Posts by ldina

Incredible program! I love having all the tools in one single Application...vector, pixel, layout, scripting, etc. It's getting better all the time and Affinity has added bug fixes and new capabilities at an accelerated pace over the last year (once they got past the Affinity/Canva consolidation).

I didn't like working with Illustrator (it's powerful, but complicated, unintuitive and frustrating, at least for me), but Affinity's vector studio has opened up a whole new world of design. The fact that I can so easily mix vector and pixel based work is a real plus, and I like that it uses a common interface in all the studios. Many features we can learn once, and more often than not they work across studios.

There are still some missing features, shortcomings and bugs, but the gap is closing. For most of the work I do, it's great.

Quote from Framon

it looks as though this dove’s feet aren’t touching the ground.

True...the original illustration (without a background) had feet and legs that were overly prominent. What I did in this scene was to add a mask layer and partially erase the feet, so they looked like they were half buried in the pine straw. I probably overdid it, but it needed toning down. I'll review it and probably make some tweaks. Thanks.

EDIT: I made the feet and legs a bit more prominent by editing the previous mask. In the straight illustration, (without a background), they looked good, but in this composition they were too stark and needed some toning down.

Mourning Dove (illustration) on a photographic background (photo taken in our back yard). We see a lot of these beautiful birds near our bird feeders and they have so many gorgeous, soft, subtle colors. They also make mellow, cooing sounds, which are unlike any other birds we have heard.

The Illustration of the Mourning Dove was done in Affinity v3.3, using a lot of vectors initially, on top of which I did quite a bit of pixel painting and smudging to help blend those subtle breast, head and neck colors, add fine feathers, etc. Lighting was adjusted on both the bird and the background, and shadows were added below the Dove to 'ground' it into the setting so it looked more natural.

Hope you like it.

Go to Settings > User Interface. Pick your UI Style (Dark, Light, Default OS), then play around with the sliders to to improve visibility. I'm using Dark UI mode and the settings below give me very good visibility on my Mac.

The Hue Range Mask is mostly pure white or black for fully targeted and fully non-targeted colors (i.e., between the two "inner" circles on the Hue wheel). If you move the outer circles of the Hue wheel away from its closest inner circle, you introduce a feathered gradient effect, which adds shades of gray between the outer and inner circle. The Hue Range Blur Radius introduces a blur (shades of gray) along hard edges to soften the transition.

Quote from User_0815

I thought I could dial down the hue range mask. (Make the black parts of the mask grey.) But there doesn't seem to be a direct way simliar to the luminosity range mask.

As far as I know, you can't really adjust ANY Mask, even a hand-painted mask, by dialing down the Mask's Layer opacity. You can add a Levels, Curves or Channel Mixer Adjustment as a 'child layer' to your Mask, set it to the Alpha Channel, then you can adjust feathered edges of the mask (if your original mask had some shades of gray already, e.g., by painting on the mask with a soft edged brush).

The luminosity range mask was designed purposely to allow the user to generate a smooth, gradual gradient between black and white when creating the mask, so it typically has a LOT of gray tones. In this case, a Levels or Curves child layer targeting the Alpha channel will give you a lot of control, since it is changing the alpha of all those gray shades.

Changing the Layer Opacity of a Mask actually adjusts the opacity of the parent layer, not the mask. So, if you add an Exposure Adjustment Layer and a mask, adjusting the mask's opacity is actually just adjusting the opacity of the parent Exposure layer.

User_0815 Are you applying the Hue Range Mask directly to a pixel or image layer? You probably know this, but Masks in Affinity are usually ON or OFF, so the opacity slider doesn't do anything when used on a mask layer. Instead, the mask relies on black, white and shades of gray in the mask itself to control opacity.

I usually use a Hue Range or Luminosity Mask on an Adjustment Layer or Live Filter layer. In the below example, I reduced the Saturation of the HSL Adjustment Layer to -40%, which lowered the saturation overall. This had the effect I wanted on the Greens, but left the rest of the image way too desaturated. So, I added a Hue Saturation Mask to the HSL Layer and targeted the greens to limit the effect to them, leaving the rest of the image at the original saturation level (i.e., before adding an HSL Layer).

While I sometimes use Hue Saturation Masks, I often prefer just to use HSL Adjustment Layers and target the specific hue range I want to adjust. It also allows me to adjust the luminance and gives me a lot of control. I'm a big fan of HSL Adjustment Layers. When using it, I set saturation to Max or Min on the slider, then tweak the Hue range I want to adjust, which makes it pretty obvious what is selected. Then I can adjust the Hue, Saturation and Luminance as desired. Hope this is helpful.

Quote from Zedster

I never set the colour format to RGB/32, so how did it get there?

That is curious. If you didn't change the Develop Assistant to open files in 32 bit, there is another way a 16 bit file can become 32 bit.

Document > Setup > Convert Format/ICC Profile allows you to convert a file to another color mode (Lab, CMYK, RGB/32, Gray/8, etc) and/or ICC profile. I sometimes use this to take a 16 bit file into 32 bit HDR mode, where I can take an SDR image to HDR and expand the dynamic range. But, you'd have to choose RGB/32 bit first and only then would 32 bit linear profiles be available to choose. I can't see how a file would inadvertently end up as 32 bit, but perhaps there is some software glitch going from AfPhoto v2 to Affinity v3. I've never experienced that issue myself.

At any rate, you will be on the lookout for 32 bit if you experience any similar problems. If you figure out how your file landed in 32 bit space, please let us know.

DAPMacro Thanks for the explanation.

Focus merging a 'moving target' would definitely be a challenge! Most of the ghosting I have seen with focus merging involves specular reflections and very bright highlights, especially highlights that are out of focus in some of the frames. Other than that, Affinity's focus merge does a good job.

I don't own a "slider" to move the camera back and forth, so when I use a tripod, I manually adjust the focus ring on the lens. I do this using the Live View on my camera's LCD with it set to 10X magnification, so I can focus precisely on what I want to be sharply focused in each exposure. This enables me to get a series of exposures that provide sharpness from front to back. This works great for perfectly stationary subjects, but maybe not so well with a cut flower that may be wilting or moving slightly.

I'm not sure what your 'blank screen' is about, unless it was due to Hardware Acceleration.

Zedster It looks like Bruce hit the nail on the head regarding the 32 bit files. Glad you at least have found the probable cause.

32-bit files are 'linear' and have tone curves that are dramatically different from 8/16 bit files. If you start with a 32 bit file, add adjustment layers (e.g., Curves, Levels, HSL, etc), live filters, etc, your image looks good. Those Adjustments and Live Filters are applied using the 32 bit linear tone curve, so if you then convert that file to 8/16 bit, those adjustments and filters will not translate properly. It completely whacks the file.

If you "flatten" your 32 bit file first, or add a rasterized version of your composite image at the top of your layer stack, you can then convert from 32 bit Linear to to 8/16 bit (which has a different tone curve) and the file should look the same, since you are just converting a pixel based layer, not adjustments and Live filters.

It's best to avoid 32 bit linear files unless you are doing HDR work. If you do open a 32 bit file and discover you really wanted 16 bit, you can start from scratch with your RAW file and develop to 16 bit. The other alternative is to make your first edit a conversion from 32 to 8/16 bit before adding a lot of edits (or, flatten/add a composite layer, as mentioned in the previous paragraph). It gets complicated and I haven't done much HDR for a while, so I'd need to dig back in to provide more details.

Hope this helps.

By the way, that is a gorgeous image of the tulip…beautiful!

Quote from DAPMacro

Now all I have to do is work out how to turn off the acceleration.

DAPMacro Hopefully, you found how to turn Acceleration OFF. If not, it is in Settings > Performance. You'll probably need to restart Affinity.

I'm a bit curious as to your procedure. I've done some focus merging and haven't found it necessary to do what you are doing in Step 4. I'm not criticizing your approach, but I'm not sure how it helps. Perhaps due to wind outdoors? Again, I'm just curious.

I have found that I need to maintain the same camera-to-subject angle of view when shooting. If I move the camera to the left or right, I get a different view of the subject, which I've found doesn't work well with focus merging, making it difficult or impossible for Affinity to properly align the images.

I just shot a series of 14 RAW images, handheld, using a subject that would make poor focus merging pretty obvious. My camera was set to Manual Mode, 1/160s, f8, ISO 1600. I did my best to maintain a steady camera position, but I'm sure there was movement during capture. I set the camera to continuous firing mode and adjusted my lens focus manually very slowly while shooting. This gave me a series of different focus points.

The only thing I did was set the White balance the same for all shots. (I developed the first Image from RAW, set the WB, then when focus merging, I selected "Previous Parameters", which applied this custom WB to all frames.) Then I ran the focus Merge on all 14 images. I found that Affinity aligned the images perfectly and compensated for slightly different sized images (due to focus breathing?). I didn't do any touchup from the Sources Panel. I didn't do any additional processing at all after the focus merge was complete. I exported to JPG, 85% Quality, 1600 px on the long side, and this was my result.

Quote from JimCricket

I know how to use batch. That's precisely where I lost hours of work when I assumed the macro would work just fine and it screwed up 200 files. (And please don't lecture me about saving in another folder.)

Lecture? Just offering suggestions. There's no way we can know how much you know or how advanced you are, and it's clear you've been having some issues, so I'm just trying to offer help. You don't "need" a macro to do what you proposed to do in your first post.

I'll sign off on this discussion now. Good luck.

JimCricket If you have a bunch of images on your hard drive that you wish to resize to the same width (or height), you can use a Batch Process to do that quickly and painlessly in the background. It's very fast.

File > New Image Process > Batch

Add the files you want to process in the left pane.

To the right, select the file format(s) you want to export to. Make sure the "A" box is checked to preserve the Aspect Ratio (no stretching or deformation). In the below example, I entered 3000 pixels in the Width box and left the Height blank, so Affinity will automatically calculate the height to preserve the current aspect ratio.

Clicking the "..." opens up export options. I chose JPEG, so it shows JPG options for resampling, color profile, Quality, etc. You can also apply saved macros if you wish, like converting to sRGB, etc.

When you click OK, it will very quickly process all of the photos you added to the left side in the Sources Panel. I'd choose to Save the output to a new File Folder to avoid overwriting existing files.

Quote from R C-R

That did not work for me -- it ignored the chain button setting in the Transform panel (if that is what you mean by the resize dialog window) & distorted the test files I tried it with.

Worked perfect here...I just opened a file and tried it again.

Maybe when Affinity applies the macro, it uses whatever your Resize Default was initially set to? My default Resize window is set with the Chain icon toggled ON and the Resample box checked. Try doing that first and see if the macro works right. BTW, the below settings are exactly what I used when creating the Macro for JimCricket and Affinity "should" remember these settings in the macro. If not, I suspect it's a bug.

EDIT: The Macro works perfectly on my Mac M4, Tahoe, no matter what I do. I get a perfect Resizing every time, with original proportions retained. Maybe it's an O/S issue with Windows or Mac Catalina?? If so, please report as a bug.

Okay... if 16 images printed properly, it doesn't appear that Affinity v3 is the problem, at least that is what is suggests. That seems to narrow it down to the few files that don't print properly. If you are willing (you may not be), upload a link to the images that don't print properly and perhaps someone on the forum will find a problem with the image, layer stack, or whatever. The files will probably be way too large to upload directly, so Zip them and stick them in Dropbox, a Cloud drive, etc. That's all I can suggest at this point.

I just printed a JPG image from v3.3 to my Canon Pro-100 printer and it printed perfectly.

It works just fine on Mac. So, it's either a Windows Only issue (doubtful, otherwise there would be a loud clamor), or some of your printer settings are different in v3 than they are in v2. I'm betting on your settings. Unfortunately, the Windows print system, dialog windows and settings are different from Mac, so I can't help with that.

Look closely at EVERY dialog window and setting in v2, if that is working properly. Then, make sure v3 is set up identically.

Read Help on how to import an individual macro.

The Resize Macro you uploaded has only one command...document properties.

I opened a JPG file that was 1056 x 1600 pixels (vertical), selected the image, then ran your macro. It resized the image to 3000 x 2964 pixels, but it stretched the image, changing the aspect ratio and resulted in a distorted image.

Your first post says you want 250 dpi and 3000 pixels. Is that 3000 pixels on the long side or the short side. I assume it is the longer side of a rectangular image. You may need separate macros for Portrait and Landscape orientations. Here's one for Portrait (i.e., vertical) images. In the resize dialog window, make sure the little "chain icon" between width and height is toggled on. That will keep the aspect ratio the same.

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Quote from JimCricket

maybe you can tell me how to post it here

Compress into a ZIP file to upload it. Users can then download the ZIP file and UN-zip it to access your file.

Quote from tinyjames

... I can only dream of one day being this good

You can be!

Mostly, it comes down to time, attention to detail, a reasonably good command of Affinity tools & techniques, and practice. There are many ways to achieve similar results, so it's not that one tool or technique is "the only way" or even "the best way." I have many illustrations that were done in different ways, using different tools in a different order. I often have to "tweak" things to get the effect I am after (adjusting opacity, Layer Blend Modes, Curves, HSL, FX, or whatever, so there is often a lot of 'iteration' going on.)

I posted a tutorial a while back that may help outline some helpful steps...

Thread

Creating Realistic Vector Illustrations

I've been asked a few times to provide some guidance on how I create vector illustrations that look lifelike and almost photographic in Affinity. Many of these illustrations take hours, and sometimes a few days, so it is nearly impossible to explain everything, because what I do evolves as the illustration progresses. However, there are some tips and approaches I can offer, at least as a starting point, which is what I am hoping to do here. There are many approaches, but this is one I use…

ldina

May 13, 2026 at 8:20 PM

stuartRc  komatös Thank you both. Yes, a lot of time and attention to small details...those details and transitions are what make a big difference. Good command of Affinity's tools helps. I appreciate the kind comments. 😁