Affinity Photo user manual

[breck]

OK, simple question why no user manual I dont have time to play with the program I need a book or PDF I can print so I can read about a subject and get an instant response 

[webbs]

It's the only gripe a lot of users seem to have. Excellent product but a serious oversight that has put many off. For many it means They keep going back to photoshop because of the wealth of printed info that is availabile.

The sooner this is sorted then for many it is bye bye photoshop. I really am surprised that this issue is left unsorted!

[R C-R]

The built-in help is the closest thing to a comprehensive user manual that Affinity offers. One reason for this is (or at least has been so far) the rapid pace of development & the new features that are constantly being added, which would make a printed manual out of date by the time it went to press.

 

The built-in help is always up to date, but not as comprehensive or as easy to use as one might hope for. Even so, it is well worth browsing through the Introduction & Getting Started sections to get a basic overview of the app, & then maybe checking out a few of the other sections, particularly in the Workspace section.

[verysame]

Agree,

 

The built-in help is really a good resource. I always found what I was looking for.

I know the OP asked for a printed resource, but personally, I find the combo offline help + video tutorials a killer as the videos are usually pretty short and very well explained.

Not only users can find info about Affinity's product, but also theory about photo retouching/vector design.

Considered most of them are about 5-7 min. long, I think they are truly quick to watch and, above all, none of them luckily is like this! :)

gather the crowd

[AlainP]

Someone has already created an epub version of the Affinity Photo Help file here.

[R C-R]

In addition to the 200+ official Affinity videos on Vimeo, I have noticed that there are now several hundred others on YouTube from various sources, & more are being added almost daily. They are of variable quality & usefulness, but it is not too hard to find several that cover almost any aspect of using the Affinity apps, & even workflows that combine them with apps from other developers.

[harrym]

I'm sure there will be plenty of third party how to resources for AP as it gathers pace especially now that it's available for the wider windows audience. Don't think it's something Affinity should spend resources on.

[gitarrenpabst]

Creating and maintaining user manuals cost a lot of money. Nobody is willing to pay for printed manuals anymore. So that´s why comprehensive online help functionalities are implemented to software nowadays.

Furthermore, video tutorials are nowadays state-of-the-art. Perhaps someone comes along and will write a tutorial book, but I´am sure that this would cost plenty of money. As soon as it is printed, it will be already outdated.

[John-B]

On 1/18/2017 at 7:12 PM, verysame said:

Agree,

 

The built-in help is really a good resource. I always found what I was looking for.

That sounds good in theory, but the built-in help does not work for me, at all. Any topic I click brings up a blank page. As a new user, this was not what I expected, and has made learning this program much more difficult than it should be. Eventually, I got frustrated enough to come here, and found a link to an on-line version of their manual in another thread. I don't care about a printed document, but it would be nice if somewhere, in the app or on their web site, Affinity included a link to that on-line manual. 

[v_kyr]

See: help Affinity Online Help Resource (Printable) and also especially the Resources section which contains a lot of third party manual stuff too.

[ydaltak]

There is now a printed workbook for Affinity Photo. Check the website for details.

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, ydaltak said:

There is now a printed workbook for Affinity Photo. Check the website for details.

The Affinity Photo Workbook has been available for quite a while, but it isn’t a manual! It’s a project-based workbook.

[verysame]

On 1/12/2019 at 11:41 AM, John-B said:

That sounds good in theory, but the built-in help does not work for me, at all. Any topic I click brings up a blank page. As a new user, this was not what I expected, and has made learning this program much more difficult than it should be. Eventually, I got frustrated enough to come here, and found a link to an on-line version of their manual in another thread. I don't care about a printed document, but it would be nice if somewhere, in the app or on their web site, Affinity included a link to that on-line manual. 

Nonetheless, the built-in help should work. I don't know if you're on Windows or Mac or if you're running any Affinity beta or official release, what's your default browser and how is configured, etc. All that said, you can try to open your local installed version of the help from this folder (at least on Windows for Affinity Photo beta—I'm running 1.7.209):

c:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo Customer Beta\PhotoHelp\Contents\Resources\index.html

Or for Designer official release:

c:\Program Files\Affinity\Affinity Designer\DesignerHelp\Contents\Resources\index.html

You get the idea.

You can try opening the index.html with different browsers and see if it works. Maybe a plugin or a script is preventing the HTML to be displayed properly.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, verysame said:

Nonetheless, the built-in help should work.

I think there is a known bug in the Mac versions that affects users running Mojave that prevents the built-in help from working correctly. They plan to fix that.

On Macs, opening the help index in a browser like Safari should be possible using the local URL file path form like this one:

file:///Applications/Affinity%20Photo.app/Contents/Resources/AffinityPhoto.help/Contents/Resources/en-US.lproj/index.html

At least for me, running Mac OS High Sierra, I get the British English index page even when I include /en-US.lproj/ in the file path, but that is easily changed in the dropdown in the lower corner of the web page. For whatever reason, the non-English versions (like with /de.lproj/ for the German version) work without the need to change anything.

[John-B]

15 hours ago, verysame said:

Nonetheless, the built-in help should work. I don't know if you're on Windows or Mac or if you're running any Affinity beta or official release, what's your default browser and how is configured, etc.

But it doesn't work. For me. At all. I'm running Mac Affinity Photo 1.6.7, recently purchased from the App Store, on Mac OS 10.14.2. The built-in help doesn't rely on a browser, so that shouldn't be an issue. If this is a known bug, it appears to have been around for quite some time. Now that I have the on-line link, it's not such a big deal, but a bug like this really should be fixed ASAP. Non-working help and no easy way to find the missing documentation does not make for a very good first impression.

[Alfred]

19 minutes ago, John-B said:

But it doesn't work. For me. At all. I'm running Mac Affinity Photo 1.6.7, recently purchased from the App Store, on Mac OS 10.14.2. 

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe macOS 10.14.2 is Mojave.

13 hours ago, R C-R said:

I think there is a known bug in the Mac versions that affects users running Mojave that prevents the built-in help from working correctly. They plan to fix that.

 

[John Rostron]

On 1/18/2017 at 7:57 PM, breck said:

OK, simple question why no user manual I dont have time to play with the program I need a book or PDF I can print so I can read about a subject and get an instant response 

One of the forum members (not me) has a PDF user manual in beta/draft form. This is being looked at by beta-testers. So far it looks good. Watch for an announcement, but don't hold your breath. Like the staff at Serif say: it will be ready when its ready.

John