Photo inside of a outline

[FuzzyMonkey]

Greetings,

I'm new to Affinity. I've purchased and installed all three apps, Designer, Photo and Publisher.

I've watched all the Affinity publisher training videos, and a few of the Affinity photo videos, but still not sure what or how to ask the following question. I'm attempting to create my book cover and learn the steps and process. Unfortunately, I don't know the correct terms, tools or steps to create the desired image. I will attached screen images, but also try to explain here.

The first image is the cover of my New Jersey book. It has the outline of the state with a photo of a building inset.
Question?
How or what tools do I need to create this image/look for another state/book cover?
Do I work on this in affinity publisher? affinity photo? or affinity designer?
What is this called? or what process do I used to create it?
I have the raw original photo of a building,
I have a PNG file for the outline of the state.
But how do I get the photo of the building inside of the outline of the state?
Should I do all the photo work in Affinity photo first and then bring this into Affinity publisher?
Can I just do all the photo edits inside of Affinity publisher? I'm guessing yes. but what is best practices?

The second images is shows my first attempt at trying to figure this out. I've taken the cover layout of an existing book. Created by my designer. Now I'm trying to deconstruct how it was created so I can create one myself for another state.

I've chanted the title to DELAWARE in affinity publisher, Now I'm working on the image. I've PLACE the photo of the building and PLACED a PNG file for the outline of the state for Delaware. How do I get the photo of the building inside the outline of the state like we have in the New Jersey cover?

Do I do this in Affinity publisher, or affinity photo, or does it matter?

How or what do I do for the state outline / building photo element on the front cover? My apologies as I don't know the correct terms or process to make this happen. I've heard layers, I've heard using png files which are transparent, making the state outline transparent and then inserting the photo of the building etc. But since I'm new, I have no idea.

Are there specific videos, articles or methods of doing this? Any other suggestions to guide me in the right direction?

Thanks for listening, much appreciated.

David

[GarryP]

It will be much easier, in any application, if you can get the outline of the state as a curve/vector rather than a raster image.
Would it be possible for you to get a curve/vector outline – maybe an SVG – of the state outline?

Try a web search for “delaware state outline vector” (without the quotes).

[FuzzyMonkey]

I have no idea, this is all new to me. If that is what I would need, I can certainly look into it. But I'm still not sure what I would do with it? How do I work with it? How do you actually get the photo inside of the outline of the state?

Thanks,

[GarryP]

Once you have a vector outline you can use that outline to ‘clip’ the image, which should be really easy to do (unless the vector is over-complicated for some reason).
But we need to know if you can get the vector outline first – if you can’t then we will need to give you an alternative method.

[jimfbk55]

This video (from Serif) might help:  https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/tutorials/photo/desktop/video/318402519/

[FuzzyMonkey]

Masking and clipping @jimfbk55 yes, thanks. That looks like one way I can get this done. But I had no idea what to call it. Now that I know Masking and Clipping I can start working with that. Thanks for the suggestion.

@GarryP any idea where I can get a vector image for outline of the state of Delaware?

[GarryP]

I found one here: https://freevectormaps.com/united-states/delaware/US-DE-EPS-01-1001
You need to attribute the website in your publication (as per the rules of the website which you will need to read and understand) but it’s free.
The download ZIP file contains an EPS, not an SVG, but that’s okay to use.
There may be other maps that will do the job but that’s somewhere to start.
Note: You will need to be able to extract files from a ZIP to use the EPS file from the link above.

[FuzzyMonkey]

Thanks for the information, I'll look not that one. But do I work with this ins Affinity photo or in publisher to get the final image?

David

[GarryP]

If you are clipping an image with a vector then the same process will work in any of the Affinity applications but, in this case, you're probably better-off using Publisher since that's what you are using already.