Straightening photos in Affinity

Straightening photos in Affinity using the Crop tool on a tilted landscape photo

Although some cameras can warn you when a photo is taken at an angle, let’s be honest: we often ignore that feature or shoot too quickly to rely on it. The result is a great photo that isn’t quite straight. Fortunately, straightening a photo in Affinity is quick and easy.

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Edge Preserving Smooth in PSP

Split image showing before and after applying Edge Preserving Smooth in PaintShop Pro, demonstrating softer skin while keeping sharp details

Have you ever tried to soften a photo, only to end up with something that looks like you’re seeing it through frosted glass? That’s because most “smooth” or “blur” commands don’t know the difference between textures and edges — they just blur everything. PaintShop Pro’s Edge Preserving Smooth command takes a smarter approach. it smooths what you want to smooth while keeping crisp details where they matter most.

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How to Create the Out-of-Bounds Effect in Affinity Photo

Leopard leaping off a log with part of its body popping out of a photo frame, illustrating the Out-of-Bounds effect created in Affinity

The Out-of-Bounds effect is a fun way to make part of your photo “extend” outside a frame, creating the illusion that your subject is popping out of the page. Although the steps are similar in many graphics programs, Affinity Photo offers a flexible workflow using masks and adjustment layers. Here is how you can achieve this effect.

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Creating a Watermark in Affinity

Watermarks are use as a way to protect images or identify you as the author of the graphic work. Although it might not prevent stealing your images, it still acts as a deterrent. You can use Affinity to create and add a watermark in different ways. How you will create them will depend on your preference and its general purpose. Let's look at three methods to generate a watermark of your own.

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7 Things I Miss from PaintShop Pro in Affinity Photo

Things I Miss in Affinity

When you’ve used PaintShop Pro for years, certain habits become second nature. You don’t even think about how you duplicate an image or repeat a command. Your fingers just do it. That’s why, when exploring Affinity Photo, the first days (or weeks) can be disconcerting. Here are a few things that made me pause, hunt through menus, or mutter, “Wait, that’s not how PSP does it!”

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Object selection in Affinity Photo

Whatever photo editing software you use, there are times when you need to select a specific subject, whether to extract it, isolate it, or apply an effect to it. There are many manual ways to make selections, but in Affinity Photo 2.6.4, a new AI-powered feature makes this task much easier: the Object Selection Tool.

Let’s take a closer look at how this smart tool works and how you can make the most of it.

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Things I Really Like in Affinity Photo

When I started exploring Affinity, once I got past the first steps of figuring out where everything was, I quickly discovered that some tasks were actually easier to do in that program. I found several features that made me stop and think, “Oh, that’s clever!” Here are a few of the things that immediately stood out to me and made me appreciate Affinity in its own right.

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Saving files in Affinity

When you work on a project in Affinity Photo (or Designer/Publisher), saving your work properly is crucial. A program crash, power failure, or unexpected error can cause you to lose progress. Plus, if you want to share your design, post it online, or open it in another program, you’ll need the right format.

Let’s go through the main ways you can (and should) save or export your work in Affinity.

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Importing ABR brushes into Affinity

Affinity Photo and Designer don’t come with as many brush packs as Photoshop. The good news? You can easily import Photoshop ABR brushes into Affinity to unlock thousands of creative options.

If you are using Affinity as graphic program, you might not find many brushes specifically designed for it. However, there are tons of Photoshop brushes that you can buy or download. They usually come in .abr format, and luckily, you can use them. This allows you to have a wide range of options when it comes to brushes you can use in Affinity.

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Sharing brushes between Affinity apps

Whether you are using Affinity Photo or Affinity Designer, you will notice that both app have a Brush tool. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to use the same brushes in both apps? In fact, you can, with certain limitations.

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