0Kami

Havn´t been here for a while, job and life taking just too much time. But recently I had two days and managed to fire up the Affinity for some aviation artwork.
For a while now I have had a P40 on my mind and thought it was as good a time as any. So here is my take on the great P40 Warhawk. 

Affinity needs to step up their game on providing service to Apple users for plugins, I’m still waiting for that to happen!

I work more heavily with and I am more familiar with Japanese art but I have a soft spot for all Asian art. In the past year or so I've seen so many beautiful Chinese prints and pictures and when I saw this one some months ago, I thought it would be a great one for me to do in my style. I did this one with all vectors in Affinity Designer and I did two versions, one regular and one that shows the wind but something about the wind bothered me but I decided to present it as well even though I feel that it is distracting and not as good as the one without the wind. One thing I'd love to see added to Designer sometime is some vector brushes or different vector strokes with customizable ends so that I could more easily replicate the look of using a fude (Japanese brush or a similar style ink brush normally used to write calligraphy but is great to draw with too) using pure vectors.
This picture is my stylized version of Lie Yukkou, a famous Daoist philosopher based on an old picture by  a Chinese artist named Zhang Lu. 
Thanks for taking time to view my work.
Best regards,
Hokusai

color palette for free for everything you want to do with it. have a nice day.

Skin Color.afpalette

Adding grain to a photo is a nice way to emulate vintage images, especially older black and white photos. It has always bothered me a bit that Affinity Photo does not include a mechanism to introduce grain, other than to use the “Add Noise” filter. While adding noise is nice, it adds such a fine amount of variation that it is often quite literally unnoticeable.
I have admired the Film Grain effect that is available in other software, such as Nik’s Silver Efex. These filters can often vary grain size and intensity; sometimes grain can be added to shadows, midtones, and highlights in differing amounts.
What I’ve attached is an .afmacros file called Film Grain. This is a macros Category and should be imported into the Library panel. It includes two macros. The first is called Add Film Grain - simple. It allows the user to add grain with 2 parameters – intensity and size.
Grain - Intensity
The grain intensity defaults to 100%, but can be set to any value between 0 and 100. At 0% intensity, the grain effectively disappears. To understand intensity, think “contrast.”
Grain - Size
The size slider accepts values between 0 and 1, with the default being 0.2. The appropriate value will differ based on the image being treated, and the same perceived size might need higher values when the overall dimensions of the image are larger. Also note that values above 0.8 are rounded down to 0.8 (and this forms an effective upper limit to the slider). This is done primarily because the math breaks down at higher values.
The second macro is called Add Film Grain - by tonal range. It includes the same intensity and size parameters, but also lets the user set opacity levels for highlights, midtones, and shadows separately.
Grain Opacity - Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows
There are three separate sliders for highlights, midtones, and shadows respectively. Each defaults to 100%, but can be set to values between 0 and 100. While the “simple” macro creates a single Film Grain layer, the “tonal range” version creates a group containing 3 layers, one each for the three tonal ranges. The Grain Opacity sliders simply vary the opacity of the corresponding layers within that group.
Finishing Touches
When each of the macros finishes, the Blend Range for the result (the Film Grain layer in the case of the “simple” macro, and the Group in the case of the “tonal range” macro) is set to diminish the effect of the grain on the highlights slightly. This is an aesthetic choice on my part, and I think you will agree. However, you can set the Blend Range to anything you might like, as desired.
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For most users, the “simple” macro will be enough. It lets the editor vary the Intensity of the grain and also the Size. I have always liked adding grain that was a bit larger, because it becomes more noticeable.
For other users, the “tonal range” macro will allow you to add some additional nuance to the grain, by letting you emphasize grain in the shadows, midtones and highlights. Do this by first setting a global Intensity and Size, and then adjusting the opacity of the 3 tone ranges as desired.
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Here are samples of the two macros, along with the settings as applied. The differences between the two results is quite subtle, but might be worth the effort in some cases.

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As with all the macros I have posted, I have tested these on one computer under a limited number of conditions. I cannot guarantee anything, but I have no reason to think they will not work for you just as they have for me. The macros are free, with the suggestion to “pay it forward.” As you become more proficient, be sure to share your experience and your work with others.
By the way, happy holidays to everyone. Here’s hoping that 2021 is a more positive, uplifting year than 2020. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to ring in 2022 in a crowd without any masks!
Film Grain.afmacros

First bug after seconds
On all 3 apps: Designer, Photo, Publisher after update to 1.9.0 the monochrome Icons are gone and are not restorable by change the settings or reset the data.
 

This is because technically, it's not a problem. The "Auto Clean Brush" is a feature you would like us to have, we don't have it. We have no ETA on implementing feature requests I'm afraid. 

Technically, it's a real problem. Theoretically, you can believe it's not if you find it useful. We don't. If you don't see it as a problem, it's because you never retouch on real life situations or used this tool. You probably shouldn't be answering before doing that. Being able to build a photo software doesn't include by default being aware of what's useful or not for a photographer, that's the reason of a forum.
 
It's not ME, it's just a bunch of retouchers and photographers with more experience than the makers of this software, who are clearly simply requesting for something basic to be included because it's just weird not to have it, like programmers don't understand why is important. If you don't see it basic, it's because, again, you possibly have no experience at all in retouching. "We don't have it"...well.....I can see it and you should't brag about it.
 
You should def listen to what people is listing here as missing features; through the whole forum the response to these issues is actually zero or, as in your case, mods are answering from a closed point of view "we do it like this and that's what it is".....looks to me like the Apple philosophy, take it or leave it.
 
Was not this all Serif thing about making a change in software market and create a better relationship with customers? So naive right...
 
Over and Out buddy 
 

Murfee, thanks for the visuals, the explanation, and the link to the other thread. I appreciate any help and new workarounds I can find.
And, yes, I agree, we need the FILL slider in AP.

Murfee, thanks for the visuals, the explanation, and the link to the other thread. I appreciate any help and new workarounds I can find.
And, yes, I agree, we need the FILL slider in AP.

Hi @0Kami, thanks for your suggestions, unfortunately they don't quite achieve the same results as the Photoshop fill method. I agree there is a bit more pop in your final image, the colour projection is not the same. Using a 90% fill in the mask is having a very similar effect to reducing the layer opacity. 
There is another method that is discussed in the thread below, this again is not exactly like the Photoshop method but gives a better result in the projection.
I have attached a file that shows the differences, top image is the original, the second down is using your method with the 90% mask fill, third down is lowering the layer opacity to 10% (this is the same principle as the 90% mask), the bottom is using the method in the thread from February. You can see the projection differs, particularly if you look at the vignette. I have used 100% saturation for each one to show the differences.
We still need a Layer Fill similar to Photoshop. The special 8 blend modes react differently when Opacity or Fill is adjusted. We really need the functionality of adjusting fill to unlock the power of the special 8.

 

There is a workaround for creating a "Fill" adjustment in any AP adjustment layer.
Because each AP adjustment layer has its own mask, just fill the mask with whatever percentage level of "fill" that you would like. Just remember to reverse the percentage amount. For example, if you wanted a 5% "Fill" then use the paint bucket and fill the mask with 95% black. If you want a very targeted fill amoung you can use sliders to adjust the fill percentage or work in 5% increments in the grey swatches panel.
I hope this helps.

There is a workaround for creating a "Fill" adjustment in any AP adjustment layer.
Because each AP adjustment layer has its own mask, just fill the mask with whatever percentage level of "fill" that you would like. Just remember to reverse the percentage amount. For example, if you wanted a 5% "Fill" then use the paint bucket and fill the mask with 95% black. If you want a very targeted fill amoung you can use sliders to adjust the fill percentage or work in 5% increments in the grey swatches panel.
I hope this helps.

Please encourage the Photo developers to return the histogram luminance channel to white or light gray. The change to blue did not enhance the user interface, it made it more confusing. Thank you for your consideration.

Couldn't we get the code changed to go back to the way it was before, Andy?
Seriously, why change to blue for luminance, which forces us to figure out each time which of the two blue sections is Blue, and which is Luminance?

Or, in Light UI:

Issue solved! This is useful to subtract one layer from the other, for example for Frequency separation.
 
So this is how I did it for a 8 bits image (16 bits should need a change in the 2 and .5 values bellow)
 
1 - Create two layers with the same image 
2 - Change the layer bellow as you like (gaussian blur, median blur or anything else)
3 - Make the top layer Linear Light (could be done afterwords but if you do it before Applying image, it's easy to see the result as it happens)
4 - Apply image with the following parameters:
Source: layer bellow modified
Blend mode: Normal
Equations: on
DR=(DR-SR)/2+0.5
DG=(DG-SG)/2+0.5
DB=(DB-SB)/2+0.5
DA=DA (no change to the Alpha )
 
A couple of explanations. In the equations:
DR stands for Destination Red an is the value of the Red in the layer you chose to Apply image (in this case the top Layer)
SR stands for Source Red and is the value of the Red in the source layer (in this case the layer bellow)
The 2 and 0.5 are based on this info: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/channel-calculations.html (look for "Add and Subtract blending modes")
 
Hope this helps for future reference.

Has anyone attempted to install the new retail DXO - Nik bundle into Graphic Converter 10.x in addition to ojur beloved  Affinity Photo ?  ( Adobe Photoshop does not come into my life these days.... haven't opened it in months ).
It sounds like DXO did not alter the functionality of the various Plugins themselves, but somehow the installation process has been modified, and in many cases is failing.
I do hope DXO realizes that many of us here are trying very hard to dispense with Adobe Photoshop CC and Lightroom altogether. It's why we use Affinity Photo. But  I never have used Lightroom or Apple Aperture. I've always used GraphicConverter's browser and other functions as my digital image catalogue and management app for over 20 years.
We need to double down with both Serif and DXO to assure that Nik will work for us going forward. Sounds like it's off to a rough start.

Mr. OldRadioGuy, I cross-referenced your findings to another post of the Affinity forum (Will Viveza (Nik) be fixed for Affinity?).  Here is their response:
"We only support .8bf plugins, we do nothing specific for Nix plugins and nothing we can do to support them directly. They definitely changed something in the new release as they worked fine with the old "Google" plugins."
I'm not trying to start any "war of words" on the forum but would love to see a single thread where the Affinity Folks address the software's problems and their efforts to address it/create a workaround. At least tell us if they are working with DXO to resolve the issue. 

Are these questions in reference to the “old” free NIK collection, or are they referring to the new DXO paid collection? 
I ask because of the reference to the statement: “as it crashes in their code and not ours.”
This assessment conflicts with the research of another Affinity Photo user who tested the new DXO NIK collection release across several non-Adobe programs.
Below is their statement posted on the DXO forum:
“Affinity Photo – The programmers of this increasingly popular editor need to do some tweaking of their app, because it won’t run the new Nik-DxO plugins. Since both PhotoLine and Luminar will run the filters, I believe the problem is with their code, not DxO’s.”
I would like to purchase the more stable NIK collection (and support DXO’s efforts to keep the software alive) but I would like to know that Affinity will support it.
Thank you for any information you can supply.