How to reposition stacked (photo) layers independently?

[Wumpus]

Product: Affinity Photo Desktop 1.65.135

Platform in use: Win10 x64, i7, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 6GB GDDR5 GTX1060 GPU RAM, SSD, 100% sRGB IPS display, Huion 610Pro2 tablet.

Comparing output from other RAW editors vs Affinity (purchased) stacked mean exposure output (not HDR), and Affinity doesn't appear as sharp. Source images are small sets (3-5), shot on stable tripod, long exposure (no wind), low key light. Some of the tutorials suggest manually aligning the layers, but I can't find where to do that. Tried both the Perspective (though I'm guessing that's more for hand-held) and the Translate alignment positioning options, as well as "Live" checked & unchecked. I've searched the forums, but maybe I'm not using the best vocabulary (compared to when I get accustomed to using this). I've searched for "position stack layer", "moving layers" and a couple other options, as well as referring to the help document, but no joy. I'm sure it's esay, and I just haven't figured out the right way to do it in this (new for me) user interface.

Can anyone 'google that for me', but with better search terms, or just send a link?

Much appreciated!

[John Rostron]

Did you load the images into the stack manually, or did you use the File > Load Images into Stack commsnd? If the latter, then you have the option of ticking the Align Images checkbox. This usually works very well.

If you have loaded the files manually, then you can align them manually by:

1. Hide the top layers, set the bottom two layers to show.
2. Select  the next-to-bottom layer and set its opacity to 50%.
3. Select the Move tool and use the up-and-down and left-and-right arrows to align the next-to-bottom layer. By default this will move one pixel at a time.
4. When it is aligned, set the opacity to 100% and repeat with the next layer up.

There are other ways, which involve setting the opacities (from bottom up) to 100%, 50%, 33%, 25% and 20%

John

[Wumpus]

John: super helpful! I'm now moving layers, according to your instructions. It actually took me over 5 minutes to get it working, because I was also using Lock and Hide and I had to do something else to the Live Layer Group to permit messing around with its components. But then it worked. 

(queue choir "aaaaahs") 

I had added the images all together through the dialog (now I see what you're saying about the two methods, and adding one at a time, and just making the top layer semi transparent for positioning). I think I've buggered this current stack up, because each image has different dimensions now, but at least I now have a good idea of how to do it properly from scratch. 

Yes, it's pretty impressive at auto aligning, and I'll probably start with that and fail over to one at a time when it's challenged, but it's still not razor sharp. At least not yet, but I'm getting nice exposure blending and noise reduction for the same effort, and trying different mixing methods. I'll keep working at it: I just wanted to follow up ASAP and say that your guidance helped a lot.

It seems this product is essentially user-group-only supported, but it also seems to have a great community, and thank heavens for people like you.

Have a great evening!

[John Rostron]

18 hours ago, Wumpus said:

It seems this product is essentially user-group-only supported, but it also seems to have a great community, and thank heavens for people like you.

Thanks @Wumpus. Please bear in mind that there are many more users out there than there are Serif staff. Even so, Serif staff do contribute regularly to these forums.

John

[Wumpus]

Appreciated, John! Yes, it seems the user base is pretty passionate and echo your sentiments, which is certainly reassuring to staying with the product.

I was able to do some more stacks, and am getting faster at it, and getting much sharper results now, so your advice was exactly what I needed. I will do some critical pixel peeping tonight to compare the output from Afiinity Photo and others and make a final decision in that aspect. But the quality is now certainly in line with my expectations. Feel free to reach out if I can somehow return the favour, otherwise I'll try to contribute to make some contributions to the forums once I have more skill under my belt.