunky and cumbersome.
 
By contrast I find Affinity intuitive and lithe.
 
Of course there are things Illustrator can do that Affinity can't do yet - but there are usually ways to get around the shortcomings.
 
But don't take my word for it... try both of them out for an hour or two, and see which one clicks.

I tried illustrator, Affinity is more usable.