affinity photo Mountains in the Mist

[DelN]

I have just finished 'Mountains in the Mist', which I did in Affinity Photo using the free 'Nature' and 'Atmosphere' brushes (plus a few images and other brushes). I have uploaded too a numbered set of JPG images from the first background sky layer 01_ to the last _FINAL so (if anyone is interested 😄) you can see how I created it.

[Glennsart]

@DelN - very nicely done. Lots of atmosphere in there. I really like the sky especially. I noticed in one of the jpg's you included your palette. This is something I think I need to start using, via the Swatches panel (which is very well designed in Photo IMO). I think it would help with consistency in my case. Thanks for posting this  . 

[DelN]

Hi Glennsart,

Thanks for your kind comment. Yes, if I find an image I like, I create a colour palette from it and save it. Then I can use it in any new image. I also save and have experimented with LUTs, which would, I think, be helpful to you (I know I found them helpful when I discovered them), if you don't already know about them, that is. Here are some links on YouTube about using and creating them in Affinity Photo. I found 'How to Steal a Color Grade and Export LUT - Affinity Photo' particularly helpful.

DelN

Here are some others...

https://youtu.be/Q1h2z7iMfhM

https://youtu.be/RhBFy-bncus

https://youtu.be/_DTfUkbrezM

https://youtu.be/2qsCCG42M8A

https://youtu.be/L38BNQZyzUU

https://youtu.be/gjgbyMse928

https://youtu.be/cjTeNxkDz6c

 

 

[Glennsart]

@DelN - Thanks very much for these links! I will definitely check them out. Appreciate this very much  .

[Glennsart]

Hi Again DelN,

Just wanted to tell you I watched the embedded video, "How to Steal a Color... ". That is going to be hugely helpful for when I'm compositing! Can't thank you enough. I have played around with LUT's a bit when I was using the software from, "The Evil Empire" (🙃) but never spent too much time with them (I was spending most of my time troubleshooting rather than painting/compositing ). The applications for these in my work are far ranging and will really streamline things for me. I'll be bookmarking that, and the other links as well. Anyway, just wanted to say a big thanks again 👍!

[DelN]

Hi Glennsart,

Glad I could help. I found that particular tutorial really helpful too. I've watched it several times. 

Is there somewhere on the forum that I can check out your artwork? I'd love to see it.

Also, I don't know if you are aware, but I uploaded a load of free 'Nature' and 'Atmosphere' brushes for Affinity Photo. The brushes are right at the bottom of the link below.
There's also a Word file step-by-step instruction on how to create image brushes, which I put together for Affinity Photo users. 
The link is:

Other really interesting tutorials I have found are:

The Colour Replacement Brush

 

How to create a Gold or Chrome Effect - Affinity Photo Tutorial

Also, have you checked out AÍ-generated Art yet? He-he! I think you're gonna like this... 😄

Dall-E 2 and MidJourney are probably my favourites, but there are several more AI art generators. The beauty of the art is astonishing. The darkness, the creativity. Its all very nightmarish, but wonderful...

Check out these links on Pinterest to see what people are creating with them. If you've not heard of them, I think the artwork will amaze you (it certainly blew me away):

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/search/pins/?q=midjourney generated art&rs=typed

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/search/pins/?rs=ac&len=2&q=dall e 2 art&eq=dall-E 2&etslf=4484

Have fun!

DelN

 

 

 

[Glennsart]

Hi DelN,

More good stuff!! Many thanks yet again. Ok, a couple of things - I don't now have a website unfortunately. When I killed my Adobe account, the website went with it. I'm debating if I want to purchase new space (Wix perhaps), but haven't yet decided if it's really worth it. I don't now sell my work at all and there aren't that many people interested in it to be honest. That said, I do have work that I'd like to share here, but since I'm very new to Affinity (just got it late last month), all my work is done in Photoshop, so perhaps not appropriate for here. Of course, if I didn't tell anyone, nobody would know what program(s) I did them in, but I'm not sure of the ethics on that one. By way of example though, I will post one fairly recent project I did this winter, but after that I'll wait until I get more work done in Affinity Photo before posting further.

I really appreciate the links and the brushes you sent along. I didn't realize you were the author of the brushes. I have great respect for folks who can do that sort of thing and you deserve all the kudos people can send your way for those. I tend to make my own as well, but they are fairly specialized, but in a different sort of way, as are my paintings. I tend to paint landscapes in the 'realism' genre. However, instead of following the digital dictums, I follow traditional artists (Michael James Smith of the UK is one I actually subscribe to) and I adapt the techniques to the digital format using (now) Affinity Photo on a Wacom Cintiq 24 Pro. As such, my brush list is very short - maybe 6 or 7 brushes at most. For the time being I'm trying to keep the number down simply because the names aren't displayed in the Brush Panel and it's too easy to have them get "lost" amid the shuffle without having scads of categories for them. However, I also use them (or try to) as you would use a traditional paint brush rather than having 'stamp' style brushes. I actually have a bazillion brushes I got fairly early on in the process (a couple of years back) from Kyle Webster and Aaron Blaise (to name but 2), but to be honest, I don't use those now for reasons mentioned above. They are great brushes for sure, but I'm painting more from scratch at this point. I find a couple of round brushes and 2 or 3 texture brushes from the default categories in AP are serving my needs very well, especially given how easy it is to modify their behaviour with the "More" options panel.

I'm also doing some painting/compositing mix artwork in space art now though, for which I use AP and AD. This is something I did a number of years back, and that can get me more into the Matte style or Concept Art end of things. Funny you enclosed a link from Evenant. I took their course (the trailer of which you provided above) and really enjoyed it. It's an excellent program and Walid really has a good thing going there. He does seem to have moved more towards 3D and music now, so I'm not sure what the future is there. I'm going back and re-doing the course again over the fall though as I never really carried through the entire thing. I'm really looking forward to adapting my workflow to AP as IMO AP is more intuitive for this sort of art than are other programs I've tried.

On the AI part, I'm afraid I'm not a fan; or at least, not yet. You're right of course. What it can do is amazing and Olivio has reiterated that quite emphatically. I'm pretty old school though (part of having 'OOFS' - Official Old Fart Status 😂) but even so, my giddy-up for the art I do is from making it from scratch and having the end product actually look like what I intended (however much by accident that may be ☺️). I am watching things a bit to see how they go, but I think my next big learning curve will be with Blender, at some point down the road.

Anyway, sorry for the 'Tome'. I can get a bit long winded. My apologies. I do very much appreciate all the assistance here, and believe me, it's not going to waste. I am filing all this information away and much of it (as with the LUT's) will be very helpful, in particular the part about making brushes in AP. That's something that will really help me immensely. By the by, your artwork in "Towers in the Mist" is amazing!! Fantastic artwork indeed!

Glenn

That sample painting I referred to above  :  "Winter Fields" - Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada

[DelN]

Hi Glennsart.

I like the 'Winter Fields', the wintry scene you posted. I particularly like the trees in the grey misty background and the layers of yellow grass coming down the hill. 

As to the ethics of whether you should come clean about which program you created your images in - I would suggest the truth is the best option. I did the same as you, I got rid of Adobe when the started expecting their users to rent their software. Its expensive, even before that it was expensive - but at least you owned it. Adobe has their users by the 'nads'; if you end your subscription, everything stops working (as you have found). I would like to see the Adobe empire fall. Then they can make a film of it 'The Fall of the Adobe Empire'... Affinity Photo and Designer are far more affordable, you own the software, they update it and it is really good. I purchased them a few years ago (I think). It has taken me a while to learn many of the tools - and I am still learning. I still don't know all of the tool set in Affinity Photo/Designer, but that's OK. 

I checked out Michael James Smith - thanks for the link. I'll have a read on the site and watch the video. I agree with you about 'losing' the brushes in the Brushes panel. I am constantly hunting for brushes that I have created - and I have so many. I tend to create 'Favourites' brush categories and just use those, but then they tend to be so large that I have to then split them. Ha-ha! I just checked out Kyle Webster and Aaron Blaise too... I have never heard of either of them. Aaron Blaise's work is beautiful...

I don't know whether you know, but you can import Photoshop brushes into Affinity Photo...

 

Wow! I've been learning a lot from your reply. I'd never heard of AP and AD. I just looked them up. Not sure I know what they are yet, but have a bit of reading to do to find out. Ha-ha!

I'm glad you liked 'Towers in the Mist'. I am just about to post another one that I have done - in the style of AI-generated art (or my take on it). Its a kind of 'role reversal'. Digital Artist creating Art in the style of AI-generated Art.

Thanks for sharing your work. I look forward to seeing more. Keep up the creativity...

DelN

 

 

[Glennsart]

<LOL> Ok, first off, I'd better explain that AP and AD are my little short forms for Affinity Photo and Affinity Developer 😊. If there's anything beyond that, then I don't really know about it. Sorry, I tend to contract things without explanations sometimes and it royally confuses people (and me on occasion 😂). 

Yes, even more than a pressure sensitivity control for opacity, I'd really like to see brush names displayed. That is probably my biggest issue with an otherwise extremely well built painting set in Affinity. I have to say, the overall brush control set in terms of modifications are really, really good in this program and makes it very good to paint in, but like you, I spend a lot of time searching through brushes (a "Recents" list would be a nice addition too). I do know you can import .abr brushes into Affinity, and have brought in Kyle's Megapack, although I'm not sure I'm seeing much there that is all that much better than what comes by default with the program. The designers spent some considerable effort in making the default set and their efforts show.

Thanks very much for the comments on my painting  . If I do get a new website going then I'll include it in my signature. Once I start getting AP (Affinity Photo) paintings completed, I'll post them in this forum for people to laugh look at  .

Excellent chatting with you DelN. I look forward to seeing more of your work. Best of luck with the AI generated art. I'll be watching with great interest to see what you come up with. Have a super day!

[DelN]

I looked up AP and AD and found something to do with League of Legends. A game, I think. Totally missing the obvious. Ha-ha! 

Yes, I'd like the brush name to appear in the Brushes palette. It does appear when you hover over the brush though. I'd like to understand the numbering to the left of the brush image. When you duplicate a brush, it retains the same number - even though you change the objects that it paints with, which is a bit annoying. I'd like to either understand the numbering of the brushes or have the brush name show and the numbers removed - or, better still, be able to list the brushes in a brush category from 1-100 or whatever . 

Yes, its been great chatting with you too, Glennsart. You have a great day too...

This is the one I posted earlier. Actually, its not very good. I've notice a few flaws, which I may go back and correct...

 

[Glennsart]

Hey man, pretty cool image you did there 😋. Rather scary, to say the least!

The number beside the brush is the size in pixels. So if you select a brush (i.e. in the Basics panel) with the number 4 beside it, it's natively 4 pixels in diameter. 128 is 128 pixels in diameter, and so on. If you duplicate the brush, you're duplicating its properties, unless you have made changes and then duplicate it. Otherwise, part of the properties is the brush size, so that number will be the same.

Yeah, I've seen the names when you hover over the brush, but there is a delay (that may be adjustable, but I'm not sure), so yes, you can find the brush by name but it takes quite a while (relatively speaking) when you have to hover over each for a second or two. Doesn't sound like much time-wise, but as you've noticed, it's a pain if you're looking for a specific brush, especially if you have an idea in your mind and you want to get it down on "paper" in a hurry. Let's hope V2 fixes that. I suspect it will.

Ok, off to bed. Nice artwork again  . Later!

Glenn

[DelN]

Thanks, Glenn... and thanks for the info on the numbers beside the brushes. Saves me trawling through the Help files. You learn something new every day, eh? 😊

Off to bed... after seeing the scary image I posted. Hope you sleep well. He-he!

Take care,

Del

[AdamStanislav]

22 hours ago, Glennsart said:

AP and AD are my little short forms for Affinity Photo and Affinity Developer

What is your short form for Affinity Publisher then? I find it quite confusing when people just type AP and expect everyone to know which of the two products with those initials they mean.

[carl123]

1 hour ago, AdamStanislav said:

What is your short form for Affinity Publisher then? I find it quite confusing when people just type AP and expect everyone to know which of the two products with those initials they mean.

AP, AD and APub are all recognised "short forms" in this forum.

Hovering over any of them should produce a tooltip showing what they stand for (Not sure how that works on mobiles) 

[Glennsart]

2 hours ago, AdamStanislav said:

What is your short form for Affinity Publisher then? I find it quite confusing when people just type AP and expect everyone to know which of the two products with those initials they mean.

Hmmnn, good question. I think @carl123 has the answer to that. I don't have Publisher so I hadn't thought about it, but it's a good point . 

[AdamStanislav]

2 hours ago, carl123 said:

AP, AD and APub are all recognised "short forms" in this forum.

Good to know. Thanks.