I agree, Affinity Photo is very much on a par with Photoshop to learn. I even said so much in this article I published lenscraft.co.uk/photo-editing-tutorials/is-affinity-photo-easy-to-use/. Some aspects are easier but it definitely doesn't lead you by the hand.
I'm following the course. Excellent tutorial skills but I am pausing/rewinding quite a bit so a little slower would be good for me. (appreciate this is often an issue with teaching to large groups) Many thanks
OK, I should probably appologise. If you are finding yourself pausing and reviewing the video then it's working as it was designed to. When I slow the delivery people find it easy to watch but they don't take it in. When I use a slightly faster pace and pack in the information so they need to pause and repeat sections, they take it in. I hope you don't mind that I've subjected you to this; it's for your own good. 😇
Thank you for the tutorials! I have just started the trial version of Affinity Photo 2 and so far I like it a lot! I was looking for an alternative to Photoshop as I have an older Mac and used to use CS5, but updated to Catalina, but nothing will install because of the older GPU (I don't have the metal graphics that are needed). I can't afford a new computer right now. As I researched there was GIMP and Affinity Photo. Both are pretty good, but I am enjoying Affinity Photo, even if it's a little laggy, probably because of my older computer. Thanks again!
Robin, these videos are great. There's another Englishman, "Mydoodads" that has great videos on how to set up my Synology NAS. That trait must come in the English tea! I note several numerical lessons covering Affinity but some of yours seem to be one type of "lesson XX" and another with the same number. Where's the best place to start? I note that one type appears to be non-destructive vs destructive. Maybe I'm goofed up. Once I get on track, I think that TH-cam will let me "buy you a cup of coffee" which I will gladly do! Thanks for your help!
Glad they are helping. The best place to start is with the playlist th-cam.com/play/PLUyadHduIq2f6YMErTU9_P5CIDIo15yq1.html which is my Affinity Beginners group. It includes all the lessons in this current series and a few others. If you go the the playlist you will be able to see the numbered videos and they all have a similar thumbnail (not identical though). DOn;t worry about buying me a cup of tea though. I don;t think I have that feature turn on. If you want to make a contribution, buy one of my Affinity Photo books from my shop.
Thank you Robin! Very useful as always. Just to confirm that I understand this correctly: by previously selecting pixels based on a sample colour the mask that you then paint on the adjustment layer will only affect the selected pixels, is that right? Does this mean that the mask does not necessarily be precise because it will only affect selected pixels anyway? Thank you!
@@RobinWhalley Thank you Robin for your answer! I see your point about the mask being precise. What I wanted to say is that the brush strokes, when you paint in the mask, do not need to be precise because only pixels previously selected by color can be affected by the mask, but let me ask again on the basis of an example. Let's suppose you have an image the upper part of which is pure red and the lower part of which is pure green, and now you select only the red pixels. If you then want to mask only the upper (red) part of the image I understand that it does not really matter if (by accident) you also brush over the lower (green) part of the image because the adjustment would only affect that part of the mask which covers the red pixels but not the green pixels. Is that right? (That's what I meant with saying that the mask, or let's say the brush strokes, does not need to be precise.)
I didn't understand anything on my first attempt to follow. After a few days I tried again but I got lost at the end with spare channels and adjustments. For some reason when I selected the red channel , my photo turned black and white and I could not restored the colours.
@RobinWhalley Hi sorry for saying such harsh words, this was all from frustration, I know how much work goes into producing a video. Yes, I have seen all the previous videos and they all are easy to follow and helpful. But this one, my Affinity version, does seams different and I could not find some of the sliders/icons (for example the one with picker for shades of grey) I watched parts of the video 5-6 times, trying to replicate what I think I see, and I didn't manage. I am planning to give it another go on few days time. If I manage , I will delete this message.
@@lilialang7983 Don't worry. And there's no need to delete the message. I'm asking the question because a lot of people jump into a specific topic but don't have the background to understand the material. As for your problem with the Greyscale picker, that's another quirk of Affinity. If you go to the Colour Studio Panel, there's a small dropdown to the top right. You can set this to different options like RGB, CMYK and Greyscale. Each option has a different layout in the panel. I once did a video about it and some other confusing things. This might be it th-cam.com/video/sQhpfgYM5SM/w-d-xo.html.
@@RobinWhalley Thank you for you support. There are quite many confusing things. I am impressed someone can learn and even teach the program! My admirations. I tried again and I followed again untill I got lost at the end with the spare channel. For some reason when I selected the red channel , my photo turned black and white and I could not restored the colours.
@@lilialang7983 I'm pleased you managed to progress further this time. Yes, when you select a colour channel in the Channels panel the image will turn black and white (there is an explanation as to why but don't worry about it). To reset the Panel and return to viewing the colour image click the small curved arrow to the top right of the panel, above the three colour channels.
Hello Robin. Today I've been watching your 'Power Up Your Affinity Photo' videos from Lesson 1 upwards, and the first three of them were absolutely superb. This was due to your slow, descriptive and understandable levels of instructions. However, in Lesson 4 you started to create rectangles for a truly non-understandable reason, and through your Lesson 5 video I was having to keep 'rewinding' areas to understand and learn. I'm now utterly lost on this video (No 6) from about 2:50. This is due to the speed and non-descriptive manner in which you are trying to teach. I thought your idea was to create videos for people who needed easily understandable instructions, such as beginners, not reminder-videos for people who may have been using the same or similar software for many years. Because of this, and the need to understand each lesson before watching the next one, I think I'm unable to follow your lessons, which is a shame, because your initial attempt was fantastic.
Thanks for the feedback. The reason for drawing the rectangles was to draw an area of black or grey on a white mask to illustrate how the mask works. I use rectangles rather than the paintbrush to make it easier to see the effect. Hope it doesn;t put you off the rest of the videos.
@@RobinWhalley Many thanks for replying to my 'post'. My main problem was the speed that you were teaching in Lesson number 6. It was so fast and so under-descriptive that the lesson wasn't understandable. I think I managed to get as far as 3 minutes into that lesson before I had to give up. I tried replaying it over and over again, but the lack of information and speed of progression for beginners like myself led to a frustrating end, that created a pointless reason to continue watching. I don't know why, but you seemed to swap the manner and speed in which you were teaching in the first few lessons. So it created a felling that it was no longer a series of lessons for beginners like myself, just for people who pretty much already understood the lessons you were speeding through, and just needed a refresher. Once again, many thanks to replying to my first 'post'.
I am new to Affinity and I have just bought Affinity Photo 2 - and I am struggling! I am following the 'Beginners' course and I'm playing with masking. Either I am completely thick or the techniques (like 'Select Colour Sampling') do no longer work for V2 ?! So far I find Affinity Photo 2 depressingly slow (loading Raw files take up to 20 seconds on an i9 processor (Win10, 16GB of memory), and clone and heal has quite lag), it is clumsy to use (e.g [ and ] to adjust the brush size ??) - | may need to spend a lot more time to get used to AP2! - help!
It sounds like yo may have problems with your installation. Colour sampling seelction does still work in Affinity Photo 2. The software is also extremely fast but I'm using a Mac (although it's 7 years old). As for using keyboard shortcuts like [ and ] for the brush size, you don't need to. There is a slider control for "width" displayed in the toolbar whenever you have any brush tool seelcted. The reason the keyboard shortcut is better is that you can move the brush over the subject whilst resizing it. A lot of software applications use the same keyboard shortcut. As for taking more time, yes. Affinity Photo is professional strength editing software and just like Photoshop takes a lot of time and practice to learn. In the begining it can be easy to miss a setting that makes you think that something isn't working.
@@RobinWhalley Thank you, Robin, for your reply, I really appreciate it. I have to figure out what is going on. I have a reasonably high specked PC (DELL Precision 3450, i9, 16GB, SSD, h/w acceleration enabled) but Affinity seams to hog a lot of memory (6GB with only 4 images open), the cooling fan starts spinning for most things to do with masking, cloning and healing have a lag of about 1+sec and something like smudging often shows "affinity not responding". I might have to get in touch with Affinity - I really want it to work. Best regards
@@RobinWhalley Firstly, these videos are excellent, so thank you so much! I am also new to Affinity and have just purchased Affinity Photo 2. I couldn't get colour sampling to work either, until I googled it and found out I needed to rasterise the layer first (it was just an ordinary raw file, which I developed and then moved into the Photo persona). It's also a bit more difficult to visualise what's going on (in terms of masking) with the adjustment layer in Affinity Photo 2 because it doesn't, by default, sit as a separate layer in the layer stack. Finally got there though!
I was tearing my hair out with the colour sampling technique, too. I discovered that you have to rasterise the layer before going on to any of the other steps. (Layer > rasterise...). Hopefully this will work for you, too.
@@scenebyemma I'm pleased that you sorted it out. It's always difficult for me to identify problems that people might be having when I can't see what they are doing or have access to the files they are using. Thanks for adding this as it may help others.
@@RobinWhalley well that’s your call, I’ve never seen anyone enjoy music when someone is giving a tutorial, it’s one of the most common complaints. Thanks but no thanks.
After watching this video, I can't help thinking how difficult Affinity photo can be to use. Just like photoshop.
I agree, Affinity Photo is very much on a par with Photoshop to learn. I even said so much in this article I published lenscraft.co.uk/photo-editing-tutorials/is-affinity-photo-easy-to-use/. Some aspects are easier but it definitely doesn't lead you by the hand.
Hello Mr. Robin :)
Thank You on more time for this incredible video with great content.
A big Hugs
Manuel
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you
Thanks so much for your clear explanations. Helpful Affinity photo editing series.
You're very welcome! I'm pleased you found it helpful.
I'm following the course. Excellent tutorial skills but I am pausing/rewinding quite a bit so a little slower would be good for me. (appreciate this is often an issue with teaching to large groups) Many thanks
OK, I should probably appologise. If you are finding yourself pausing and reviewing the video then it's working as it was designed to. When I slow the delivery people find it easy to watch but they don't take it in. When I use a slightly faster pace and pack in the information so they need to pause and repeat sections, they take it in. I hope you don't mind that I've subjected you to this; it's for your own good. 😇
Excellent video. I've learned so much from this. Thank you.👍 ☘
I'm pleased you liked it and that it's helped you.
Excellent turorial Robin - thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you.
Great series of videos, can't wait for lesson 7
Thanks, I'm glad you liked them. Here's the link to lesson 7 which is the final lesson th-cam.com/video/pGExhYpVpQg/w-d-xo.html. I hope you enjoy it.
Well explained Robin. Thank you Have subscribed.
Thank you and thanks for the sub.
Thank you for the tutorials! I have just started the trial version of Affinity Photo 2 and so far I like it a lot! I was looking for an alternative to Photoshop as I have an older Mac and used to use CS5, but updated to Catalina, but nothing will install because of the older GPU (I don't have the metal graphics that are needed). I can't afford a new computer right now. As I researched there was GIMP and Affinity Photo. Both are pretty good, but I am enjoying Affinity Photo, even if it's a little laggy, probably because of my older computer. Thanks again!
You are very welcome. I hope you find my other videos equally useful.
Great again. Thanks.
My pleasure!
Very useful, as always! Thx!
Glad to hear that! Thank you
Robin, these videos are great. There's another Englishman, "Mydoodads" that has great videos on how to set up my Synology NAS. That trait must come in the English tea! I note several numerical lessons covering Affinity but some of yours seem to be one type of "lesson XX" and another with the same number. Where's the best place to start? I note that one type appears to be non-destructive vs destructive. Maybe I'm goofed up. Once I get on track, I think that TH-cam will let me "buy you a cup of coffee" which I will gladly do! Thanks for your help!
Glad they are helping. The best place to start is with the playlist th-cam.com/play/PLUyadHduIq2f6YMErTU9_P5CIDIo15yq1.html which is my Affinity Beginners group. It includes all the lessons in this current series and a few others. If you go the the playlist you will be able to see the numbered videos and they all have a similar thumbnail (not identical though). DOn;t worry about buying me a cup of tea though. I don;t think I have that feature turn on. If you want to make a contribution, buy one of my Affinity Photo books from my shop.
Thank you for the tutorial. I will appreciate it more, if you could attach a basic picture so that we can train accordantly with you.
Unfortunately a lot of my images are placed with agencies for sale so I can't distribute them.
Thank you Robin! Very useful as always. Just to confirm that I understand this correctly: by previously selecting pixels based on a sample colour the mask that you then paint on the adjustment layer will only affect the selected pixels, is that right? Does this mean that the mask does not necessarily be precise because it will only affect selected pixels anyway? Thank you!
Yes, that's correct. The only point I would clarify is that the mask is precise because it's created from the selected colour.
@@RobinWhalley Thank you Robin for your answer! I see your point about the mask being precise. What I wanted to say is that the brush strokes, when you paint in the mask, do not need to be precise because only pixels previously selected by color can be affected by the mask, but let me ask again on the basis of an example. Let's suppose you have an image the upper part of which is pure red and the lower part of which is pure green, and now you select only the red pixels. If you then want to mask only the upper (red) part of the image I understand that it does not really matter if (by accident) you also brush over the lower (green) part of the image because the adjustment would only affect that part of the mask which covers the red pixels but not the green pixels. Is that right? (That's what I meant with saying that the mask, or let's say the brush strokes, does not need to be precise.)
I didn't understand anything on my first attempt to follow. After a few days I tried again but I got lost at the end with spare channels and adjustments. For some reason when I selected the red channel , my photo turned black and white and I could not restored the colours.
Did you watch and understand the five lessons before watching this one?
@RobinWhalley Hi sorry for saying such harsh words, this was all from frustration, I know how much work goes into producing a video. Yes, I have seen all the previous videos and they all are easy to follow and helpful. But this one, my Affinity version, does seams different and I could not find some of the sliders/icons (for example the one with picker for shades of grey) I watched parts of the video 5-6 times, trying to replicate what I think I see, and I didn't manage. I am planning to give it another go on few days time. If I manage , I will delete this message.
@@lilialang7983 Don't worry. And there's no need to delete the message. I'm asking the question because a lot of people jump into a specific topic but don't have the background to understand the material. As for your problem with the Greyscale picker, that's another quirk of Affinity. If you go to the Colour Studio Panel, there's a small dropdown to the top right. You can set this to different options like RGB, CMYK and Greyscale. Each option has a different layout in the panel. I once did a video about it and some other confusing things. This might be it th-cam.com/video/sQhpfgYM5SM/w-d-xo.html.
@@RobinWhalley Thank you for you support. There are quite many confusing things. I am impressed someone can learn and even teach the program! My admirations. I tried again and I followed again untill I got lost at the end with the spare channel. For some reason when I selected the red channel , my photo turned black and white and I could not restored the colours.
@@lilialang7983 I'm pleased you managed to progress further this time. Yes, when you select a colour channel in the Channels panel the image will turn black and white (there is an explanation as to why but don't worry about it). To reset the Panel and return to viewing the colour image click the small curved arrow to the top right of the panel, above the three colour channels.
Hello Robin. Today I've been watching your 'Power Up Your Affinity Photo' videos from Lesson 1 upwards, and the first three of them were absolutely superb. This was due to your slow, descriptive and understandable levels of instructions. However, in Lesson 4 you started to create rectangles for a truly non-understandable reason, and through your Lesson 5 video I was having to keep 'rewinding' areas to understand and learn. I'm now utterly lost on this video (No 6) from about 2:50. This is due to the speed and non-descriptive manner in which you are trying to teach. I thought your idea was to create videos for people who needed easily understandable instructions, such as beginners, not reminder-videos for people who may have been using the same or similar software for many years. Because of this, and the need to understand each lesson before watching the next one, I think I'm unable to follow your lessons, which is a shame, because your initial attempt was fantastic.
Thanks for the feedback. The reason for drawing the rectangles was to draw an area of black or grey on a white mask to illustrate how the mask works. I use rectangles rather than the paintbrush to make it easier to see the effect. Hope it doesn;t put you off the rest of the videos.
@@RobinWhalley Many thanks for replying to my 'post'. My main problem was the speed that you were teaching in Lesson number 6. It was so fast and so under-descriptive that the lesson wasn't understandable. I think I managed to get as far as 3 minutes into that lesson before I had to give up. I tried replaying it over and over again, but the lack of information and speed of progression for beginners like myself led to a frustrating end, that created a pointless reason to continue watching. I don't know why, but you seemed to swap the manner and speed in which you were teaching in the first few lessons. So it created a felling that it was no longer a series of lessons for beginners like myself, just for people who pretty much already understood the lessons you were speeding through, and just needed a refresher. Once again, many thanks to replying to my first 'post'.
@@Ex3Para Valuable feedback - Thanks
I am new to Affinity and I have just bought Affinity Photo 2 - and I am struggling! I am following the 'Beginners' course and I'm playing with masking. Either I am completely thick or the techniques (like 'Select Colour Sampling') do no longer work for V2 ?! So far I find Affinity Photo 2 depressingly slow (loading Raw files take up to 20 seconds on an i9 processor (Win10, 16GB of memory), and clone and heal has quite lag), it is clumsy to use (e.g [ and ] to adjust the brush size ??) - | may need to spend a lot more time to get used to AP2! - help!
It sounds like yo may have problems with your installation. Colour sampling seelction does still work in Affinity Photo 2. The software is also extremely fast but I'm using a Mac (although it's 7 years old). As for using keyboard shortcuts like [ and ] for the brush size, you don't need to. There is a slider control for "width" displayed in the toolbar whenever you have any brush tool seelcted. The reason the keyboard shortcut is better is that you can move the brush over the subject whilst resizing it. A lot of software applications use the same keyboard shortcut. As for taking more time, yes. Affinity Photo is professional strength editing software and just like Photoshop takes a lot of time and practice to learn. In the begining it can be easy to miss a setting that makes you think that something isn't working.
@@RobinWhalley Thank you, Robin, for your reply, I really appreciate it. I have to figure out what is going on. I have a reasonably high specked PC (DELL Precision 3450, i9, 16GB, SSD, h/w acceleration enabled) but Affinity seams to hog a lot of memory (6GB with only 4 images open), the cooling fan starts spinning for most things to do with masking, cloning and healing have a lag of about 1+sec and something like smudging often shows "affinity not responding". I might have to get in touch with Affinity - I really want it to work. Best regards
@@RobinWhalley Firstly, these videos are excellent, so thank you so much! I am also new to Affinity and have just purchased Affinity Photo 2. I couldn't get colour sampling to work either, until I googled it and found out I needed to rasterise the layer first (it was just an ordinary raw file, which I developed and then moved into the Photo persona). It's also a bit more difficult to visualise what's going on (in terms of masking) with the adjustment layer in Affinity Photo 2 because it doesn't, by default, sit as a separate layer in the layer stack. Finally got there though!
I was tearing my hair out with the colour sampling technique, too. I discovered that you have to rasterise the layer before going on to any of the other steps. (Layer > rasterise...). Hopefully this will work for you, too.
@@scenebyemma I'm pleased that you sorted it out. It's always difficult for me to identify problems that people might be having when I can't see what they are doing or have access to the files they are using. Thanks for adding this as it may help others.
Great content, but could you please slow down?
I usually have people complaining that I'm too slow. Have you tried setting the TH-cam player to 0.75x speed to slow the video?
Honestly, the music does nothing for your presentation. It competes with your explanation. Thanks
Some people don't like it but others do. I use the music sometimes and other time I don't. I'll never please everyone.
@@RobinWhalley well that’s your call, I’ve never seen anyone enjoy music when someone is giving a tutorial, it’s one of the most common complaints. Thanks but no thanks.