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LEGACY: Official Affinity Photo (Desktop) Video Tutorials


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I'd just like a simple photo tutorial that like the old photoshop books, would take you step-by-step through each tool necessary to say make a simple photo better.  i.e. in other words a project book of simple projects to complete.

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Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, but is there some resource or guide as to the ABSOLUTE basics?

For example today I discover that what I thought was the cloning or healing tool is called "inpainting"? I've never heard of that expression. Point is, for a noob like myself, I have no idea what to search for and no idea what I'm looking at.

For example I can see I could perhaps alter the "alpha range". OK, that's great. What the heck is an alpha range? 

"frequency separation". What even is that? 

I have no idea what "guassian blur" means, and adjusting doesn't seem to do anything?

Is there like a really simple and basic overview of what the software can DO, and what that thing is called, and from there we can learn the how-to aspect of those features? Another example, I saw a vid on Vimeo about changing the tilt effect of a wide angle lens on a building. Without seeing that vid I would never have known the software can do that, let alone know what words to use to search for it.

Right now the tutorials strike me as absolute, exact, step-by-step guide to the teeny tiny nitty gritty details, of how to do things I know absolutely nothing about.

Elp?

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23 minutes ago, AlanPC said:

Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, but is there some resource or guide as to the ABSOLUTE basics?

Other than the introduction videos listed at the beginning of this thread, the online help system here and the Affinity Photo/Designer Workbooks they sell, no not from Affinity. - You would have to look and rely on third party resources (Web, books, articles, videos etc.) for that here then instead.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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I'm not a Newbie but neither am I anything more than a rank amateur, tho I've been with Affinity since its beginning. My approach was to begin with the introductory tutorials and proceed from there. Same with the workbook. Both can be overwhelming, but I decided to take the time to experiment. I would take an  image I don't care about and, for example, apply every filter to see what it will do; e.g. I can't define or explain Gaustian Blur, but I know what it can do. The workbook has its shortcomings, but it contains most of what I need. It takes time and trial.

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v_kyr, yes there's a help thingy, but it's less than helpful for someone entirely new.

For example I see I can "Liquefy persona"?

I work in marketing; a persona is a fictional but representative character that you direct your marketing messages to. What does that have to do with photography and why on Earth would I ever want to liquefy one? 

I would never, ever, in a million years, search for 'persona' in a photo editing help thingy. The terminology is like some foreign language to me.

Sure, I can grind my way through a bunch of tutorials, with no idea what I'm looking at until maybe 3/4 of the way through each 20 minute vid, at which point I feel like asking "Why don't you just call it that? Why the jargon?" 

Or, a feeling of "I'd never do that to my photos. Why am I even watching this?"

I guess maybe what noobs need is a glossary or something?

Mark, you say there's a Workbook? Erm... where? (And again, I would never, ever, search for a 'workbook', just "instructions" or "manual" or something)

I'm introducing a friend of mine into photography, and she is, quite rightly, frustrated at the terms used. A lot of it is either deliberate jargon to make things more complex than they are, and/or using old film terms that are confusing in the modern era. She understood a lot easier when I explained the "aperture" as a hole, the "ISO speed" as the sensitivity etc. Sure, I explain the 'correct' terms too, but for clarity and understanding we keep it plain English.

I've pushed hard for her to also understand that photography is generally pretty simple and easy in terms of the basics, that the bit we both need to work on is the editing of photos later. I've told her to get Affinity, as it's a much fairer pricing model. So here I am, trying to learn it myself, and I know EXACTLY how she feels in terms of obscure jargon.

I guess Serif are using the same terms as Photoshop, entirely understandable, but neither of us have ever used Photoshop either, so that's really not helping lol.

It's like I say to my friend, "Try widening the depth of field with a lower aperture..?" and she's like:

'Wut?'

'Try getting more of the pic in focus by using a smaller hole."

'Oh right' and she twiddles the aperture ring.

Is there a manual, in plain English, that explains what we can DO, then we can learn the funky jargon about liquidizing our persona frequencies later?

I mentioned I work in marketing, in fact helping people sell software is what I actually do, that's me. Trust me, I would never, ever, suggest to a client "Just tell them to grind through 200 videos; that'll work".

No. Just no.

0_o

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2 hours ago, AlanPC said:

v_kyr, yes there's a help thingy, but it's less than helpful for someone entirely new.

For example I see I can "Liquefy persona"?

I work in marketing; a persona is a fictional but representative character that you direct your marketing messages to. What does that have to do with photography and why on Earth would I ever want to liquefy one? 

I would never, ever, in a million years, search for 'persona' in a photo editing help thingy. The terminology is like some foreign language to me.

Sure, I can grind my way through a bunch of tutorials, with no idea what I'm looking at until maybe 3/4 of the way through each 20 minute vid, at which point I feel like asking "Why don't you just call it that? Why the jargon?" 

Or, a feeling of "I'd never do that to my photos. Why am I even watching this?"

I guess maybe what noobs need is a glossary or something?

Mark, you say there's a Workbook? Erm... where? (And again, I would never, ever, search for a 'workbook', just "instructions" or "manual" or something)

I'm introducing a friend of mine into photography, and she is, quite rightly, frustrated at the terms used. A lot of it is either deliberate jargon to make things more complex than they are, and/or using old film terms that are confusing in the modern era. She understood a lot easier when I explained the "aperture" as a hole, the "ISO speed" as the sensitivity etc. Sure, I explain the 'correct' terms too, but for clarity and understanding we keep it plain English.

I've pushed hard for her to also understand that photography is generally pretty simple and easy in terms of the basics, that the bit we both need to work on is the editing of photos later. I've told her to get Affinity, as it's a much fairer pricing model. So here I am, trying to learn it myself, and I know EXACTLY how she feels in terms of obscure jargon.

I guess Serif are using the same terms as Photoshop, entirely understandable, but neither of us have ever used Photoshop either, so that's really not helping lol.

It's like I say to my friend, "Try widening the depth of field with a lower aperture..?" and she's like:

'Wut?'

'Try getting more of the pic in focus by using a smaller hole."

'Oh right' and she twiddles the aperture ring.

Is there a manual, in plain English, that explains what we can DO, then we can learn the funky jargon about liquidizing our persona frequencies later?

I mentioned I work in marketing, in fact helping people sell software is what I actually do, that's me. Trust me, I would never, ever, suggest to a client "Just tell them to grind through 200 videos; that'll work".

No. Just no.

0_o

Hi,

I understand you would like to have some kind of higlights showcase for the product for everything what it can do. There might be some minishowcases ( as trailers with new releases or on the main page), but to show everything I think the video would have few hours.

Anyway, I'm just a causal user myself, but I knew some basics from PS already. Still what I can really recommend are DrippyCats tutorials, especially this one (I hope I can link this here):

https://www.udemy.com/affinityphoto-solid-foundations/

it helped me to understand a lot about how tools works and also some new informations from a photograpy point of view

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I would thoroughly recommend the DrippyCat video tutorials, I have done several, top notch and an excellent teacher.

 

I also have the Workbook and it has some great stuff in there but I find it's more useful if you have a particular thing you want to do and look it up in the Contents first.

I did work through the whole thing when I first bought it but a lot not relevant for me.

 

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Completely agree with Alan PC, I believe I started this conversation and have since retreated from using Affinity, instead going back to Aperture, which I know. Seems many folk fall back on having used Photoshop. I never did. The workbook I bought but it does not even discuss how to start until half way through the book! yes, there are a lot of videos, but what Affinity has missed is to clearly, simply and easily explain, like to a child, one, two, three, How to Start. This is the weakness of Affinity for me, it did not and has not made it easy to learn, thus, any adjustments I make are done on a system since discontinued by Apple. Yes, I will try again, but Affinity is NOT  for a newbie, and Affinity has dropped the ball for intro to the system, my guess is because all the advisors and designers are so far advanced they cannot comprehend the needs of a beginner.

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Perhaps what's needed is an Affinity Photo Resource Guide.
A listing of all online and in print training and who it's geared for.
An absolute beginner would know where to go, what's worth paying for.
Also a list of free resources which range from Affinity's on YouTube tutorials to the several YouTube channels posting tutorials. 

I do think there's a need for "jargon-free" training for the beginner that doesn't assume one has any prior experience with this or other company's paint programs.
When a newbie hears the term "unsharp mask" they need to reach for the Babel Fish.

Sometimes you need to know what's not there as well. I spend half a day looking for "Type on Path" only to finally be told while it's in Designer and even the beta of Publisher, it doesn't exist in Photo (yet?). 

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Excellent idea, have Affinity provide a list of resources, including their own, a win/win/win situation, the provider/user/Affinity

As a beginner, the AF people simply can't grasp that we need awareness and thinking and action based on teaching the basics, not showing off all the features.

Example:  AF Work Book. Guess on what page the chapter title BEFORE YOU START, appears? You'd think page one, right? Nope PAGE EIGHTY SIX. This shows the lack of awareness of the needs of the beginner. Page 86 to Start?????

Crawl, walk, run.

Glad I am back on the forum and I really do hope that I can make the effort to start again and use it. 

Again, good call. Affinity now do your work and provide not just your own tutorials and books, but others as well. The benefit would be for everyone, as I would love to begin using it and recommending AF.

Cheers

Stuart

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I thought I'd drop a couple of links to youtube tutorials for Affinity Photo that I have personally found to be of help when I was a brand new user of Affinity products.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn8kwOQhMJA  Affinity Revolution with Ezra Anderson (who does great tutorials, especially for beginners)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQkmqMeCBmk  with Jesse Showalter (also does great tutorials for beginners)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbgONOJHa0Y&index=2&list=PLllFqBuTM0WI8Pt47wBcg25gcYRufEnY8&t=0s  another beginner tutorial

 

Hope these prove useful to someone

 

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  • 1 month later...

H there, I see all your comment were written in 2015., I just purchased my copy two weeks ago and now am struggling to get things working. My copy is v 1.6.5.135, don't know if it is the latest (it should be) but it doesn't look like one in tutorials, have BIG problems with functioning (takes 10 attempts to stretch crop frame and other things are very slow, as well) and my laptop is no slouch - 8G memory, i7 processor, plenty room on hard drive, so, all exceeding requirements of the programme. What could be the problem? Thank you.

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49 minutes ago, Zubie said:

H there, I see all your comment were written in 2015., I just purchased my copy two weeks ago and now am struggling to get things working. My copy is v 1.6.5.135, don't know if it is the latest (it should be) but it doesn't look like one in tutorials, have BIG problems with functioning (takes 10 attempts to stretch crop frame and other things are very slow, as well) and my laptop is no slouch - 8G memory, i7 processor, plenty room on hard drive, so, all exceeding requirements of the programme. What could be the problem? Thank you.

Hello Zubie:  FYI, V1.6.5.135 is the latest version of Affinity Photo.  It is the same version I have.  I run this software on an HP laptop with an i5 CPU and 8 GB of memory running on Windows 10 Pro.  Everything works fine at this end.  I wish I could help you further, but I'm not a computer expert.  Best of luck in solving your problem. 

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1 hour ago, Zubie said:

don't know if it is the latest (it should be) but it doesn't look like one in tutorials,

It may simply be that you're running Windows and the tutorial was recorded on a Mac. There are some differences in appearance between the two OSes.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4

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Zubie,

Affinity Photo is certainly no speed demon, and it loves to bring everything to a crawl while it calculates. I've learned to shut it down with the Task Manager whenever I lose patience. Sometimes a reboot is needed to free memory. On the other hand, it is easy to use, mostly intuitive (masking is not), more than powerful enough for anything that I want to do, and an outstanding value for such a trivial pricetag. I expect that the speed problems will be addressed with time.

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Really frustrated with the way Affinity works with its customers, especially when it comes to tutorials. Our group  has been very patiently waiting for free tutorials which are published more and more seldom. So I think they are just pushing us to by paid tutorials. Let's admit the software is not really easy to use and you need to refer to tutorials quite often. The customer support is crap, sorry to say that.  With the new editing softwares on the market I will be looking elsewhere. I am getting amazing feedbacks for Luminar 3, which looks like easier to use and has lots of free tutorials as well.  

Bye-bye Affinity 

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3 minutes ago, koka said:

Really frustrated with the way Affinity works with its customers, especially when it comes to tutorials. Our group  has been very patiently waiting for free tutorials which are published more and more seldom. So I think they are just pushing us to by paid tutorials. Let's admit the software is not really easy to use and you need to refer to tutorials quite often. The customer support is crap, sorry to say that.  With the new editing softwares on the market I will be looking elsewhere. I am getting amazing feedbacks for Luminar 3, which looks like easier to use and has lots of free tutorials as well.  

Bye-bye Affinity 

 

I understand the frustration and it drove me somewhat nuts at first. I can tell you though that much of it makes more sense with time.

What happened to me was I realized I was chasing my own tail, getting frustrated at tutorials I didn't really understand, as they were talking a foreign language and in the meantime I was distracted by some other feature... So what I did was write down a list of the top 10 things I needed to know, that I didn't already.

For me it was how to do 'dodge and burn', split-toning, and a few others, including the 'in-painting' thing.

Heck, I still don't really feel confident with 'masks' and 'quick masks' (or what the difference is?) but usually manage to muddle through.  

Doing my own personal Top 10 has made me much more comfortable and confident with it, and now I just edit my photos, rather than getting frustrated. I did try a variety of other softwares out there and Affinity seems the allround best, though far from the best for raw conversion. For my particular camera model (RX10IV) I find the DXO software does a much better job with it's profile for that camera/lens and for noise reduction. On the other hand it's $200, 4X the price of Affinity and nowhere near as nice to use for the actual editing. So I use both, DXO to process RAW, then export as 16 bit TIFF files and edit those with Affinity as JPEG.

Guess what I'm saying is, don't give up so easy. :) Figure out what you actually need to do, learn those things and don't worry about the masses of other stuff you don't really need anyway.

 

Hope that helps, a little?

 

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  • Staff

Hi koka,
Welcome back to Affinity Forums :)
Thank you for your feedback. We aren't pushing customers to paid tutorials (we don't sell/make money from video tutorials). We haven't published more lately because the ones we already have cover almost all functionality of the current version and the new ones being prepared are for the upcoming version 1.7 which adds new features/functionality to the program. There's no point in publishing new ones for a program that will be soon upgraded to a new version. As soon a version 1.7 is out a new set of video tutorial will be available.

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5 hours ago, koka said:

Really frustrated with the way Affinity works with its customers, especially when it comes to tutorials. Our group  has been very patiently waiting for free tutorials which are published more and more seldom. So I think they are just pushing us to by paid tutorials. Let's admit the software is not really easy to use and you need to refer to tutorials quite often. The customer support is crap, sorry to say that.  With the new editing softwares on the market I will be looking elsewhere. I am getting amazing feedbacks for Luminar 3, which looks like easier to use and has lots of free tutorials as well.  

Bye-bye Affinity 

Get on Youtube and search Affinity Revolution. Ezra has fantastic, easy to follow tutorials that you will love. There are tons and tons of free tutorials out there by users; you don't have to watch the official ones at all in order to learn what you need. Here's a couple more for you: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcsOB6WE5567h_cjk_EIFUw and InAffinity, which I've found hugely useful also: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOnLUmyPHr2rayOHVHWsHVw and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiPTkQa7HHF5R-w6Mhw4E4g  Hopefully you'll be less frustrated after seeing some of these :)

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