Learning Affinity and tips

[Corrie Kinkel]

I have been playing and trying some things; here I placed some of my experiments together on a backgroundpaper. There is a tutorial from the LilyPad on how to use jpg pattern tiles and I have some jpg pattern tiles by Carole that placed in a folder called Assets (in the Window menu on top). Then I made a custom shape, outline no fill and with the gradient fill tool (I had to find that via customize and placed it on the lefthand side toolbar) active click on the pattern and by magic it is inside the shape. Afterwards it is possible to change the size of the pattern. That was the heart, then I tried it on a text and it works the same. Then I used a text and filled it with a photo which works just like we did in the Bootcamp with text filled with a paper. The word Spring has a small bevel and Coming has a very thick one, just to get more familiar with the settings and both have a dropshadow as well. Before using two different effects on a same layer(text) I had to duplicate and use the bevel on the top and the shadow on the bottom layer of the two. The heart has a shadow and a reverse shadow, also on a duplicate layer and then group them. This is something I have to get used to, more duplicating layers! I have a lot of abr. brushes imported in PSP but luckily I kept the zipfiles too and now I can use them in Affinity as well. I tried to use 2 of them as a stamp and recolored them just to practice. I find the colorpicker very difficult to use, especially picking a color from a photo because it uses 1px by 1px size. Not doable with my unsteady hands but in the lefthand toolbar is a colorpicker icon too and if you click on it, there is a toolmenu on the top where you can set the size of that picker to your liking or needs.

That is it for today, I think next I will try text on a path and reverse text, wrapped text and whatever comes up to explore.

[Corrie Kinkel]

Today I looked at text on a path, text on a shape (circle) with the text inside the shape on top and outside on the bottom. For wrapped text in a shape I choose I a heart and I'm so happy that in Affinity I can finally use this feature again! I like it very much and am still a bit disappointed that PSP 2023 won't do this any longer and that this bug will stay for ever now PSP is terminated. Furthermore I tried the tutorial from the Lily Pad about a  simple warped shadow with the mesh warp tool. I used a journal card from Jessica Dunn for this, but I could have used a photo as well. I found it very much like the mesh warp in PSP. In Affinity you have to set all the lines for the mesh yourself, which is a bit tedious if you want to use many.  Maybe there is a further setting that takes care of this, but I haven't explored the tool settings much further for now. However I have the same problem with both PSP and Affinity; my hands are not stable enough, I have to redo many times until I get something that is acceptable. I don't complain, it is a fact that I live with it for almost 30 years now and I make the best of it🥲

[Cristina]

 I only found this thread today, thanks to Rene, who pointed me here.

It would be good to have just one part of the Forum just for Affinity Stuff, such as already existing Lobby, Showroom,  Let's Talk, Challenges, etc., because I think the tendency is to increase the interest in this program over time. 

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Corrie, these are very nice examples of what can be done in Affinity. It's good to see what others are discovering, too. Learning together is more fun.

Both apps (Affinity and PSE) have great features, but one of the things I like most about PSP is the ability to check the dimensions of an image at the bottom right corner.

However, I would love it if they offered a great deal to purchase the suite after the Trial version ends.

[Cristina]

On 2/8/2025 at 12:00 AM, Corrie Kinkel said:

I find the colorpicker very difficult to use, especially picking a color from a photo because it uses 1px by 1px size.

I don't know if you've already used this method, but I watched a video, and there are two places to get the Color Picker Tool. 

One is the one on the top right side, which is more accurate.

The other is on the left side, and it works like PSP.

Under the same tool, there is a Style Picker Tool, which is perfect for repeating the same style (color, bevel, shadow, etc.) on something else.

 

[Corrie Kinkel]

10 hours ago, Cristina said:

I don't know if you've already used this method, but I watched a video, and there are two places to get the Color Picker Tool. 

One is the one on the top right side, which is more accurate.

The other is on the left side, and it works like PSP.

Under the same tool, there is a Style Picker Tool, which is perfect for repeating the same style (color, bevel, shadow, etc.) on something else.

 

Thank you but I too have found this option by using a short video, maybe we saw the same 🥰

[Cristina]

On 2/16/2025 at 12:00 AM, Corrie Kinkel said:

Thank you but I too have found this option by using a short video, maybe we saw the same 🥰

I have been watching many tutorials, whatever YouTube suggests, and I find it interesting.

One of the videos was from the Affinity Revolution Channel from 2021. The videos are short and well-explained.

The video description offered a free Photo Course in one of them. However, following the link to the Affinity site, the only free course offered is "The Affinity Freebie Bundle." I took it and liked it.

Edited May 2 by Cristina

[Rene Marker]

3 hours ago, Cristina said:

I have been watching many tutorials, whatever YouTube suggests, and I find it interesting.

One of the videos was from the Affinity Revolution Channel, an official Affinity channel from 2021. The videos are short and well-explained.

The video description offered a free Photo Course in one of them. However, following the link to the Affinity site, the only free course offered is "The Affinity Freebie Bundle." I took it and liked it.

I took that course as well. Affinity Revolution is one of the first channels I found about Affinity. I agree that they are well explained. I also downloaded her freebies that came with the course.

[Corrie Kinkel]

4 hours ago, Cristina said:

I have been watching many tutorials, whatever YouTube suggests, and I find it interesting.

One of the videos was from the Affinity Revolution Channel, an official Affinity channel from 2021. The videos are short and well-explained.

The video description offered a free Photo Course in one of them. However, following the link to the Affinity site, the only free course offered is "The Affinity Freebie Bundle." I took it and liked it.

Thank you I'll have a look, sounds interesting......

[Jacques]

Does Affinity have the same ability to keep an original of edited photos (e.g. in a "Corel Auto-Preserve" subdirectory)?

[gwen jewitt]

I have been getting to know my way around Affinity Photo by watching videos I came across a one to turn your image into a pencil sketch .I downloaded the wooden background with the note book on it copied the note book on a new layer and then placed my pencil sketch  into it and resized it to fit the notebook page. I placed it on top of the notebook that was on the wooden background  and this is my finished effort.

 

[Jacques]

The more I watch Affinity tutorials, the more impressed I am. I'm going to make a comparison guide to help me:

 

 

 

Edited May 9 by Jacques

[Susan Ewart]

5 hours ago, Jacques said:

The more I watch Affinity tutorials, the more impressed I am. I'm going to make a comparison guide to help me:

 

 

 

That's really impressive Jacques

[gwen jewitt]

9 hours ago, Jacques said:

The more I watch Affinity tutorials, the more impressed I am. I'm going to make a comparison guide to help me:

 

 

 

Wow that must of taken some time and effort I agree with Susan it's very impressive.

 

[Cristina]

On 5/6/2025 at 8:51 PM, Jacques said:

Does Affinity have the same ability to keep an original of edited photos (e.g. in a "Corel Auto-Preserve" subdirectory)?

Jacques, I saw your question and looked into it. I found a site that shows where to locate the Auto-Save feature in Affinity Photo.

15 Tips for Getting Started With Affinity Photo

 

 

 

[Jacques]

4 hours ago, Cristina said:

Jacques, I saw your question and looked into it. I found a site that shows where to locate the Auto-Save feature in Affinity Photo.

15 Tips for Getting Started With Affinity Photo

 

 

 

I'll check but it seems to me that this option corresponds more to the PSP option:

What I was wondering is if Affinity had the equivalent of:

See:

https://help.corel.com/paintshop-pro/v21/en/official-help/index.html#page/Corel_PaintShop_Pro%2FSetting_Auto_Preserve_preferences.html%23

 

[Susan Ewart]

This topic is of an interest to me.  What is the difference between auto action and auto preserve?  is auto preserve an auto action?  I have had to go into the auto preserve and recover a file, it was a from several step prior to losing what I was working on.  I was grateful to have it as I didnt have to start all over again.  I dont know if I ever enabled it from maybe instruction from Carole in tutorials or if it just came like that.  A stupid thing I used to do (not knowing what that folder was), was delete the folder...until I looked into it one day.  I dont do that anymore.  When I use the save (not save as) button while working on a layout does it put that save into the Auto-Preserve folder and does it put the last final save (presumably when you are finished the file) into that folder.  Could it almost be like a back up incase the main file gets deleted by accident?

Should I put this into the Q & A?

[Jacques]

1 hour ago, Susan Ewart said:

This topic is of an interest to me.  What is the difference between auto action and auto preserve?  is auto preserve an auto action?  I have had to go into the auto preserve and recover a file, it was a from several step prior to losing what I was working on.  I was grateful to have it as I didnt have to start all over again.  I dont know if I ever enabled it from maybe instruction from Carole in tutorials or if it just came like that.  A stupid thing I used to do (not knowing what that folder was), was delete the folder...until I looked into it one day.  I dont do that anymore.  When I use the save (not save as) button while working on a layout does it put that save into the Auto-Preserve folder and does it put the last final save (presumably when you are finished the file) into that folder.  Could it almost be like a back up incase the main file gets deleted by accident?

Should I put this into the Q & A?

For Affinity, the "File Recovery Interval" option ensures that for each file opened, there is a file of type ".autosave" in the subdirectory ".../AppData/Romaing/Photo/(Version)/autosave".

If the file is closed, its corresponding file is deleted.

If the program stops abnormally, the file remains and upon restart, Affinity asks if you want to recover it.

For PSP, the "Enable Auto-Preserve" option creates a subdirectory where the file is located, and an original version is placed there and remains there at all times. This allows you to revert to the original version if you want.
I'll look into the "Autosave Setting" option (but I think it should be similar to Affinity's option).

[Jacques]

2 hours ago, Jacques said:

 

I'll look into the "Autosave Setting" option (but I think it should be similar to Affinity's option).

PSP works similarly to Infinity. The location of the "autosave" files is known in "File | Preferences | File Locations | Undo/Temporary Files folder". These files are destroyed when the edited files are closed.

 

Edited May 9 by Jacques

[gwen jewitt]

i have been playig with affinity again this time I have been trying to make a flower element but not sure about the results Your comments would be appreciated .

[Susan Ewart]

4 hours ago, gwen jewitt said:

i have been playig with affinity again this time I have been trying to make a flower element but not sure about the results Your comments would be appreciated .

Those are so neat.  the ones on the right look like they are made of wood.  

[AprilDawn]

This post is for anyone who might have an old software called Craft Artist 2 created by Serif but was discontinued and not supported a few years ago. Although the programme still continued to work it seems to be having problems working on Windows 11 from comments i have see on the internet. I  started to have problems with it working a few months ago and recently it started to cause bigger problems so i uninstalled it. I kept all my Craft Atist Digi Kits that were made for it  and purchased from Daisy Trail ( no longer exists) hopeful for a time when there would be a way to convert these .pack files to something that i could use in other programmes. Happily and by accident i came across  youtube channel Juney Martins Rua and she had a video called Craft Artist Digi Kits to Affinity Designer Assets where she explains and shows how to convert these .pack files to pngs. I have tried her instructions on 2 .pack files so far and the process works.  You do not have to put them into Affinity Designer or Photo if you don't want to, i keep mine in the folder in  Pictures on my computer that way  can access them for any programme  as they are converted to png's. After file is converted one thing extra i do is delete any of the images i know will never use or don't like, to keep the file size down a bit. Also when following her instructions  used a copy of the oringinal pack file to use for converting so to keep the original intact for future need if necessary. i am so happy it worked for me because i have a few kits now that i will be able to continue to  use in projects here in the campus.

i forgot to mention that there are 2 videos for this on her channel, 1 was about 2 years ago and 1 that is about month old,  the month old video is the best to use, that is what i chose to follow.

hope this info can be helphul to anyone who has these .pack files from Craft Artist, as I did ask Carole if it would be OK  to post it.

Dawn.

Edited May 13 by AprilDawn

[Jeni Simpson]

On 5/9/2025 at 10:15 AM, Jacques said:

The more I watch Affinity tutorials, the more impressed I am. I'm going to make a comparison guide to help me:

 

 

 

Thanks, Jacques, that is awesome. I have saved your images.

[Jeni Simpson]

On 5/9/2025 at 7:56 PM, Cristina said:

Jacques, I saw your question and looked into it. I found a site that shows where to locate the Auto-Save feature in Affinity Photo.

15 Tips for Getting Started With Affinity Photo

 

 

 

Thank you, Jacques, and Cristina, for asking the questions and doing the research. I'm impressed!

[Jacques]

29 minutes ago, Jeni Simpson said:

Thanks, Jacques, that is awesome. I have saved your images.

I'll continue to compare PSP and Affinity and post my findings here. See you soon.

[Jeni Simpson]

On 5/11/2025 at 8:45 PM, gwen jewitt said:

i have been playig with affinity again this time I have been trying to make a flower element but not sure about the results Your comments would be appreciated .

These are great, Gwen. I'm impressed.