Using Downloaded Presets

[BluesImprov]

I am relatively new to editing photos.  I just downloaded a set of "presets" to be used with Affinity Photo.  I am currently using Affinity Photo 1.7.2.  I have unzipped the files (there are 9 of them) which are now in separate folders in the "Downloads" section on my computer (Windows 10).  I have no idea how to get these presets into Affinity Photo so that I can use them in my editing process.  Can anyone tell me what steps I should take next to make this happen?  Any help with this would be most appreciated as I did pay for these presets and I really want to begin working with them.  Thanks very much!

[emmrecs01]

@BluesImprov

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

What type of presets are these and where, exactly did you purchase/download them from?  Depending on the type of preset you have, the method of importing them to APh is likely to be different.

Jeff

[BluesImprov]

Hi!  Thanks for responding to my question. . .I purchased and downloaded these presets from a website called PhotoWhoa.com. . .The product vendor is called MegaPresets and the product I purchased was the "Affinity Photo Presets Bundle".  This company offers presets for both Photoshop and Affinity.  Being new to this I'm not sure what "type" these presets would be.  This bundle includes presets for various subjects as well as black and white.  I'm becoming comfortable with the various editing programs I've been learning and using, but I've never tried something like imported presets with Affinity.  On my old computer I was using Photoshop Elements and a few Photoshop plug-ins without any problem.  But I've never imported anything like that to Affinity.  Just not sure how to go about adding them.  Again, thanks for responding, and any help you could offer would be much appreciated.  Some of the work I did using the Photoshop plug-ins with my old computer can be viewed at www.thephotoartloft.com.

[smadell]

If you look carefully at the PhotoWhoa site, you should notice that all of the presets are described as an "Affinity Presets LUTS Collection." This pretty much defines how you'll end up using them.

Affinity Photo can use "color lookup tables" (otherwise known as CLUT's or LUT's) and these are fairly commonly used to "color grade" images or video. Basically, if you start with an image and then alter it with one or more Adjustment layers, you can then choose "Export LUT..." to form an external file that encapsulates all of the adjustments you made. Basically, a color lookup table is simply that - it lets you start with a bunch of pixels (your photograph) in which each pixel has a defined color, then the LUT changes each of the colors to a pre-defined "other" color according to the entries in the lookup table. It's a simple substitution scheme, which goes something like "wherever there's a pixel with this color [R255,G0,B0] put in a something else, like [R240,G100,B100]." And, it does that for each triplet combination of Red, Green, and Blue in your photo.

The up side to using a LUT is that it is simple, and boils down to an all-in-one color grade change. The down side is that the LUT does not add the component Adjustment Layers, so you can't really tweak the components afterward (except by adding more adjustments and filters, etc.)

To use your MegaPresets files, simply put the collection of folders somewhere convenient. I'm not from the Windows side, but I don't think there's a specific place they need to be. Once you have a photo in Affinity Photo, add an adjustment layer by choosing "LUT..." from the Layer>New Adjustment Layer submenu, or by choosing it from the icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. The LUT dialog box will open.

Click on the button called "Load LUT" and you will be able to navigate to the folder(s) containing your presents. Choose the one you like. Your photo will have one extra adjustment layer, labelled LUT, and the color lookup changes dictated by the LUT file will have been applied. (You may want to change Blend Modes, opacity, and so forth on the LUT adjustment layer to further refine the color grading.

[BluesImprov]

Wow!  Thank you so much for giving me such a detailed explanation.  This is the information I needed and you made it very clear and understandable.  I wasn't sure what kind of a response I'd get here to my question, but now I know. . .A very thorough and helpful response to be sure. . .Thanks again for taking the time to help me!

[Doug M]

I have 5000 affinity presets unzipped in separate folders by category, all .cube files. Is there a way to import all of them into affinity at once without having to do them one by one? Windows 10 x64 system, affinity v1.9.2

[walt.farrell]

11 minutes ago, Doug M said:

I have 5000 affinity presets unzipped in separate folders by category, all .cube files. Is there a way to import all of them into affinity at once without having to do them one by one? Windows 10 x64 system, affinity v1.9.2

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Look in the Adjustments panel, Lists category, and click on the gear icon. One of the import options there should let you import a folder of .cube files.

I would suggest just installing 1 set of them to start, and playing with the interface awhile before installing all of them.

[Luna87]

I downloaded 20 presets from etsy that are compatible with Affinity Photo and other photo editing software. Downloaded in a zipfile after purchase. 20 are in a cube file and 20 are in a affinity photo file type. I'm having trouble with it. I go to Adjustments > LUT > gear > Import , find my downloads and when I click on the file name to import a preset no items come up in that file. I have multiple tabs open simply explaining using downloaded presets but it's just not working on my side. please help!

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

You'll need to unzip the file before you can import the .cube files it contains.