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James Ritson

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Everything posted by James Ritson

  1. Hey all, The Photo for Windows beta has proven incredibly popular, and I appreciate that, like with any software, there's a learning curve and the requirement to invest time in understanding the software's functionality and idiosyncrasies. With no firm commitment to delivering them consistently (that bit is important to note ;) ) I'd like to share some example editing/workflow videos. My aim is to demonstrate Photo's feature set and, hopefully, help viewers understand how the tools and features they're accustomed to using in other software can translate to Photo's implementations. If you haven't caught them already, it's also worth noting that there's a huge set of video tutorials for Photo available at http://affin.co/PhotoTuts - around 165 at last count. Here they are: Hadrian's Wall Link: https://vimeo.com/191642138 This video focuses on: Raw noise reduction and dithering Marquee selections from tonal ranges Layer masking Blend modes Blend ranges Channel duplication/loading to alpha mask Live filter layers Configurable layer behaviour Tiled Building Link: https://vimeo.com/191981432 This video focuses on: Accurate selections using selection brush tool Saving selections to spare channels Loading channel information into a layer's alpha mask Live brush previews Creative painting with blend modes Dynamic brush resizing on the fly Live Lighting filter Live filter layer mask painting Fast history scrubbing Portrait Retouching Link: https://vimeo.com/194985128 This video focuses on: Automated Frequency Separation Healing Brush and Clone Brush Merging visible layers Live filter layers Live brush previews and blend modes Changing/adding colour tones Changeable workflow behaviours via Assistant dialog Live scrubbing History panel Monochromatic Architecture Link: https://vimeo.com/194986066 This video focuses on: Adjustment Layers Live brush work with live previews Painting & Erasing Live filter layers Non-destructive noise/grain addition Canary Wharf Link: https://vimeo.com/203283705 This video focuses on: RAW development Tone Curve option Apply Image with channel equations Black & White adjustment with Multiply blend mode to knock out sky colour Pixel painting to enhance colours Curves tonal adjustment Live Unsharp Mask filter for final sharpening Banded Demoiselle Link: https://vimeo.com/203294769 This video focuses on: Creating selections with the Selection Brush Inverting a selection Masking an adjustment using a selection Tweaking layer opacity Live Lighting filter with blend mode Live High Pass filter with masking White Balance for tinting I'll keep you posted as further videos appear. Hope they prove helpful to you!
  2. To celebrate the supermoon I've recorded a video on editing supermoon images in Photo, using various techniques like HDR merge, channel equations, tone mapping, selections and cropping: https://vimeo.com/191612174 If you managed to grab any shots of the moon last night, please do share them in this forum! My view of the moon wasn't particularly dramatic (East Midlands, UK), but I ended up with some nice shots, three of which I've attached to show how different editing techniques in Photo can produce different results. Unfortunately my longest lens was a 300mm, which with a 4/3rds sensor effectively becomes 600mm. Even so, I had to do some heavy cropping, resulting in images that are barely 2 megapixels in resolution. I shot a bracketed series of exposures (7 in 1EV steps), with my base exposure being around 1/60s at f/8, ISO 200. They were then HDR merged in Photo (as you can see in the video) and tone mapped/tweaked further. Look forward to seeing your shots! James
  3. Hey Novak, the 1.5 macOS beta (available to download and try in the Photo beta forum) has a more fleshed-out Apply Image dialog, you can drag-drop layers onto the dialog and also blend channel information using equations, which has no end of uses. All this functionality will be available once 1.5 is officially available. I can't remember if the drag-drop option is in the current Windows 1.5 beta - if not, it should be included soon. Hope that helps!
  4. Hey, you are correct, the highlights slider can seem a little underpowered at first. Have you tried removing the tone curve? See the video Raw Conversion Quality and it'll show you how to do this: http://affin.co/rawquality Having removed the tone curve, you should find the highlights slider much more effective. You can then add your own custom tone curve (again, the video demonstrates this) and shape the tonal range how you want. Hope that helps!
  5. Hi ambiroa, I've recorded all of the more recent Photo videos using OBS, including the Windows beta preview one (https://vimeo.com/190854361). Can't say I've had any issues. Which encoder are you using, x264? I tend to use Apple VT Hardware encoder (macOS) or NVENC (Windows) as I capture at 60fps, and even with an ultrafast preset, x264 is too CPU-intensive to encode at 1620p 60fps. I just use a Display Capture source, are you trying to use a window capture?
  6. Hi Pete, here's a quick breakdown, hope it helps: The Develop persona is non-destructive. All tonal operations are done in an unbounded colour space (so no tonal information is clipped). When you click Develop, you then process the image destructively.However, if you open the develop assistant (that little suit/tuxedo icon at the top), you can change from 16-bit to 32-bit output. This still "destructively" develops the image, but tonal ranges aren't clipped, so you can alter the exposure at any point without losing shadow or highlight information. Yes, adjustment layers are non-destructive unless you merge them down. Yes. live filter layers are non-destructive. Any filters applied from the top Filter menu are destructive. I would suggest duplicating any pixel layers you want to apply those filters to if you want a non-destructive way of using them. You can create "snapshots" of your work that are stored in the saved document. This allows you to jump between a series of edits and store your progress if you want. See this video on Snapshots for more information. Regarding the .afphoto document format:You have the option of saving a full undo history (File>Save History with Document). This allows you to re-open a document at any time and step back through all the operations you've performed. The format saves uncompressed raster information, so yes, it's definitely not a sidecar file ;) . It's worth noting that Photo develops raw images to 16-bit by default, which can produce big file sizes with uncompressed image data. For example, a typical 16MP 16-bit image can be around 120MB in size. When you first develop a raw image, Photo also stores an initial snapshot so you have a clean copy of your image (again, see the video linked above for more information). This also increase file size. You can delete this before you save your document if you don't need it. Hope that helps, James
  7. Hi fjb, regarding the pixel resolution, Photo's raw engine interpolates edge pixels rather than cropping them off, as most in-camera hardware converters and software tends to do. Thus you end up with a slightly larger pixel resolution. Not sure I understand the sRGB/RGB issue - the Develop persona works in 32-bit unbounded and then converts to the given colour profile when you develop, which by default is sRGB. It's still in an RGB colour format. Hope that helps!
  8. Hey Novak, the brush size/hardness modifier on macOS is Ctrl+Alt+Left mouse. On Windows, however, the Ctrl modifier has moved to the right mouse button (as there's no substitute for the Cmd key). So on Windows it's Alt+Left mouse+Right mouse. Hope that helps!
  9. Hello, it is true that the SerifLabs raw engine receives criticism because it doesn't perform any kind of initial noise reduction or sharpening by default. Most raw processing software adds a small degree of fine detail sharpening and chromatic noise reduction (sometimes luminance noise reduction too) - so in effect, you're never really seeing how noisy or soft your raw images actually are. As an example, Apple's Core Image Raw engine appears to sharpen the image and perform both luma and chroma noise reduction - retaining the "texture" of the image by adding a subtle layer of gaussian noise. I've been able to practically match the Core Image output using the SerifLabs engine through sharpening, light noise reduction and very light gaussian noise addition - all achievable through the Details panel when you're developing the raw image. This video, Raw Conversion Quality, might be worth a watch (although it's due a re-record, I... talk.... so.... slow....) - it goes into detail about the raw engine and demonstrates how to get the best results from it, including applying your own tone curve to maximise the available dynamic range. Hope that helps.
  10. Hey Alex, the beta is actually available! Sorry for not clarifying, I'll put the link in the original post, but you can download it from here: https://affinity.serif.com/blog/affinity-photo-for-windows-is-available-now/ Thanks, James
  11. Hi James, This is typically because developed raw images are processed to 16-bit images - it offers more precision but increases file size exponentially. Before you save your .afphoto file, you might try the following: Go to Document>Colour Format>RGB (8 bit) to convert the image to 8-bit and save file space. Go to View>Studio>Snapshots to bring up the snapshots panel. You should see an initial "Background" snapshot. Delete this as it's essentially a backup copy of your image that takes up file size space. Hope that helps! And just to re-iterate, you should either do this before initially saving, or use Save As to ensure the document is saved cleanly.
  12. Hey all, The Windows beta of Photo is now available to try for free! Grab it here: https://affinity.serif.com/blog/affinity-photo-for-windows-is-available-now/ Here's a short (8 minute) video that just runs through a few of the basics for the Photo Windows beta and will hopefully answer some questions you may have: Direct link if you can't fullscreen the video: https://vimeo.com/190854361 It covers the concept of personas, opening images, panels, raw file development and exporting. I'd also just like to point out that we have over 120 video tutorials for Photo available in the In-house Affinity Photo Video Tutorials thread (currently at 130 and counting ;)). They are all macOS-based, but you will find that both the interface and functionality translate to the Windows version, and so I hope you'll find them useful. If you have any questions please ask. All the best, James
  13. Hello, Photo 1.5 (currently in beta for both macOS and Windows) has full import/export support for OpenEXR including multichannel support (and yes, that's import/export too). There's also OpenColorIO integration with input/output colourspace conversion based on filename affix (eg filename_aces.exr) for a fully colour-managed workflow. Hope that helps!
  14. Hey Mike, I suspect this is to do with the clone brush automatically having its source mode changed to work with the sources panel (for deghosting purposes). You'll need to change it back to work with the current layer. On the context toolbar you should be able to set it back to "Current Layer". If it's already set to Current Layer then there's a bug still present: try setting it to something else like Global and back again and that should work. I'll check on Monday (don't have access to Photo at the moment) if this is still the case; it was discovered a while ago but may have slipped the net amongst other priorities... Hope that helps!
  15. Hi MightyM, out of focus issues are typically hard to treat with any degree of success. A deconvolution filter would yield some kind of clarity, but Photo currently doesn't have one. What you could try is a combination of live filters with blend ranges and different opacity values. It's a bit convoluted to explain in a forum post but I've attached an .afphoto document to show you what I've done, as well as a processed version of the image. Is the original image any larger at all, is your attachment just a crop of the original? The image you've attached is very low in resolution, quite pixellated and contains some compression artefacts. If you work from a higher quality source you'll have more success. post-40302-0-06561100-1478169131.afphoto
  16. Hi Kersey, you're currently in the Develop persona because you've opened a raw image. This persona doesn't contain a layers panel - once you develop your image (see the blue Develop button) you'll then move into the Photo persona, which is where you have access to all of the features like layers and filters. When you open a raster image format like JPEG or TIFF, you'll be taken to the Photo persona straight away. Hope that helps!
  17. Hi Paul, it's a little complicated but I'll try not to waffle on too much! The Shadows and Highlights adjustment in Develop (also available in Photo as an adjustment layer) is a pure tonal adjustment: it compresses or expands the shadow/highlight tonal range. You are correct that it doesn't appear to be very effective at first - if you choose not to apply a tone curve however (see video here) its effect becomes dramatically more pronounced, and I'm confident you'll recover the full tonal range that your camera is capable of. In contrast, the Shadows and Highlights filter is more complicated mathematically and also performs some kind of local contrast manipulation. It is, in effect, a more destructive procedure, and does much more than simply shift the tonal ranges. Now, the initial raw development is done in an unbounded colour space, meaning the adjustments like exposure, brightness, contrast and of course shadows and highlights are designed not to clip unbounded (out of range) information: they simply shift, compress or expand the tonal ranges. So far, so what? Well, the upcoming Photo 1.5 release will have full unbounded 32-bit support, from Develop through to Photo. This means that if you develop in 32-bit, you'll be able to dive back into the Develop persona at any point during editing and non-destructively alter the tonal ranges. This wouldn't be achievable or work as well if the shadows and highlights adjustments were doing more than simply altering the tonal range. We basically have a distinction between purely tonal adjustments, where pixels are being remapped rather than changed, and filters, where pixels are changed (sometimes dramatically). The Shadows/Highlights filter of course falls into the latter category. If it were to be included in Develop, I feel it would sit better under the Details category with the other filter-based options like Detail Refinement and Noise Reduction. With all that said, are you having issues with your images and not being able to recover highlight tonal range? I've never really struggled to bring back highlights using Develop unless the highlight information simply isn't there (as in it has been overexposed and truly clipped). If recovering tonal range is a problem, do you have any examples that you wouldn't mind sharing? Finally: If you're wanting to get as much dynamic range out of your raw files as possible, I would honestly recommend disabling the default tone curve and applying your own. It's far more effective than trying to recover shadows and highlights separately (this goes for all software, not just Photo). Once I've taken the tone curve off, I tend to drag the highlights slider to the left and then add my own tone curve. I linked to a video above which shows you how to do this, but it's also worth checking out Raw Development Quality as that goes through the same procedure. Hope that helps somewhat!
  18. Hello, if you click-drag your adjustment layer and hover it over one of your image layers, you should see a vertical blue bar appear (if you see a horizontal blue bar, nudge the mouse slightly up and left). When you see this bar, release the mouse button and you'll nest the adjustment layer - it will then only affect that layer. Then you can compare your two images by simply unchecking the top image layer to hide it. Hope that helps!
  19. Hey Elliot, something worth noting is that even in ideal lighting conditions with the camera's base or native ISO, the camera sensor still produces a degree of luma and chroma noise. The majority of raw developing software applies some noise reduction as standard - at the very least some chroma denoising - and so you're never really exposed to just how noisy your raw images are. Even raw files from full frame sensors with a greater pixel density contain noticeable noise before being treated in software. This is where Photo's raw conversion is a bit of a double edged sword: rather than apply automatic noise reduction, you're given the option to apply it manually, so you can control exactly how your images are treated (no automatic sharpening is applied either). On the other hand, when it comes to merging or stitching multiple raw files (for panoramas, HDR, focus merging etc) you can't control the noise reduction, and so the raw files are developed in their noisiest form. Not ideal, I realise! The Apple Core Image raw engine, which you can switch to through the Develop Assistant, does do some automatic noise reduction and so would yield better results when merging raw files. Unfortunately, it's currently a bit broken in the current beta build as the Develop persona has changed to accommodate 32-bit float editing - it will hopefully be fixed soon which would then mean you could use it to achieve less noisy results. Finally, I believe (although don't take this as gospel) that some improvements to the raw processing are being considered for a future release - better demosaicing for a start, and possibly some initial treatment of the noise. If this comes to pass then the default SerifLabs raw engine will produce much better results when HDR merging. For now at least, the best course of action would be either to HDR merge with in-camera JPEGs (since they will have noise reduction and other corrections applied) or to develop the raw files first, applying noise reduction, and export them losslessly - as TIFF files, for example. You could then merge the exported files for a much better result. It doesn't help your situation (apologies!) but if you're interested there's a tutorial video that goes into detail about the raw development quality here, it may help to illustrate what I've mentioned above: https://vimeo.com/173026121 Hope that helps.
  20. Hi Jos, that doesn't sound right at all - what's your document structure like, and how big is your panorama? Are you using many live filter layers (eg live unsharp mask) in your document? Altering the export quality won't really influence the export time so you can safely put it back up to 100% if you wish. If you're able to give more info (or even a screenshot of your Photo window) it would really help in identifying what could be causing the slowdown. Thanks, James
  21. Hey, yes, you can do this very easily with a non-destructive workflow. Simply add a Black & White adjustment layer above your image layer, then do your further edits either above or below this adjustment - depends on what you're trying to do? Either way, you can simply hide the adjustment (uncheck it) to get your image colour back at any point.
  22. Well, I finally sat down and did the propeller blur video!: Radial Blur Hi, you are correct, currently only the beginners videos are subtitled. Transcribing the 120+ regular videos would be quite a task as none of them are scripted. Transcription services are available at a cost, and I agree it would be beneficial for viewers who don't understand English, but it's something we would have to look into and make an informed decision about. Sorry I can't be of more help right now, but I understand the problem.
  23. Hey Michael, we just decided to drastically cut back on the number of tutorials ;) Just kidding - there were some issues with the site's interaction with Vimeo's API, and rather than risk more potential instances of the videos disappearing, the decision was taken to link straight to Vimeo for now. This issue will be looked at in the future but the team are really busy right now with the new store (for the Designer workbook that has just launched). Hope that helps.
  24. Yeah... oops! I was trying to refer to graduated tint filters where you can tint the sky/foreground to be warmer or cooler, but unfortunately that didn't translate from brain to mouth. Those kinds of filters do provide a small degree of light reduction, perhaps that's why I made the link so readily. Kind of highlights the occasional pitfalls of (mostly) improvised videos...
  25. Good morning all, Two new videos (one inspired by a recent thread) for you: Graduated ND Filter Effect Defeating Filter Limits Hope to be doing a few more before restarting on 1.5 videos, so watch this space! Madame, are you still having the issue with the Liquify video?
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