Affinity Bootcamp - January 2025

[Julie Magerka]

  On 1/18/2025 at 1:13 AM, Gerry Landreth said:

Rudy, at the bottom of the steps, has arthritis, making it impossible for him to jump onto the sofa's arm. River has tried to coax him up, but so far, he hasn't made it to the top.

Carole: The cats are not music lovers. Their motivations are their love of the sun and time with Daddy. I had a cockatiel who was a music lover. He loved Mozart, tolerated Bach, and detested Debussy. 

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I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of Debussy either! 🙂

[Cassel]

@Jenny MacKay Oh. I never thought of the fact that earlier versions would not be able to open the file. I should have saved it in .psd format for more versatility.

@Carolyn Rye That is so nice to have such a photo! Was there already a shadow on the frame? It looks very fuzzy and different from the other shadows on the layout.

@Cheryle Becker What a contagious smile that little guy has! Great work on using the "paint splashes" (if that is what they are called).

@Ann Seeber Yes, Anna Aspen offers abr files that she probably expect to be used in Adobe products but you can import them in PSP, and use them in Affinity. So go ahead and use them! Your second project looks great. I love that symbol on top.

@Rene Marker "For me the perfect program would have the best of both programs!" isn't that right!? I guess that is a good reason to have different tools at our disposal. What designer's kit did you use for your second project? I am curious. As for the Color picker, I am also struggling with it as I keep trying to use it LIKE PSP. I guess it is a reflex I need to change!

@Sharla Glad to see you on board. Good sandwich. I gather you are not too fond of pickles?

@Daniel Hess At first glance, I thought you used the Out-of-bound technique but then, looking further, I think you added the dog to the image. Is that right? You did a great job either way!

@Saara Those scrapbook pages are perfect to showcase your work. Doesn't it make them pop? Over time, maybe you can also want to learn PSP 🙂

@Jacques I don't know what happened to your image but I can't see how your grandson sleeps.

@Corrie Kinkel The "Fill knocks out shadow" is an interesting feature, but in summary, it means that where the element is, the shadow is not. This can become handy if you have a translucent element like a tape or a ribbon. Look at the bottom of the window for "Fill opacity". It is set to 100%. Reduce it and you will see the effect on your image.

@David Belton Great extractions if you did them yourself. I would suggest you go less intense on the shadows as it makes your papers look like they are floating off the paper and not glued. They might fall from my monitor! LOL

@Jean Naumann That color panel is a little tricky when you are not used to it. But don't worry, you will get the hang of it with practice.

@Gerry Landreth I think that your cat is far from the only pet needing such stairs! They are also useful for just tiny pets too. That is being inclusive, even for our pets!

Tomorrow, Saturday, you will have a day to catch up if needed. I will also have a link to a cheat sheet. Stay tuned and keep posting!

[Linda J Walker]

Project #2, using Affinity Photo2

I have been challenged using the color picker to change the text color. I explored some of the photo editing tools, and added a bunch of additional layers. After I had done all my saving and exporting and resizing, I find I can turn each editing layer off! That I kinda like. When I went to add shadows, the blend was set to 'multiply', and I had to do lots of 'undoing' to fix what I did. Now that I am trying to post the 600 pixel image, it is telling me it is too large. Sorry, but I opened PSPX9, resized the jpg image to 600, and there I could change the quality and KNOW what the image size would be....is that cheating 😞 I learned a few things today, but it has been a frustrating evening.

 

 

[Sharon Murray]

I had so many issues trying to do lesson 3.  When I tried to drag my layers up in my layers panel, they were either merging with another layer or just disappearing altogether.  Also, when trying to use the selection tool for the vertical paper, it kept disappearing!  I spent so much time trying to figure this out ugh!!!!!  I wanted to add more layers but I just couldn't figure out why they kept being hidden when I moved them to the layer where I wanted them.  Looking through everyone's work, it doesn't appear that this was happening for others so maybe I am just missing something but you'd think dragging and placing layers would be pretty straight forward, which it just wasn't for me.  I guess I just need to keep practicing and playing around with it

.

[Jacques]

  On 1/18/2025 at 3:38 AM, Cassel said:

@Jenny MacKay Oh. I never thought of the fact that earlier versions would not be able to open the file. I should have saved it in .psd format for more versatility.

@Carolyn Rye That is so nice to have such a photo! Was there already a shadow on the frame? It looks very fuzzy and different from the other shadows on the layout.

@Cheryle Becker What a contagious smile that little guy has! Great work on using the "paint splashes" (if that is what they are called).

@Ann Seeber Yes, Anna Aspen offers abr files that she probably expect to be used in Adobe products but you can import them in PSP, and use them in Affinity. So go ahead and use them! Your second project looks great. I love that symbol on top.

@Rene Marker "For me the perfect program would have the best of both programs!" isn't that right!? I guess that is a good reason to have different tools at our disposal. What designer's kit did you use for your second project? I am curious. As for the Color picker, I am also struggling with it as I keep trying to use it LIKE PSP. I guess it is a reflex I need to change!

@Sharla Glad to see you on board. Good sandwich. I gather you are not too fond of pickles?

@Daniel Hess At first glance, I thought you used the Out-of-bound technique but then, looking further, I think you added the dog to the image. Is that right? You did a great job either way!

@Saara Those scrapbook pages are perfect to showcase your work. Doesn't it make them pop? Over time, maybe you can also want to learn PSP 🙂

@Jacques I don't know what happened to your image but I can't see how your grandson sleeps.

@Corrie Kinkel The "Fill knocks out shadow" is an interesting feature, but in summary, it means that where the element is, the shadow is not. This can become handy if you have a translucent element like a tape or a ribbon. Look at the bottom of the window for "Fill opacity". It is set to 100%. Reduce it and you will see the effect on your image.

@David Belton Great extractions if you did them yourself. I would suggest you go less intense on the shadows as it makes your papers look like they are floating off the paper and not glued. They might fall from my monitor! LOL

@Jean Naumann That color panel is a little tricky when you are not used to it. But don't worry, you will get the hang of it with practice.

@Gerry Landreth I think that your cat is far from the only pet needing such stairs! They are also useful for just tiny pets too. That is being inclusive, even for our pets!

Tomorrow, Saturday, you will have a day to catch up if needed. I will also have a link to a cheat sheet. Stay tuned and keep posting!

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@Cassel I replaced it by a new one: I forgot the 90 degree text

[Rene Marker]

  On 1/18/2025 at 3:38 AM, Cassel said:

@Rene Marker "For me the perfect program would have the best of both programs!" isn't that right!? I guess that is a good reason to have different tools at our disposal. What designer's kit did you use for your second project? I am curious. As for the Color picker, I am also struggling with it as I keep trying to use it LIKE PSP. I guess it is a reflex I need to change!

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I added the link to the kit in the post. It is a current kit sold at Sweet Digi Scraps called "A Cold Snap: Snowy Days" by Kristin Cronin-Barrow. I am a big fan of her kits and have bought a lot of them over the years. She has things in her kits that I could never design on my own!

@Gerry Landreth Peyton has been using steps to get on the bed for a couple of years. For the longest time, she had no problem jumping up on it but she started struggling. For some reason, she started jumping straight up in the air and of course, not getting on the bed. My bed does sit high as well. So I bought a Rubbermaid 2 step unit and it sits by the bed. She didn't take long to learn to use it. It is also handy for when I need to get something off the top shelf in my closets. Funny thing about the bed though, if Peyton doesn't think about it, she can jump on it without using the steps.

[Carolyn Rye]

  On 1/18/2025 at 3:38 AM, Cassel said:

@Jenny MacKay Oh. I never thought of the fact that earlier versions would not be able to open the file. I should have saved it in .psd format for more versatility.

@Carolyn Rye That is so nice to have such a photo! Was there already a shadow on the frame? It looks very fuzzy and different from the other shadows on the layout.

@Cassel I think I accidently put a shadow on the picture under the frame which I think may have caused the fuzzy. 

@Cheryle Becker What a contagious smile that little guy has! Great work on using the "paint splashes" (if that is what they are called).

@Ann Seeber Yes, Anna Aspen offers abr files that she probably expect to be used in Adobe products but you can import them in PSP, and use them in Affinity. So go ahead and use them! Your second project looks great. I love that symbol on top.

@Rene Marker "For me the perfect program would have the best of both programs!" isn't that right!? I guess that is a good reason to have different tools at our disposal. What designer's kit did you use for your second project? I am curious. As for the Color picker, I am also struggling with it as I keep trying to use it LIKE PSP. I guess it is a reflex I need to change!

@Sharla Glad to see you on board. Good sandwich. I gather you are not too fond of pickles?

@Daniel Hess At first glance, I thought you used the Out-of-bound technique but then, looking further, I think you added the dog to the image. Is that right? You did a great job either way!

@Saara Those scrapbook pages are perfect to showcase your work. Doesn't it make them pop? Over time, maybe you can also want to learn PSP 🙂

@Jacques I don't know what happened to your image but I can't see how your grandson sleeps.

@Corrie Kinkel The "Fill knocks out shadow" is an interesting feature, but in summary, it means that where the element is, the shadow is not. This can become handy if you have a translucent element like a tape or a ribbon. Look at the bottom of the window for "Fill opacity". It is set to 100%. Reduce it and you will see the effect on your image.

@David Belton Great extractions if you did them yourself. I would suggest you go less intense on the shadows as it makes your papers look like they are floating off the paper and not glued. They might fall from my monitor! LOL

@Jean Naumann That color panel is a little tricky when you are not used to it. But don't worry, you will get the hang of it with practice.

@Gerry Landreth I think that your cat is far from the only pet needing such stairs! They are also useful for just tiny pets too. That is being inclusive, even for our pets!

Tomorrow, Saturday, you will have a day to catch up if needed. I will also have a link to a cheat sheet. Stay tuned and keep posting!

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[Raymond]

Carole, you may have noticed for Project 1 that my photo is blurry due to resizing/resampling.  It was unacceptable for this photo.  The default mode in Affinity is "Bilinear".  Corel PhotoPaint and PaintShop Pro's help file recommends using "Bicubic".  I tried using Bicubic in Affinity, but the photo was still blurry, so I used PhotoPaint to resample Project 2.  It's better, but 600x600 is really small.

[Carolyn Rye]

Project 2. Once again, a very old photo of my 2 daughters and their grandpa and Dad. This is now very precious to our family because both grandpa and dad have passed. 

I was having a problem trying to get multiple layers together by using Ctrl and FX.  For some reason not all the effects were showing so I had to end up applying these effects separately. Not sure what I am doing wrong.

Edited January 18 by Carolyn Rye

[Jenny MacKay]

Here's my project 2 exercise. I ended up making it 400px as at 600px it said it was too big. Maybe the photo was too large.

[Daniel Hess]

  On 1/18/2025 at 7:55 AM, Jenny MacKay said:

I ended up making it 400px as at 600px it said it was too big.

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When exporting, watch the file size as you slide the picture quality bar left and right.  I think it defaults at 100 first time you use it.  I've had good luck with my projects making it 600 px and putting the slider at 95 percent...usually file size a little under 300K.  On a side note, I visited Tasmania briefly back in 86-88 timeframe when my ship pulled in there for a port visit (USS LONG BEACH).  Beautiful country.

Edited January 18 by Daniel Hess

[Saara]

  On 1/18/2025 at 3:38 AM, Cassel said:

@Saara Those scrapbook pages are perfect to showcase your work. Doesn't it make them pop? Over time, maybe you can also want to learn PSP 🙂

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Thank you.  Using a scrapbook pages to showcase them is definitely the way to go.

Sadly I can't see me ever using PSP as I have the whole Affinity Suite which pretty much does everything I need.  The only thing missing is a website creator. I've used Xara Designer Pro for that for years now, but if Affinity can incorporate similar into Publisher then I can ditch Xara completely.

Oh, and I purchased some scrapbooking kits. 😊

I found a shop on Etsy called opticillusions, a lady called Kate. Her designs are really lovely and she was doing 50% off.  I bought 7 as I couldn't whittle them down any further than that, and when I received the download links I saw she'd added an extra set as a freebie.  That was unexpected and very kind of her.

[Daniel Hess]

  On 1/18/2025 at 3:38 AM, Cassel said:

At first glance, I thought you used the Out-of-bound technique but then, looking further, I think you added the dog to the image.

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You are correct.  The original photo actually HAS been used for an out of bound photo a long time ago in PSP but I had also separated Tyson and his ball from the original photo and saved as a png file in case I ever wanted to use that image elsewhere and voila!...this project popped up so I had a use for it.  The original out of bound photo is below:

[Daniel Hess]

  On 1/18/2025 at 7:55 AM, Jenny MacKay said:

Maybe the photo was too large

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I had five photos (pages) from our visit.  Here are some of the other ones.  Together they exceeded the 500 limit.

[Daniel Hess]

  On 1/18/2025 at 7:55 AM, Jenny MacKay said:

Maybe the photo was too large.

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Here is the last one: 

[Jeni Simpson]

The Sandwich

I am way behind, I have a very ill housemate, and taking care of him is taking up my time at the moment.

However, today, I finally started with Affinity. Here is my sandwich and a cup of green tea.

[Daniel Hess]

I am hoping you will tell us where the "equivalent" to the Magic Wand is located and how to use it.  I tried using the freehand selection and I don't think it was working well for copy and paste operations unless I got myself confused on which layer was active (which was entirely possible with this last project).  I had the frame, the photo I was putting into the frame, and the transparent png of the dog and ball which I was trying to combine to get a sort of out of bound effect over top of the background papers.  Eventually I got them lined up but could have been much easier with a magic wand tool.  Is there a promote to layer from selection option?  That would simplify the copy and paste operations and haven't figured out how to paste as new layer, paste as new image, paste into selection, etc etc....assuming there is an equivalent.  A LOT of questions starting to form as we get deeper into using the program.

[Ann Seeber]

  On 1/18/2025 at 1:39 AM, Linda J Walker said:

That looks like milkweed to me!

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You're probably right, Linda. Ed didn't say, exactly. He's always off in the marshes photo-shooting birds, mostly kestrels. He showed up at my granddaughter's animal park to shoot the animals there, too.

[Ann Seeber]

  On 1/18/2025 at 3:38 AM, Cassel said:

Your second project looks great. I love that symbol on top.

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Thank you. I'm already thinking of an addition. Nice to have time between assignments to fiddle... 😉

[Euka]

I finally have something to post for Day 5.  A much younger Nano exploring her surrounds and I love her look in this photo.   I saw a little tut on using the Mirror tool  (it creates kaleidoscope images) - omg - I had so much fun creating images and spent so much time playing with it but I was unable to work out how to use them as a pattern to create my papers.   The font is Samantha upright and the papers are from my stash.  I was able to put a frame on the photo but once I did that I was unable to change the colour - I guess I  should have done it on a different layer.  I like how to select layers to apply a shadow to all at the same time,  that is a bonus   The shadow on the side Nano ended up looking like it was embossed.  I need to work on the shadows (as well as everything else!).  Ctrl Z sometimes doesn't work for me and I end up having to delete the layer and start again.

 

[Ann Seeber]

As promised, I fiddled with the Mighty Thor layout by adding an extracted portrait of him with a reduced opacity to indicate he's gone. I cleaned up the truck extraction a bit and fiddled with the positioning of the empty leash. Here we go...

[Cristina]

Here is my Project#2.  As before, I am using the same kit (Kim Broedelet_Seaside Holiday) and layout from the 2019 Scrap Bootcamp. But this time, I used different papers, elements, etc.

I had big problems, as I could not copy and paste the Selection.  It was copying the whole layer.
To make a long story short, after a lengthy examination of my layers and Carole’s video, I noticed that my layers differed, and then I got acquainted with Images and Pixel layers. Images layers are like Vector Layers in PSP, you cannot do anything with it.  Once I had rasterized the layer, all went smoothly.

I share the same opinion as many here.  I like Affinity very much, although some things are easier in PSP.  On the other hand, there are many other features that are better in Affinity.   It’s a win-win situation to have both apps. 

Fonts: Bastro and Berylium

 

Edited January 18 by Cristina

[Jenny MacKay]

  On 1/18/2025 at 9:19 AM, Daniel Hess said:

When exporting, watch the file size as you slide the picture quality bar left and right.  I think it defaults at 100 first time you use it.  I've had good luck with my projects making it 600 px and putting the slider at 95 percent...usually file size a little under 300K.  On a side note, I visited Tasmania briefly back in 86-88 timeframe when my ship pulled in there for a port visit (USS LONG BEACH).  Beautiful country.

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Thanks for that. I thought the slider was at about 85%. I’ll check and see.

Yes, Tasmania is a lovely state. I went there to follow my convict ancestry. 

[Julie Magerka]

  On 1/18/2025 at 12:57 PM, Ann Seeber said:

As promised, I fiddled with the Mighty Thor layout by adding an extracted portrait of him with a reduced opacity to indicate he's gone. I cleaned up the truck extraction a bit and fiddled with the positioning of the empty leash. Here we go...

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Oh my, that faded image of MT makes me want to cry! A very beautiful touch to the layout.

[Sharla]

My Day 3. The photo is from Freepik and the papers re from a kit by Gina Jones.