{"id":1440,"date":"2020-02-25T14:03:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T14:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smudgeonthelens.co.uk\/?p=1440"},"modified":"2020-02-25T14:30:36","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T14:30:36","slug":"road-testing-affinity-photo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smudgeonthelens.co.uk\/?p=1440","title":{"rendered":"Road testing Affinity Photo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you read my blog, and I know you don’t, you’ll notice that I have limited access to post processing tools. Thanks to my subscription to Practical Photography magazine (via Tesco Clubcard points), I read a review about some of the best processing tools around. Affinity Photo<\/strong> by Serif was noted as being comparable to Photoshop in terms of functionality and performance, but at \u00a348.99 for a one off payment, significantly cheaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I’m now day 2 into a free 10 day trial before I decide if I should buy. I’m notoriously a prograstinator, but so far, I’m liking what I see. As yet, I haven’t used any instruction manuals and it seems quite intuitive (for the basic stuff).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First bonus is that it actually accepts the RAW files from my Canon 750D. Previous softward hasn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s see if WordPress will upload an image that has been tinkered with in Affinity…Oh Pooh sticks. That’s a no. It claims the file type is not permitted for security reasons…Might need to have a read of this blog: https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/beginners-guide\/speed-wordpress-save-images-optimized-web\/<\/a> which talks about optimising images to make the files smaller, but I’m not sure how to change the file format. Oh, I knew I’d stumble. Only on the second hurdle!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we’re back in the race again on Day 3 of the trial. Turns out I needed to Export<\/em> <\/strong>the image whilst in Affinity, then I could select JPEG and the file size and quality. The image of Snowdrops below has been processed in Affinity from a RAW file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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RAW file processed using Affinity Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Unprocessed image<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I got a gizmo* (*code for, I’m not sure what it’s called…) for Christmas that allows me to fractionally move the camera every time a dial is moved in order to gradually focus on a different area of a subject. My husband and I practised on a few flowers to see the impact. He then went off and found some free software online so that the images could be stacked. This is where I lost of mojo as I didn’t want to be faffing around with software that I was unsure of. Thankfully, after watching a very brief You Tube video, I discovered Focus Stacking<\/strong> is quite easy to do on Affinity Photo. It’s also quite mesmerising to watch your images being converted. I think I’ll do a separate blog on this as I learn more, but the relative ease of the process in Affinity has given me a bit of hope that this is something I can play with in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Focus Stacking using Affinity Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next up, what I want to try is the Clone<\/strong> feature, as I haven’t really got a clue what to do with it. And still don’t to be fair. I instead had a little twiddle around with changing skies in Affinity to make them look more dramatic. I found a decent You Tube tutorial by Olivio Sarikas<\/em> which went through a basic technique about what to do. In fact, whilst it was only a 7 minute video, it covered duplicating layers, gradient maps, ‘stealing’ sky colours from other photos, making your own sky presets and other generally helpful snippets I had to keep pausing the video to make sure I was keeping up. Whilst I did manage to adjust the sky and create my own preset, I also managed to change the colours of the entire photo, which wasn’t entirely planned. That then led me to an Affinity tutorial about masking <\/strong>and replacing the sky with another image. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the whole, this little 10 day trial (sadly not used everyday due to family issues) has led me to believe that there is a huge amount of potential to explore within Affinity. There are a lot of “oooh, I could try that” moments. Most impressive is that it is an affordable and one-off price. Rather than paying \u00a310 a month to get Photoshop CC for eternity, I much prefer knowing once I’ve paid, there are no further costs. A brief quote from Practical Photography.com<\/em> and they conclude that Affinity photo is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“…more than capable contender for Photoshop’s long-established crown…but the comprehensive list of features, intuitive design and price assure it the top spot…”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so reader, I am actually going to buy it. Woohoo. https:\/\/affinity.serif.com\/en-gb\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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