Template Workshop 2025

[Leslie Pugs]

I'm going back to Africa next month. This time to Namibia, in SW Africa next to S Africa. I have been on photographic safaris to Kenya (2x), Zimbabwe Tanzania, and S Africa. Rhinos are my favorite, altho the elephant families are amazing. There are watering holes where all the animals congregate. I will definitely be taking a lot of pictures. Nothing like seeing the animals in the wild. Truly awe inspiring. I like animals more than people. 🙂

[Sue Thomas]

30 minutes ago, Susan Ewart said:

I would love a comparison as well.  Perhaps in the Q & A or a blog post.

Speaking for myself, I'm  sold on Affinity, even though I  have  been using it for a mere fortnight. There are bound to be tools which you'll  have in one program  and not the other, and vice versa, it's  inevitable. 

[Donna Sillia]

I am still dithering on whether or not to buy Affinity. One interesting thing that I discovered in my research is that Affinity has been bought by Canva which I do have.

 

[Ann Seeber]

10 minutes ago, Donna Sillia said:

Affinity has been bought by Canva

Tell me about Canva. I recall you mentioning using it in the past but I'm unfamiliar with it. The only programs I've  used are Photoshop and PaintShop. What do you use Canva for?

[Donna Sillia]

17 minutes ago, Ann Seeber said:

Tell me about Canva. I recall you mentioning using it in the past but I'm unfamiliar with it. The only programs I've  used are Photoshop and PaintShop. What do you use Canva for?

Ann, I learned about Canva when I editing and doing graphics for a book written by my friend, John. It is a graphics and design program that is a yearly subscription of $120. However, there also a free component if you want to give it a try. Canva Pro is free for primary and high school students and educators. I recently designed a business card for my son's bowling pro shop and had it printed by Canva. They sent me a PDF to approve which I did. However, I made a mistake and the cards were printed incorrectly. Upon contacting them, they immediately corrected the image and applied what I had paid to the new order. Needless to say, I was very impressed with their customer service since I had made the mistake in the first place. The cards came out beautifully. You can also create a team. I uploaded my 2025 Thailand calendar, and the printer was able to download a PDF suitable for printing. She was also able to make the pages larger with no loss of sharpness. You can also download graphics or pictures for use in your programs such as PSP. You can also make your own videos, although it is in the experimental stage but keeps improving.

I just love Canva and use it frequently. I am currently working on a Web page for my son. https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/affinity/

 

Edited Saturday at 04:20 PM by Donna Sillia
additional information

[Cassel]

As a comparison, Canva is an online graphic program (as opposed to being installed on your device), and it is good for layering components. It is not something that can apply effects or create elements and designs from scratch (as far as I know).

[Cristina]

2 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

Oh Cristina, that means a lot to me.  I still consider myself the newbie, the little sister trying to keep up with all the big sisters and brothers in the campus.

Newbie?  No chances!  😄 

 

[Cristina]

For this page, I used paper and elements from Lynn Grieveson's kit “Whale of a Time.”
Cassel’s DateStamp#8 script was also included.
Font: Canastra
This is the paper I used, but I changed the Blend Mode to Difference.

 

Edited Saturday at 05:27 PM by Cristina

[Donna Sillia]

42 minutes ago, Cassel said:

As a comparison, Canva is an online graphic program (as opposed to being installed on your device), and it is good for layering components. It is not something that can apply effects or create elements and designs from scratch (as far as I know).

Canva has design templates which can be modified. However, when I used it to design a business card, I uploaded some of the elements made in PSP. It has limited creativity on effects. I sometimes use their templates for inspiration. I also download their elements for use in my PSP projects.

[bina greene]

day 5

[gwen jewitt]

Day two I have used affinity 2.6 for this template it is my first time of using it.All the papers used are from Chantalia designs the photos are my own which were taken last year at a pretty village in Cumbria U.K. called Grasmere. William Wordsworth is buried there in the grounds of St Oswalds Church and they made this lovely garden as a tribute to him which looks amazing when all the daffodils are out.

 

[Harmony Birch]

So Here is my day 4. I am findingworking with affinity really speeds things up.

[bina greene]

day 6

 

[Bee Kelly]

Thank each of y'all for your suggestions on my lesson and the shadows.  On my computer they were not showing up at all after I went through it.  I moved the paper over slightly to see the shadows and that made them look larger to you or maybe it changed the settings?  I will be setting up a different computer as I think my old Windows 10 computer has some issues.  So, I'm thinking I may go back through all the Templates classes.  I do enjoy seeing the projects and how great they look.  I appreciate y'all taking the time to help me.

[Ann Seeber]

Here's my Day 6 concoction. I've been waiting for my cherry tree to bloom but all I was getting was leaves. And yesterday, the flowers started to appear! Curious, I looked it up and the tree people said it's a Royal Burgundy cherry and leaves always come before the flowers. I used the Difference layer style to get the texture on the background paper which was pale blue to start. I just used star pattern fills for the elements and added brads from my stash.

[Deana Davis]

Where is everyone getting the templates and info?  I have only received 1 email so far with supplies and link.  Thank you in advance for your help.

[Donna Sillia]

Day 5 - I seem to be running a day behind. The background is my own created from a photo of my cement driveway. The lines were a bit harsh so I used a gaussian blur. I made the stitches into a vector using the selection to path script. I used vectorpaint to add the stars in the circle. The patterns were created using Adobe Elements styles.The balloon pattern is from my Build a Kit 2025. The stripes were created with the cass gradientstripes script, and the beads are from the cass Alphabead 3 script. The photos are mine. The heart was a vector preshape selected and converted to a raster. I then applied a FF effect called "Colored Squares with Photos." The striped #1 is a png number from CF.

Carole, I am really enjoying using all the scripts that I downloaded on your birthday.

[Deana Davis]

40 minutes ago, Deana Davis said:

Where is everyone getting the templates and info?  I have only received 1 email so far with supplies and link.  Thank you in advance for your help.

Thank you for your reply Cassel

[Jeni Simpson]

Template 6
Affinity 2.6
Ashlee and her mum travelled down from Christchurch to stay with us, and we took them to many places around Southland.
Ashlee was 4 years old and would start school in a few months.
She had never struck wildlife on the beach before, so it was quite unusual for her to see the huge Sea Lion stretched out close to her.
I have found them sunning themselves on the rocks, or, hiding amongst the tussocks, as she is doing in the lower photograph.
If they are sunning themselves, they can be quite harmless, if you get in the way of him and his mate, you'd better watch out!

Kit used is Jessica Dunn's Coastal Spring, and the font is Lena.

 

[Harmony Birch]

This one makes use of elemets and papers from the Marilsol-pets bundle, the font is called Cute Cat N002

[gwen jewitt]

Day 3 using Affinity 2.6 Font is Blackboard, Papers are Chantahlia Design and the photo is my own. Every day I feed the blackbirds sultannas we have quite a few some of them we have given names. If there is no sultannas left one of them will land on the window sill neck stretched looking through the window ( Hence the titlte feed me)

 

[Susan Ewart]

7 hours ago, Cassel said:

At this point, I can't give a reasonable comparison as I am still learning about Affinity, trying to replicate effects/functions from PSP, and discovering new ones. As I dig further, I do find many things are similar, some things are easier, and other things are almost impossible, or even missing in Affinity (like the simple Repeat command in PSP is missing in Affinity). I surely will have a blog post on this at some point, but right now, I would not have enough information and experience to have a fair comparison.

I have been watching the Affinity tutorials (you make it look so easy) as we go through the workshop.  Some stuff i really like, for example.  When you put a full size paper above the shape you want to fill with it, it makes like a mask group (not sure what the correct term is) and you can then move the paper around inside that shape to where you want it.  That is really cool.  I know, I could make a mask group in PSP and do the same, Affinity just looks faster.  I would be interested to see how Affinity does things like PSP Texture effects if a person wanted to make their own papers.  I know eventually I will get the program so I'm going to keep watching tutorials so I feel somewhat familiar with the lingo at least.

[Susan Ewart]

7 hours ago, Leslie Pugs said:

I'm going back to Africa next month. This time to Namibia, in SW Africa next to S Africa. I have been on photographic safaris to Kenya (2x), Zimbabwe Tanzania, and S Africa. Rhinos are my favorite, altho the elephant families are amazing. There are watering holes where all the animals congregate. I will definitely be taking a lot of pictures. Nothing like seeing the animals in the wild. Truly awe inspiring. I like animals more than people. 🙂

I can't wait to see your photos from these trips.  I would say the same thing, I like animals more than people....but I really like the people in this group, much different than other groups I'm in that doesnt have the same relaxed vibe.  

[Susan Ewart]

7 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

I refer to them as self-seeding plants, or volunteer plants.  Withinn the farming community  we   refer to them as self-sown plants

I wish I had known that, because I bought more seed last year thinking only they would come up and I practically had an impenetrable forest not realizing the other ones would sow themselves.  I had to take very many of them out as I thought they would choke the other flowers I wanted to photograph later on.   Sunflowers are over-achievers!

[Linda Rexford]

Day 4  The paper is mine and the font is Comic Sans.  These are the other 4 cats we had at the same time as Mocha and Skooter.

Sadly the only 2 left are Trax and Leo.  Leo is the only one that was not born to our outside ferals.  After Trax, we managed to catch the rest of

the ferals and they have all been spayed/neutered.  The remaining outside cats are all 10 & 11 years old.