Anamorphic letterbox on Affinity Photo

[Ozymandias1972]

Hello,

I just got Moment's anamorphic lens for my iPhone and it does a nice job of creating that aspect while shooting film or photo especially with flares, although I plan to buy a filter to balance out the sun's intense overexposure to light. However, I'm curious how I can achieve this 'letterbox' effect by importing this 16:9 aspect ratio to Affinity Photo and exporting it out properly with two black bars on top and bottom? One can preview it on the phone by viewing the gallery but once you share it, it only shows 16:9 but without the letterbox. 

I'm curious if any photographers here have shot 16:9 anamorphic photos and found a way to import/export them? 

Thanks! 

[Dan C]

HI @Ozymandias1972,

My sincerest apologies for the delayed response here.

I've not personally taken or used any anamorphic images previously, could you please provide a sample image from your shoot so I can provide some personalised support?

Many thanks in advance

[Ozymandias1972]

19 minutes ago, Dan C said:

HI @Ozymandias1972,

My sincerest apologies for the delayed response here.

I've not personally taken or used any anamorphic images previously, could you please provide a sample image from your shoot so I can provide some personalised support?

Many thanks in advance

Sure. I'll give you two samples of recent shoots in my town in the New England region. The first shows my downtown area and the other is the trees with lens flare coming from the sun using the Moment anamorphic lens. Each appears to have a 16:9 ratio. What I'm trying to figure out is how to add letterboxes at the top and bottom for a 'cinematic' effect via Affinity Photo. Each image is 5363 x 2270 pixels at 72dpi.

With video, it's easy for me to desqueeze using a specific app and then import to Da Vinci Resolve to be exported properly after editing. But an anamorphic photo is a different situation so I wasn't sure if one is supposed to add letterboxes or just simply create a black background layer and put the image on top of it which is probably the only way to do it. When previewing the photos or video on iPhone, letterboxes are already shown when anamorphic is shot but once it's Airdropped to the Mac, you don't see them unless they are processed through an image or video editing app.

Thanks!

[PaulEC]

I'm probably missing the point, but the only reason you normally have a black area above and below the image is that you are looking at the image on a screen that has a different ratio. 

Actually your pics are wider than 16:9. Here's your pic with black bars above and below, which makes the whole image 16:9 ratio. Is this what you're aiming to do?

[Ozymandias1972]

15 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

I'm probably missing the point, but the only reason you normally have a black area above and below the image is that you are looking at the image on a screen that has a different ratio. 

Actually your pics are wider than 16:9. Here's your pic with black bars above and below, which makes the whole image 16:9 ratio. Is this what you're aiming to do?

You're right. My bad, it's larger than 16:9 as I was thinking of a different ratio. But yes, this is exactly what I was talking about with the black bars. It looks like you created a black background layer with a snap to grid option? I suppose I could create a template or preset document to use letterboxes for future use. 

[PaulEC]

That's probably just as easy.

I set the crop tool to a ratio of 16:9 then pulled a top corner to one side of the image, then the opposite one at the bottom to the other side (that makes the top and bottom bars equal). After cropping you get a transparent area at the top and bottom of the image, so I then applied a black matte. (Much faster to do than to describe!)

[Ozymandias1972]

9 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

That's probably just as easy.

I set the crop tool to a ratio of 16:9 then pulled a top corner to one side of the image, then the opposite one at the bottom to the other side (that makes the top and bottom bars equal). After cropping you get a transparent area at the top and bottom of the image, so I then applied a black matte. (Much faster to do than to describe!)

Excellent! That's actually a good approach and I'll give a try. Thanks!