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Official Affinity Photo V1 (Desktop) Tutorials


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On 5/6/2019 at 21:32, hanshab said:

Ciao James. Mi riferisco ancora al vecchio set di tutorial di tanto in tanto. Ultimamente avevo bisogno di guardare il tutorial LUT. Sono ancora disponibili? Ci sono molte buone informazioni lì.

I need this too. Does it still exist?

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Great videos as usual. Terse and clear. Well done James and the team. APh is a huge and complex bit of kit and videos are important both to get beginners off the runway and to explain the dark corners and intricacies for us older hands.

The talking head video question is something I still fret about with my InAfffinity videos. I used it because many other successful channels also do so, but wonder a bit if it's helpful. I hope it gives a more personal connection. A big question is the size and scale of the frame for this as it necessarily obscures some of the window. The bottom left does seem best for this as it covers less key stuff in APh. I do wonder if the Serif videos might use a little less space. At least the right part of the image, which is showing just brick wall, could be clipped. Another thought: James is facing to the left, out of the picture and so directing gaze away from the main screen. Would it make more sense to guide the eyes into the video by facing to the right?

An apology, comment and question: Sorry about this, but... The staging and style that James is using reminds me of Unmesh Dinda on his YouTube PixImperfect channel. Am I imagining things?

Dave Straker

Cameras: Sony A7R2, RX100V

Computers: Win10: Chillblast i9 Custom + Philips 40in 4K & Benq 23in; Surface Pro 4 i5; iPad Pro 11"

Favourite word: Aha. For me and for others.

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Hey all, just updating you with a new tutorial: HDR from one exposure

The list in the first post has been updated too. This video looks at taking advantage of Photo's 32-bit unbounded colour format to tone map a single RAW image and make the most of its dynamic range. Hope you find it useful!

Quote

The talking head video question is something I still fret about with my InAfffinity videos. I used it because many other successful channels also do so, but wonder a bit if it's helpful. I hope it gives a more personal connection. A big question is the size and scale of the frame for this as it necessarily obscures some of the window. The bottom left does seem best for this as it covers less key stuff in APh. I do wonder if the Serif videos might use a little less space. At least the right part of the image, which is showing just brick wall, could be clipped. Another thought: James is facing to the left, out of the picture and so directing gaze away from the main screen. Would it make more sense to guide the eyes into the video by facing to the right?

Hi Dave, I can definitely say that it makes a big difference. I think people naturally engage more if they see the person presenting, but I believe it benefits the presenter equally. When you're constantly on camera, it becomes more of a performance and you have to engage with what you're saying. It makes the speech and flow more natural because it's as if you are presenting to someone rather than at them—that's what I've found anyway :) It also encourages a single take process, as opposed to having the crutch of being able to edit the video afterwards. With the exception of a couple of videos (e.g. noise reduction stacking where creating the stack takes some time) the Photo videos are all done live (including the fade in/out) and it's something I'm keen to continue. It is quite challenging however!

The whole one take, live studio concept is still relatively fresh so I'm evolving things as I go. Thank you for your suggestion of cropping, I may well give that a go. Regarding swapping the iMac direction, some videos actually put the picture-in-picture in the Navigator panel area so there would always be an issue of which way the presenter is facing.

Quote

An apology, comment and question: Sorry about this, but... The staging and style that James is using reminds me of Unmesh Dinda on his YouTube PixImperfect channel. Am I imagining things?

I'm aware of Unmesh, he's great. The whole studio concept came about from watching a variety of teaching channels. There are some consistent themes between them all like having a studio "set" and using picture-in-picture. We wanted a live environment where the presenter could mix on-the-go and have a video file at the end which can be uploaded straight away, so everything is tailored around that approach. Colour grading for the camera, audio EQ and compression, fading in and fading out—these are all applied in real time as opposed to part of an editing process. In terms of presentation style, I believe I'm a bit dry compared to Unmesh, he's a very lively character ;)

Product Expert (Affinity Photo) & Product Expert Team Leader

@JamesR_Affinity for tutorial sneak peeks and more
Official Affinity Photo tutorials

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I think that James' official Affinity tutorials and Dave's InAffinity tutorials are superb. I liked having a face to connect with James' amazing voice that lends such an air of authority to his presentations. I also liked seeing the man who had so much initiative, energy, and dedication to produce so many great InAffinity tutorials on his own time. Both of you have been invaluable to me.

That being said, I must submit this plea for removing the talking head picture-in-picture effects that are evolving into talking whole body effects.

In this Age of the Selfie and our hey-look-at-me culture, it was inevitable that the narrators of tutorials would think it necessary to become more ever more visible. But this is the opposite to what happened with live presentations where presenters became less visible during a talk. Decades ago I had to be front and center at my presentations to work the overhead projector. Laptops and video projectors made it possible to work at a lectern at the side of a stage or room. I rejoiced that no longer did I distract my audience with my appearance, my clothing, my fumbling with notes, or my laptop keyboarding.

If you think you need to be visible in each and every tutorial, then by all means introduce yourself at the beginning and say goodbye at the end. But please fade out completely during the tutorial itself and let us concentrate on the task at hand. 

If it helps you as presenter to have an audience, then you need a real audience. Invite a few people into the room during your recording session, as is done when TV shows are recorded for later broadcast.

Looking forward to the next tutorials from both James and Dave, with or without picture-in-picture.

Affinity Photo 2.4.1 (MSI) and 1.10.6; Affinity Publisher 2.4.1 (MSI) and 1.10.6. Windows 10 Home x64 version 22H2.
Dell XPS 8940, 16 GB Ram, Intel Core i7-11700K @ 3.60 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

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This one's for Dave Straker...

I am using a Mac, and I know you're on Windows, so that may explain the difference. Nevertheless, checking the "Reveal" box within the Crop tool's context toolbar does indeed reveal the canvas of a previously cropped photo. (Also, I assume that "Rasterize and Trim" has not been previously used.) This is what I get when I check, or un-check, that box on a photo that I had previously cropped:

232838541_RevealingPreviousCrop.thumb.jpg.7fe5bcbb2b2d702c9f4105ad1e6f00b1.jpg

Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2 (latest retail versions) - desktop & iPad
Culling - FastRawViewer; Raw Developer - Capture One Pro; Asset Management - Photo Supreme
Mac Studio with M2 Max (2023}; 64 GB RAM; macOS 13 (Ventura); Mac Studio Display - iPad Air 4th Gen; iPadOS 17

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I, for one, am happy as a clam about the new videos.  And since I am neither qualified, nor there, to make them instead, I think I will just be extraordinarily grateful that Affinity and James have made these for us.  I think that the most important change from the previous videos is the greater depth of detail and the reduced speed with which the topic is presented.  Whipping between an off-screen tool, to an off-screen menu, and then flashing to a nanosecond at the layers panel in the old videos made it hard to grasp what was supposed to be happening before we reached the slider stage.  There was always that "Ah HAH! This is grand!" at the end, but how in the world did we get there?   Please James, just keep them coming, and to use a very old -- WWII era --  British army saying (I am female and neither British nor army) "Don't let the B****rds grind you down."   


24" iMAC Apple M1 chip, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16 GB unified memory, 1 TB SSD storage, Ventura 13.6.  Photo, Publisher, Designer 1.10.5, and 2.3.
MacBook Pro 13" 2020, Apple M1 chip, 16GB unified memory, 256GB  SSD storage
,  Ventura 13.6.   Publisher, Photo, Designer 1.10.5, and 2.1.1.  
 iPad Pro 12.9 2020 (4th Gen. IOS 16.6.1); Apple pencil.  
Wired and bluetooth mice and keyboards.9_9

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On 6/13/2019 at 8:22 AM, James Ritson said:

Hey all, just updating you with a new tutorial: HDR from one exposure

The list in the first post has been updated too. This video looks at taking advantage of Photo's 32-bit unbounded colour format to tone map a single RAW image and make the most of its dynamic range. Hope you find it useful!

Hi Dave, I can definitely say that it makes a big difference. I think people naturally engage more if they see the person presenting, but I believe it benefits the presenter equally. When you're constantly on camera, it becomes more of a performance and you have to engage with what you're saying. It makes the speech and flow more natural because it's as if you are presenting to someone rather than at them—that's what I've found anyway :) It also encourages a single take process, as opposed to having the crutch of being able to edit the video afterwards. With the exception of a couple of videos (e.g. noise reduction stacking where creating the stack takes some time) the Photo videos are all done live (including the fade in/out) and it's something I'm keen to continue. It is quite challenging however!

The whole one take, live studio concept is still relatively fresh so I'm evolving things as I go. Thank you for your suggestion of cropping, I may well give that a go. Regarding swapping the iMac direction, some videos actually put the picture-in-picture in the Navigator panel area so there would always be an issue of which way the presenter is facing.

I'm aware of Unmesh, he's great. The whole studio concept came about from watching a variety of teaching channels. There are some consistent themes between them all like having a studio "set" and using picture-in-picture. We wanted a live environment where the presenter could mix on-the-go and have a video file at the end which can be uploaded straight away, so everything is tailored around that approach. Colour grading for the camera, audio EQ and compression, fading in and fading out—these are all applied in real time as opposed to part of an editing process. In terms of presentation style, I believe I'm a bit dry compared to Unmesh, he's a very lively character ;)

Unmesh has settled down into an engaging style. He used to come over as patronising which I suspect was based in uncertainty and trying too hard.

It took me a while but I think I'm more relaxed now. The single take is certainly more challenging. Sometimes I have to redo it half a dozen times. I also edit for clicks, ums etc in sound spaces, add clarifying text and zoom in (including cropping out my head to get closer).

Dave Straker

Cameras: Sony A7R2, RX100V

Computers: Win10: Chillblast i9 Custom + Philips 40in 4K & Benq 23in; Surface Pro 4 i5; iPad Pro 11"

Favourite word: Aha. For me and for others.

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James,

Thanks for these new tutorials.

I find that I'm still not clear what I should do in the Develop persona that could also be done later in the Photo persona, as there is considerable overlap between the tools provided in the former and the more basic adjustment and live filter layers in the latter.

For a time I was just concentrating on flattening the image, having opened the RAW file without applying curves, e.g. pushing the black point a bit away from the left edge of the histogram, pushing the midtones toward the center, and recovering highlights, opening up shadows, etc.  Sharpening, clarifying, increasing contrast, etc.could be done in the Photo persona, after all.  But then I discovered haze removal.  It requires a pixel layer to work on, so it seemed to make sense to do some of the things in the Develop persona that I had intended to do later.  So now I am thinking that I should perhaps do some sharpening and perhaps introduce a curve during development.

I would find a tutorial on the theme, what should I consider doing in the Develop persona and what might I want to postpone for later, extremely helpful.

Richard Liu

MacBook Pro 16" 2021 M1 Max | macOS 12.3.1 | BenQ SW271 | Affinity Photo 1.10.5

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Please excuse me if macOS File Extension, iCloud Photos integration topic addressed prior to this post.  I did search prior to post, could not locate the topic. By accident, I was searching Mac Store for a File Extension that would allow me to edit my iCloud Photos.  I decided the best approach was to open Photos, edit and see if there were any extensions or info addressing the issue.  I found that macOS Mojave/Affinity Photos has the edit function built-in Photo App.

Please ignore if you are "knowledgeable" on this; however, as I wasn't, other's may not.  I will attach a screen capture from macOS Photos app, edit , click ... and Affinity Photo edit functions appear.  They do not open AP, edits are made, within the Photos app, except last option, Edit in Affinity Photo.  Added bonus, in iCloud Photos, you can revert back to original photo.

34277733_ScreenShot2019-06-16at12_14_16PM.thumb.png.00fa9497d9b5b059f43be4ee635be271.png

Cecil 

iMac Retina 5K, 27”, 2019. 3.6 GHz Intel Core 9, 40 GB Memory DDR4, Radeon Pro 580X 8 GB, macOS,iPad Pro iPadOS

 

Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection 

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Hey all, just a quick update to say there are three new videos available to watch:

Blend ranges in particular should be quite helpful to people.

As always, hope you find them useful!

Product Expert (Affinity Photo) & Product Expert Team Leader

@JamesR_Affinity for tutorial sneak peeks and more
Official Affinity Photo tutorials

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9 hours ago, James Ritson said:

Hey all, just a quick update to say there are three new videos available to watch:

Blend ranges in particular should be quite helpful to people.

As always, hope you find them useful!

So nice to finally see the person behind many of the older Affinity videos!  Having said that, I tend to agree with an earlier poster that the picture in picture is a tad distracting and that an intro/outro would be less so. You have such a great voice for this; I swear I could listen to you read the dictionary and not get bored. Thanks for these VERY helpful vids!

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18 minutes ago, Pariah73 said:

I tend to agree with an earlier poster that the picture in picture is a tad distracting and that an intro/outro would be less so

I think it very useful to see what what James is doing on the keyboard as he shortcuts his way through a recipe.

Richard Liu

MacBook Pro 16" 2021 M1 Max | macOS 12.3.1 | BenQ SW271 | Affinity Photo 1.10.5

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You are an excellent presenter, @James Ritson :235_bee:

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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22 hours ago, James Ritson said:

Hey all, just a quick update to say there are three new videos available to watch:

Blend ranges in particular should be quite helpful to people.

As always, hope you find them useful!

As ever, excellent videos!  I do find the PIP "talking head" distracting though .  Looking at a control being applied and noticing the effect it has on the overall image is enough to take in, without trying to maintain some sort of virtual eye contact with James.   That said, I think the new intro / outro segments are a big improvement - they make the videos more personal and enhance the impression of being talked to rather than talked at.

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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James, I have the Sony FE 100-400 GM lens and followed your instructions re adding lens profiles from GitHub.  However this lens is not included.  I noted that it is included in Capture One Pro.  Do you know where they might have found the profile?

As well one can add Plugins in Capture One Pro and all three Affinity apps are included.  Are you working with them in any way?  The export can be done as tiff and PSD. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/3/2019 at 8:19 PM, chevallm said:

… there’s no way to download the new videos …

(Technically … I say, technically … there are online solutions for downloading any video from services like Youtube. Just saying. Not implying that this would not infringe copyright or whatever. :))

But I would agree. Not everyone on the planet lives an area with broadband access. So I believe it would make sense to offer the option of downloading the tutorials.

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The YouTube videos are what they call Legacy, so they're the old ones and those are easy to download. I have all of them, mostly downloaded from Vimeo when they were still on it. There was a download button. So that was quite easy. But the new videos are NOT on YouTube as fas as I understand. So, how can they be downloaded? I repeat, not everyone can access reliable broadband, so it's much easier to have the videos on your system. Yiou're sure you can access them anytime and anywhere. Come on, James, ask the techs to add a download button to the videos so we can enjoy your great tutorials more easily...

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What the videos need is a searchable index, not only by subject.  I quite often remember what photos James used to illustrate a technique, but not what he called it.

Richard Liu

MacBook Pro 16" 2021 M1 Max | macOS 12.3.1 | BenQ SW271 | Affinity Photo 1.10.5

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@JamesRitson

The tutorial videos are excellent. Really well done.

I have a question about the Inpainting one. You remove the right-hand bird but not the wire it's sitting on, despite some of the wire being covered by the bird.

Is that an effect of the non-destructive layer method, or does inpainting create bits of image that aren't there in the original?

Edited by Wireman
inpainting autocorrected to ... "pinpointing".
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What I value about @James Ritson's tutorials:  They're short, focused, and get right to the point.  No introductory music, no self promotions, no solicitation for clicks.  Even the 1.6 tutorials' introductory "Welcome to Affinity Photo" has been dispensed with in those for 1.7.  And, as @LILOUBAE's post makes clear, the photos on which the techniques are illustrated are well chosen, seem to be unique for each tutorial, and remain in the mind's eye long after the recipe has vanished from short-term memory.  Thumbnails of the photos used in a tutorial would therefore be a brilliant addition to the index in the first post in this thread.  https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/tutorials/photo/desktop/ goes in that direction.

 

Richard Liu

MacBook Pro 16" 2021 M1 Max | macOS 12.3.1 | BenQ SW271 | Affinity Photo 1.10.5

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