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I plan to do each lesson in both PSP and Affinity. I have never used masks Affinity before - so easy! 🙂 The parrots were done in PSP; Tigers and toucans in Affinity

L1-Our New Model.

-Affinity- At first, I considered using some of my photos, but I didn't feel inspired to create anything with them. Instead, I chose to use pictures of the famous internet Bald Eagle Couple, Jackie and Shadow, and their eaglets, Sunny and Gizmo. The pictures are from the internet, and the official site is Friends of Big Bear Valley. The clipping mask is straightforward in Affinity, although completing this Workshop in PSP a few times made it easier as well. Also, having Cassel's ClipToIt Script helps a lot. Background paper by JustJaimee-Gesso textures

Lesson 1. Using Affinity. the dahlia image i have had a long time they were on a cd that i purchased. Have enjoyed viewing everyone's pages.. they are all beautifully done.

Day 1 - This is one of my great-nieces, Amelia. Except for the cute dragonfly made with one of Carole's scripts, I'm working with Affinity. It gives me a chance to practice working with details such as shadowing and recoloring, which I did with the background paper.

I have lots of birds photos (almost as many as cat photos!) so I will do birds this time. When I finished this, I realized they were all females that I had picked! The font is Garinstae Script and the back ground paper is from Frankentoon.

Here is Lesson 1. My wee long-term foster dog, Tucker, who crossed the Rainbow Bridge last October. I rescue/foster/adopt only older dogs and cats to give them some love and a good life for the time they have left. He was a quiet boy, but so sweet, with so many health issues. Used bits and pieces from the kits/masks Carole offered for this lesson. I use masks often in my layouts.

Day 2 Using only Affinity to create the page. Although I created the plaid, I'm certainly not a fan of plaids, or busy background papers, never the less I incorporated the paid into the layout. The background was created using one of last winter's frozen lake shots as an overlay. Again I used a macro shot of a stunning dragonfly. Many of you will know that I have a passion for finding, observing, documenting and then showcasing insects of every shape, size and species. Each and everyone, in my mind are exquisitely beautiful, which lead complex lives. Due to compression the images are no where near as sharp as they should be.

Here is lesson 2. I'll be using PaintShop Pro X9 for all the workshops. I had to increase the opacity of the group - masks photo layer to near 100% to keep the background plaid from showing through.

Lesson 2. Playing around with the masks, using my Foxglove photo but not adding journaling yet. I have found this second time around with the tutorial that it helps to understand (or try to in my case) what each step is actually doing. eg the mask layer takes on the shape by de-floating etc

I wish I could say I love masks.....but not yet! I'm struggling with all the steps involved. Does it ever get to be second nature??? I guess it comes down to ...practice, practice, practice (and some 🫢words). Here's my lesson 1 layout. It took me so long yesterday that, unfortunately, my grandsons are now teenagers! 🫣

L2-Autumn Park.

Lesson 2- in Affinity I used a mask from Jessica Dunn called Into the Wild. I have a lot of her masks but I choose this one because my photo has landscape orientation. The mask worked again so simple! But I had 2 other problems with this page. For making the plaid I had to select a 1 pixel rectangle! However that wasn't doable with my unsteady hands and I ended up with a 2 pixel one with every try. That was the point that I decided to cheat a little bit and I first resized that 2 px layer to a 1 px layer but still with the same width it had. After that I could resize again following the lesson. One problem solved but there came another problem when I wanted to have some paint behind my text. I have done so many times in PSP and after looking at the lesson I thought that it was a piece of cake. Sadly NO, so I looked again at the video to check if I had missed something but I just did it as in the video and still had no paint if I brushed on a separate raster layer. In the end I discovered that there is a setting in the top right corner of the brushed toolbar which for me is hidden (I work on a laptop). By clicking on a tiny arrow at that point there is a checkbox protect alpha! It was checked, after unchecking I could paint under my text to make it a little bit more visible. If anybody has this same problem, this is the solution.

Day 1 PSP Template - Alinamaria_DCS_templates _juin18, Font – Wendy Medium and Arial Poppy was born on 6 December 2020 on the Gold Coast, Australia Affinity Template – MasksWorkshop2025-Extra1, Paper –ps_marisa-lerin_394987_for-the-love-of-cats-solid-paper-8_pu, Font - Gonestone Signature

Here's my first cut on this workshop...

Day 1, created using Affinity. I will be using Affinity for this masks workshop. It couldn't be easier, a simple case of drag and drop, unlike in PSP. Beautiful pages ladies!

Julie, Tucker looks delightful and you are amazing to offer your time, care and love to the animals you foster. You have a big heart.

I will dedicate this assignment to my father-in-law. We miss him everyday. He has taught us all many great lessons, was always so kind to everyone, thoughtful, generous and loving. He was a GREAT man and a GREAT father. We called him GRANDPA GREAT.

Day 1

@Cassel Its my own composition. The template was yours. With the colour picker I toke the colours out of the photo. And the embossing texture effects from PSP. I gave extra deep print by the embossing. I made selections with the selectiontool. I made the template bigger so I could make precisly selections. but on an extra image for the text. With rulers on the same position of the photo. It was done in about one - one and a halve hour. Very fast for my way of working.

Lesson 1 and I used the Diamond Extra template because it fitted the photos I wanted to use better. I will use Affinity and the theme, I like a theme, will be Monterey Bay which I visited this year. To be consistent throughout this workshop all the titles will use the same font Ubertas but probably not all will have those ligatures. The use of masks is a joy in Affinity!

Day 1: I have loads of photos of robins so am going to try use them in this workshop. The is paper from one of the kits that Carole made available for download. Created in Affinity.

My grandsons haven't arrived yet. I've had time to do lesson #1 (with Affinity):

Lesson 1. I too have used a hibiscus flower coincidentally and repeated parts of it for the mini photos in the template. I have completed this workshop before but this time I hope to be able to create the pages quickly making the most of the features of Masks.

Day2 Once more, a layout about the Big Bear Valley Bald Eagles. To practice the technique, I used the plaid pattern just as a mat for the journaling. I increased the mask opacity to 100%; otherwise, the image would look washed out.

Again lesson 1 now made as mask the previous was made as template. It was not easear.

He certainly had a good life with you, Julie. As Sharla mentioned, you have a big heart.

Sharon, they are so colorful. Beautiful.

This is lovely, Sharla. So cute!

Sue very kindly explains the difference better than I can. The robin in the UK is a very popular little bird who really comes into his own at Christmas time when he is featured on cards and absolutely everything else Christmas.

I absolutely love how colourful and fun these layouts are. Fantastic.

Julie,that is because the North American robin is a member of the Thrush family, whilst the European robin is a member of the flycatcher family. The early pioneers called them Robins, as they resembled the European robin, but they aren't at all related.

You have done a great job your first time out with masks. Later you will learn ways to blend out the straight lines that are still visible. It's fun, isn't it? Love all the kitty pix!

Daughter Deb is visiting from CA and her sister, Laurey, met her in New York City where they toured Hudson Yards, The Met and the Natural History Museum. I'll be using Laurey's photos. She has a new Samsung Galaxy cellphone, and her photos are outstanding! This is from the visit to Vessel at Hudson Yards. Here is the journaling text: VESSEL is a structure and visitor attraction built as part of Hudson Yards in Manhattan, NYC. Built by the designer Thomas Heatherwick, the elaborate honeycomb-like structure rises 150 feet and consists of 154 flights of stairs, 2,500 steps, and 80 landings for visitors to climb. My fonts are Franklin Gothic, Lucinda Bright and Frederika the Great. The background paper is from Marisa Lerin kit: Pine Tree bundle. I struggled with the large mask a bit. Ended up putting the last layer of the mask group down below the whole group and then it rendered properly.

Day 1 using Affinity photo 2.63 even though it is easy using masks in Affinity photo I think I am still going to learn a lot. The main photo is an old one and the quality is not great the shepherd is my son and his two best pals who still keep in touch.

Day 1 - On a rainy day during our Fredericksburg vacation, we took a day trip to the National Harbor MGM casino in Maryland. I took these photos in the Conservatory of the current exhibit called DMV in honor of DC, Maryland and Virginia. The butterfly and the flower were hanging from the ceiling. The font is a layered Rainboho from CF. The typing is a CF font called Typefont. In PSP, I made my own mask because I couldn't get the effect with the original mask. I used the clip to it script which saves so much time and effort.

I agree, these are so beautiful and make the perfect photo subjects. I tried to grown them, I failed.

This is so cool Ann. My kind of art. I'm blown away you can actually go on it! What views you'd see from the top and a whole lot of good exercise getting there.

I too have some bees to show, but nothing nearly as awesome as these. What on earth is that bee on the far right doing?

The images you have used are stunning, Sharon.

I think you will enjoy using them in your layouts. They are versatile and can be tweaked and adjusted as you need. One important thing to remember is to ensure your photo is large enough to cover most of the mask, if not all. Then, when you clip it (mask), it will more likely give the results you wanted.

Sharla in the Netherlands we have the same Robin and they are everywhere for Christmas too. I was quite surprised when I visited my daughter when they just had moved to the States and noticed a different kind of Robin. Sue was enlightening me on the how and why they were different.

You have made my day, I like to think that I have influenced others, not only in the campus, but on other sites where I showcase my layouts. The majority of all creatures large and small fear humans, we are the most dangers of all creatures. I firmly believe that insects, really are worthy of a second look. After all, they have been around far longer than us humans have.

Stunning Sue! You are the reason I'm not afraid of bees anymore (despite stepping on a nest twice when I was young - with an obvious bad outcome!) and now I even check out the other crawlies I see...sometimes from a distance though, I'm not that brave. I stopped killing the ones in my house and now take them outside if I can catch them (if it's too creepy for me, hubby does it). I really appreciate the close up shots you have so I can really get a good look, plus I learn a bit about them too. thank you.

Wow Sharla, these are beautiful.

Thank you, Carole. I created the first five PSP layouts in July last year when I wanted to check out the Masks workshop, when I noticed it in Diamond. I was extremely green when it came to masks, and I found the workshop extremely helpful. I brought those layouts back and worked on them more to send to this workshop. I find Affinity reasonably easy compared to PSP, and I still want to go over PSP because I still use that programme. I am quite new to Affinity, yet.

These are not like the robins I see here in southwest Ontario. They are lovely with the white breasts and splash of orange.

Wow, I love the images used; the shapes are beautiful, Ann.

That is an interesting structure and a lot of steps to climb! On the little photo on the left it really looks like a vessel.

Here my first attemp in PSP