Affinity Suite

Circular chart monitoring an image's color information. Saturation is measured from the center outwards from desaturation to full saturation. The direction indicates the image's hu.

Good for fixing skin color and checking saturation when coloring.

They are small differences between Designer and Photo

You can't edit mask using brush in the Designer Persona in Designer, but you can edit masks created in the Pixel Persona.

Intensity Waveform

Shows luminance values of pixels across the image from left to right.

x axis – position from left to right

y axis – luminance of pixels

Good for fixing exposure, checking contrast and overexposure/underexposure.

How to use scopes in Affinity Photo

Clipping mask

Drag a layer onto the thumbnail of the layer you want to clip.

This works in all three apps, both on the desktop and on the iPad.

Examples

Create a silhouette by dragging the transparent image onto the fill layer.
Drag the text onto the image.

I also recommend to check official resources.

Affinity Learning Portal – serves as a hub for the different resources Affinity offers. You can choose by app and platform. Also, you can go to forum or read Affinity Spotlight, blog with inspirational interviews and guides.

How change a layer mask?

InAffinity for Affinity Photo (no new videos, but still useful)

https://www.youtube.com/@inaffinityforaffinityphoto3220/

Copy from Affinity Photo

Ctrl + Shift + C copy flattened all visible layers

Ctrl + C copy layer

For layers

Alt + click on thumbnail	Change mask
Ctrl + click on thumbnail	Create selection from layer

Affinity-photo-icon

How to setup tools so it works with layers below?

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Specific for Photo

W	selection
J	healing

Scott Williams Photography (no new videos, but still useful)

https://www.youtube.com/@ScottWilliamsPhotography

New pixel layer (Ctrl + Shift + N)

Useful shortcuts

B	brush
[ ]	brush size
Ctrl + D	deselect all
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N	Create new file from clipboard
Ctrl + J	Duplicate layer

General tips

focus on
- lines first
- small wins
try different tools
be patient

Do your changes in a new layer

Chris P Williams (no new videos, but still useful)

https://www.youtube.com/@chrispwilliams6297/

Duplicate layer (Ctrl + J)

Mesh warp tool

Do it before making adjustments

Techniques for removing objects?

Clone tool (S)

Clone from different areas so you preserve structure.

Choose small size.

How to color correct skin?

Skin retouching

Duplicate layer (Ctrl+J, ⌘-J)
Apply Frequency separation
1. High freq - texture, fix texture, blemishes
2. Low freq - color, smooth skin, correct color
Copy Low freq, on the top apply Gaussian blur and mask face using brush
Also, you can fix skin color by painting over Low freq. Set brush flow to 3% and hardness to 0%. Sample colors from different spots a lot by Alt (⌥) and click.
On High freq, you can fix blemishes by using Inpainting Brush Tool. Check you have set source to current layer.

Inpainting brush tool

Magic brush that removes objects from canvas.

Patch tool

Healing brush tool

Hardness

100% hardness – cloned edges will be hard definite.

Generally keep it at 0%.

When working near a defined edge you should increase the hardness. Even then, around 50% will usually do.

Higher hardness creates harsh transitions. These often look unnatural and make it clear you've used the Clone Stamp tool.

How to create a group photo where everybody smiles?

Use Focus Merge. You can create new from File menu.
Select from each picture in Resources the best part and clone it using Clone Brush.

The principle is pretty easy and you can get great results quickly.

More info in manual

The original post on Affinity Forum that inspired me to use Focus Merge

(J)

Tips for using guides

Working with tablet

If your tablet doesn't seem precise, you can try to tinker with Tablet Input

Method in Preferences:

High Precision—provides the best quality high-resolution input data from pen tablets that support it. This input method is not compatible with Wacom's Mouse Mode and certain makers of pen tablet.
Low Precision—provides low-resolution input data if results from using High Precision and Windows Ink are not ideal. This is enabled by default.
Windows Ink—provides similar quality to High Precision but is used for tablets without High Precision support. You must enable Windows Ink mode in the tablet driver settings.

PDF import usually includes some layers.

It's useful when, for example, you want to export a board from Freeform and divide it into multiple artboards.

How to scale artboard with the content inside?

Select Move Tool [V].
Uncheck Lock Children in the context bar. It should be on the right side of the context bar:

To scale just the artboard, check Lock Children again.

You can't add guide across many artboards.

The workaround is to create a master artboard which contains all other artboards as children.

You can create artboards from selection.

Affinity-Designer

Artboards

Useful for organizing documents. Called frames in Figma.

When you add artboard to an existing document with content, it turns it into an artboard.

By default, it has some properties depending on how you set up the new document. New artboards are the same size as the document by default, but can be any size.

https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Artboards/artboards_about.html?title=About%20artboards

If brush strokes doesn't look as expected in SVG export, expand them.

There is no way to set a shortcut for creating artboards from selection (v2.1).

How to add padding (iPad)?

Switch to Transform.
Set Anchor to center.
You can add padding by writing +[dimension].

Note: You can't add padding to many artboards at the same time. It creates weird stuff.

768px-Affinity-publisher-icon-1080

Data merge – you can generate multiple business cards, certificates… from one file using csv, Excel table or json.

https://affinity.help/publisher/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Advanced/dataMerge.html?title=Data%20merge

New useful tools in Designer 2.0

Knife tool – can easily cut the object(s) into multiple layers

Shape builder tool – easy to create complex shapes from simple shapes, building on top of classic combinations of two objects

Vector warp – useful for changing perspective and various deformations

Hidden features

Unofficial PDF Manual - Expert Guide to Affinity Publisher

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/191879-unofficial-pdf-manual-expert-guide-to-affinity-publisher/

I have learnt a ton about print from it. It's created in Affinity Publisher itself. Not only it clearly explains the functions but it gives useful tips for work in general.

How to create a tri-fold brochure?

Choose paper size. Set margins.
View → Guides… → Column guides
- Columns: 3
- Gutter should have the same size as margin.

Don't forget

Expand stroke (otherwise it may not show as intended)
Convert text to curves (because of font compatibility)