Affinity Photo Windows example editing videos

[James Ritson]

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!

[SrPx]

Watched it fully. Very nice, helps realizing the enormous depth of the software even in just one of the many areas. Lots of things of AP I yet didn't know...Explained in very clear English (important for us Spanish, German, etc, users   ;)  ). Thanks ! 

 

EDIT: Seeing all the depth of the tool is encouraging (because one realizes all what we are really getting), or for me, at least. Going to try and watch a good number of those in the free time.

 

[hifred]

Hi James,

first off – thanks a lot for creating all these very well made video clips!

 

When watching this particular clip I wonder if what you show here will remain the preferred or rather

the exclusive way to deal with RAWs:

 

Bring them in, apply a few  global adjustments and hit develop. From there work with a 16-bit image

using Layer based operations with adjustments and masks as well as extra channels for intricate details.

There's no question that many people are very used to this editing principle. All steps are neatly organized

in a stack and ready for further refinement.

 

Then again there are likely people who say:

I'm able to do all you show in this clip, without even leaving my preferred Raw Editor. I get the

same level of control – but I don't need to fumble around with lots of layers, masks and channels

– and am not even limited to using a single tool at a time. I just create an editing point and may

brush in local sharpening and tonal adjustments and can even lighten up shadows within that

same (pressure sensitive) stroke. Every aspect of this way of editing is non-destructive

and may get further tweaked at any point in time. When it's time to add text or create a composition

with other images I can still switch over to layer based editing.

 

What would you say to this second group of users?

[SrPx]

Euh...You can work with masks, so that you make one that disable all adjustment layer, and quick mass paint the effect of that layer only to apply to that part an detail that you paint -of course with pressure sensitivity-, so you can do with any adjustment layer. Did I understood wrong what those users say ? I don't see the mess, but quite some flexibility and good organization....

[dominik]

 

 

 

 

 

Hello James,

 

first off, many thanks for the tutorial and also the many other tutorial videos you provided. They are just plain helpful (if not essential) to explore and understand Affinity Designer and Photo.

 

I want to ask a completely different question. How do you embed a video in a posting so that it can be viewed without leaving this forum?

 

You just did with your Vimeo tutorial. I tried with a YouTube video and can't get it to work.

 

Thank you and best regards,

 

d.

[Alfred]

I want to ask a completely different question. How do you embed a video in a posting so that it can be viewed without leaving this forum?

 

You just did with your Vimeo tutorial. I tried with a YouTube video and can't get it to work.

 

I think you just answered your own question, dominik! ;) If you want to embed a video that can be viewed without leaving this forum, it looks as though it needs to be on Vimeo, not YouTube. :(

[hifred]

Did I understood wrong what those users say ? I don't see the mess, but quite some flexibility and good organization....

 

Have you ever worked in Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, Capture One and the like?

 

Imagine very nice interactive control for refinement of single images, but without layers.

One may apply all tools globally to the whole image as in Affinty's Develop-Persona, but there's

also various ways to apply these tools (and any combination of them) locally to just parts an image.

 

 

If one looks at this concept at first one might come to the conclusion that this is some quick fluff for

beginners, as it's so easy to use. In fact the underlying concept is totally non-destructive, allows users

to freely combine various tools in one stroke, to dial in more strength for one tool while lowering the

impact of another (at any point in time).

I'm well familiar with layer based editing too – I'm just wondering if Serif is considering a highly attractive

alternative concept as well.

[dominik]

it looks as though it needs to be on Vimeo, not YouTube. :(

 

Good, thanks.

 

By investigating about IP.Board's featurs (IP.Board, the software that hosts this forum) I found code to embed YouTube videos. It seems that Serif's administrators have disabled this.

 

This is not a complaint. I just want to understand what is possible  :)

 

Cheers,

 

d.

[SrPx]

NVM, just though certain thing would work :P   :D (about the youtube embed)

[hifred]

NVM, just though certain thing would work :P

I had another look.

You are actually correct – there seems to be something in preparation. There's masks

and gradients and these indeed allow for combination of several tools, nice!

 

But thus far one seems to be restricted to a single brushed or gradient based mask per image.

Edit: One can actually have several of them, but they may not identify and re-edit already painted masks.

Also the non-destructive nature ends, as soon as one leaves the Develop Persona.

[SrPx]

Sorry, I was all the time speaking (probably wrongly) about Photo Persona, is the mode I test more. There whenever you have a mask, for example, child of (affecting) an adjustment layer, you can select it and modify by painting this mask (as many times as you want) or other edits, or hiding the mask.

Perhaps I'm not in the same page...

[James Ritson]

Just a bump to let you all know I've updated the first post with a new video: Example: Tiled Building

 

 

 

Then again there are likely people who say:
I'm able to do all you show in this clip, without even leaving my preferred Raw Editor. I get the
same level of control – but I don't need to fumble around with lots of layers, masks and channels
– and am not even limited to using a single tool at a time. I just create an editing point and may
brush in local sharpening and tonal adjustments and can even lighten up shadows within that
same (pressure sensitive) stroke. Every aspect of this way of editing is non-destructive
and may get further tweaked at any point in time. When it's time to add text or create a composition
with other images I can still switch over to layer based editing.
 
What would you say to this second group of users?

 

I would probably tell them to keep an eye out for the Affinity DAM app in the future  ;) - it will hopefully provide a similar convenient, non-destructive approach for users who want to make lots of quick adjustments and changes.

 

Affinity Photo is a dedicated image editor, and the raw processing (Develop persona) is a way to import raw files, tweak them and prepare them for further editing. With 1.5 you also have additional options like batch processing and 32-bit raw output, which allows you to non-destructively alter the exposure settings. The videos so far are only scratching the surface of what Photo can do. Bear in mind, though, that these videos are simply personal workflow demonstrations/ideas - the official video tutorials are tighter in focus and will give a much stronger idea of how wide Photo's feature set is...

[TEcHNOpls]

Hi,

 

thank you for your videos, I've been watching these since yesterday. Nice and approachable (I forgot the right word here), you don't have the tendency to say too much about stuff, just going more or less to the point (as oppose to some PS tutorial makers).

 

I'd like to ask for specific one thou, that would explain layers/layer stacking, I'm using the beta for some time now and I'm still not sure how it works when you have multiple layers inside a layer, what's the "direction" it takes  when analyzing the layers order. For normal layers and groups I have no problem to imagine what's going on. For these "inside" a (pixel) layer I'm not sure. Also a detail explanation about picture and pixel layers could be useful. I noticed my background layer usually is "picture" but others added are usually "pixel" and I'm not sure how this affects each of these.

 

Keep up the good work :D

[TEcHNOpls]

Also, in the second video, I'd personally use quick mask to verify if the building is properly selected.

[PaulAffinity]

Thanks James! Excellent videos, clear and concise instruction, steps and reasons where required.... Keep them coming.

 

Thanks P

[MarvinR]

Fantastic. Thank you.

[James Ritson]

Off the back of 1.5's official release, I've added two new example editing videos to the first post. It seems only two videos can be loaded within one post, so I'll investigate another way of presenting previews/thumbnails for the videos next week... Enjoy!

[Scott Williams]

Love your videos James. Very clear and to the point. 

 

Cheers. Scott.

[James Ritson]

Hello again, I've added two new videos to the first post - Canary Wharf and Banded Demoiselle. Hope you find them useful!