see also:

• image editing software
• Affinity Photo portrait retouching
• Affinity Photo website
• Affinity Photo tutorials for desktop version
• Affinity Photo instructions on installing brushes, etc
• borrow color gradings from another image
• Removing complex backgrounds
• Perfect selections
• Selecting objects using the brush selection tool and Alt to exclude parts
• Select subject, Blur background and add directional light
• Photomanipulation tutorial
• Using blend range to create dramatic clouds and God rays
• Using LUTs to make a title background, and using blended LUTs or gradient LUTs
• Add falling snow by creating a "snow brush", paint 3 layers of snow with varying levels of Gaussian and motion blur
• Optimise for Instagram
  • make sure you convert your jpeg to sRGB 8bit
  • set your user interface to white background via Preferences adjust gray background to 100% so you can visualise your image as it will be seen on IG
  • increase brightness, brightness contrast, saturation, vibrance and warmth (via Lens Filter)
  • increase sharpness by using High Pass filter, adjust so you see some details, then choose blend mode Overlay
  • resize to 1080×1350 to prevent IG down-sizing
• Using Capture One Pro and Affinity Photo to create great architectural imagery
• Using the asset manager to store vector shapes, texture files, lens flare images, etc
  • PSDBox free images including lens flare, textures

• Affinity Photo is an image editing software designed to replace most of your Photoshop needs without having to pay an ongoing subscription
• it has a number of advantages over Photoshop such as:
  • no ongoing subscription
  • built in RAW editor
  • Live preview of drop down effects and brush effects before they are applied
  • Live preview of gradients and able to edit these at a later stage
  • far easier object dragging - no need to go through the cumbersome process of converting to smart objects
  • ability to go to full screen mode
• it has many advantages over Lightroom:
  • no ongoing subscription
  • no need to import photos to edit - can drag and drop from Explorer
  • avoid changing the original file by select Save As instead of Save, and the default is an AffinityPhoto file format which keeps all your layers and the original file intact for future editing ¹⁾
  • 32-bit HDR workflows and far more control over HDR tone mapping
  • PS-like editing tools
    • compositing (including AffinityPhoto files as embedded documents) ²⁾ and drawing tools
    • layers³⁾ and masking⁴⁾
    • frequency separation for smoothing skin more naturally
    • liquefy effects
    • channel swapping for color infrared images - new adjustment layer - channel mixing - change red and blue channels ⁵⁾

• Understanding the Unsharp Mask filter
• Youtube tutorial - sharpening techniques in Affinity
  • Unsharp Mask
  • High Pass Filter
  • Clarity Filter
  • Tone Mapping Persona's Detail Enhancer and Local Contrast settings
  • Live Bilateral Blur Filter minimises halos - requires 3 layers with two being grouped

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCtJNmPKELo

• add sun ray light beams and ground fog in a forest
  • select highlights, create a layer for the highlight selection using Ctrl-J then de-select using Ctrl-D
  • add a Zoom Blur with radius 700px, move source point then apply.
  • intensify effect my making multiple duplications of the layer and then group them.
  • optionally re-align and resize the effect by using the Move tool
  • rasterise the group
  • set blend mode to Screen and set blend range Out to 50%.
  • Add Gaussian blur to bottom of rays by Add Live Filter Gaussian Blur (around 4px) then add a Gradient with white near the bottom and change the gray dot to black via the Color picker at top right.
  • Add hazy fog effect by adding a Curves layer, raise the black point to half way up and add a vertical gradient so this leaves a layer of fog at the bottom only.
  • Add texture to the fog, by creating a new pixel layer, add a Perlin noise filter and set the blend mode to Overlay and optionally add a gradient mask to it.
  • Add cyan darkening to trees in shadows by adding a curves layer and bring up blacks by 5% and in the red channel, also bring up the blacks 5%.
  • Finally, tweak the effect by adjusting the opacity of the layers.