Affinity Photo 2: Solid Foundations

Learn the best way to use Affinity Photo 2 from a 35+ year designer

What you'll learn

Use Affinity Photo 2 to enhance images using proven techniques

Know why they are doing things a certain way

Be aware of the various 'gotchas' and problems that may arise

Use the right tool for the right job

Requirements

No experience of image editing is needed

A working copy or demo of Affinity Photo for a Mac/Windows

Description

'I've done some Affinity Photo tutorials on YouTube, but they just cover one tool or technique. How do I actually enhance a photo, start to finish?''There are so many tools in Affinity Photo! So many things to remember! As a beginner what do I need to know and what do I not need to know?'Enrol on this course and get the answers to these questions from someone with 35+ years in the business.Affinity Photo is the hottest image editing program for the Mac and Windows, & now it's at version 2. It has many powerful tools for making your photos stand out. But you need to know how to use it, and how to get the best out of it. It's not enough to just learn what a few sliders do. You need to know how a professional sets about developing photos - where they start, what steps they take, which tools they use and most importantly - why.The course starts with a thorough grounding in the five steps you need to consider taking when you enhance a photo. These steps are so fundamental that I make sure that they are covered properly and in detail. Practically every image you see is available as a download and every step has practice videos. Not a multi choice quiz where you just have to remember the name of a tool. That's not enough - you need practical exercises for a program like Affinity Photo and I give you exactly that in a unique way.Your practical exercises are consistent. I'll give you a picture and tell you what I want you to do with it. Then you have a choice. You can listen to the advice I give you about how to do the job, or you can skip the advice and try doing the exercise - crop a picture, deal with the color balance, erase some blemishes and so on. Then come back to the video and I'll show you how I did it. I'll also give you some valuable tips about tools, techniques and workflow along the way. Then at the end of the first section you take five photos and do all five steps on them. I don't know of a better way for you to really nail down the fundamental concepts and be ready to move on to more advanced subjects.Did you notice I said 'fundamental' twice instead of 'basic'? There's a reason for that. This course is aimed at beginners and existing users who want to round out their knowledge but that doesn't mean it's over simplified. Heck, no! You will learn the same tools and techniques that are used in professional studios everywhere. I've been in quite a few and - just between you and me - there's things on this course that I've had to explain to people who use image editors on a daily basis. That's something I can do for you too. As well as being a designer for decades I also spent some time as a teacher and my university degree is all about how people learn. And it is my firm belief that the right way to learn something like Affinity Photo is not to just learn the tools. The right way is to learn the right workflow. You learn the right workflow by using the right tools for the job, and the best way to use them.Affinity Photo 2: Solid Foundations takes you from complete beginner through to accomplished user. I'll take you through the steps you need to take when developing an image. I use the most important tools for the task in hand and show you the best practices with each. The right way to use a tool, why you are using it, when to use it and cover some mistakes people make with those tools.I assume no knowledge on your part. All you need is a willingness to learn plus a demo or copy of Affinity Photo 2 for the desktop. I'll take you though all the basics like getting the color and tone sorted. rotating and cropping, sharpening and reducing noise, selections, layer masks etc. Then we'll go on to more advanced topics like layer blend modes, vector art, text and painting. By the end of the course you will know how, when and why to enhance your photos, and really make them shine.

Overview

Section 1: First Things First…

Lecture 1 Hi and Welcome!

Lecture 2 Jump Right in! Edit a Photo, Part 1

Lecture 3 Jump Right in! Edit a Photo, Part 2

Section 2: The 5 Step Method

Lecture 4 Cropping, Part 1

Lecture 5 Cropping, Part 2 - why Crop at all?

Lecture 6 Cropping, Part 3 - Your Turn!

Lecture 7 Cropping, Part 4 - The Nuts & Bolts

Lecture 8 Get the Dark & Light Right, Part 1 - Levels and the Histogram

Lecture 9 Get the Dark & Light Right, Part 2 - Shadow and Highlight

Lecture 10 Get the Dark & Light Right, Part 3 - Dehaze (and Vibrance/Saturation)

Lecture 11 Get the Dark & Light Right, Part 4 - Curves

Lecture 12 White Balance, Part 1 - White Balance & the Lens Filter

Lecture 13 White Balance, Part 2 - Correcting Color Casts

Lecture 14 Color Balance

Lecture 15 Color Balance using Curves

Lecture 16 Dealing with Digital Noise

Lecture 17 Your Turn! Deal with Some Noise - and say Hello! To the Clarity Filter

Lecture 18 Sharpen your Image, Part 1 - Unsharp Mask

Lecture 19 Sharpen your Image, Part 2 - The High Pass Filter

Lecture 20 The Healing Tools

Lecture 21 Layer Masks

Lecture 22 Frequency Separation

Lecture 23 The Clone Brush

Lecture 24 Red Eye Removal and Defringing

Lecture 25 Practice the 5 Steps! Project 1

Lecture 26 Practice the 5 Steps! Project 2

Lecture 27 Practice the 5 Steps! Project 3

Lecture 28 Practice the 5 Steps! Project 4

Lecture 29 Practice the 5 Steps! Project 5

Lecture 30 Resize your Images, and a bit of a Rant About Dots Per Inch…

Lecture 31 Export your Work, Part 1

Lecture 32 Export your Work, Part 2 - the Export Persona

Lecture 33 Export your Work, Part 3 - Output for Print

Section 3: Time to get Picky! Selections Explained

Lecture 34 Starting Simple…

Lecture 35 Modifying Simple Selections

Lecture 36 Drawing Selections

Lecture 37 Select by Hue. Or Tone. Or Color…

Lecture 38 Live Mask Layers

Lecture 39 Layer Blend Ranges

Lecture 40 The Selection Brush and Refine Selection

Lecture 41 Practice Time! And Place Image! And Compound Masks!

Lecture 42 Save, Mix and Match Selections

Section 4: RAW Editing with Affinity Photo

Lecture 43 So… What is a RAW File Anyway?

Lecture 44 The RAW Editing Process

Lecture 45 Back to the Photo Persona (& a little bit more about RAW…)

Lecture 46 Your Turn and the Great RAW vs jpeg Debate Answered - Pretty Definitively…

Lecture 47 The Tonemapping Persona

Section 5: Round out your Knowledge Right Here…

Lecture 48 Layer Blend Modes

Lecture 49 Layer Blend Mode Uses

Lecture 50 Dodge and Burn Techniques

Lecture 51 Perspective Projection

Lecture 52 Perspective, Warping & Compositing your Images

Lecture 53 Equirectangular Projection, Part 1

Lecture 54 Equirectangular Projection, Part 2 - Adding a Gradient

Lecture 55 Focus Merging

Lecture 56 Liquify your Images

Lecture 57 Filters and how to Maximise their Potential

Lecture 58 Creating Lookup Tables

Lecture 59 The History Panel

Lecture 60 Snapshots

Lecture 61 The Undo Brush

Lecture 62 Macros

Lecture 63 Batch Processing

Lecture 64 A Bit More About Adjustment Layers

Section 6: Getting Creative with Shapes, Text and Brushes

Lecture 65 Vector Shapes, Part 1

Lecture 66 Start Working with Vector Shapes

Lecture 67 Vectors, Part 3 - Have a Heart!

Lecture 68 Say Hello to Linked Layers

Lecture 69 The Pen Tool

Lecture 70 Text, Part 1

Lecture 71 Text, Part 2- The Paragraph, Character and Glyph Panels

Lecture 72 Working with Palettes

People who want their images to look better,People who feel intimidated by the power of Affinity Photo,Beginners,Slightly more experienced folk who want a handle on this great software