in today's video I want to share a new technique you can use in Affinity photo this only became
possible with the recent launch of affinity photo 2. it involves processing a raw file twice and
then combining the two versions together I'll start by opening the raw file that I want to use
for this what caught my attention when I shot this image was the contrast between the bright
yellow of the sun and the blue of the clouds on the left know when I come to process the image
we don't really see this transition this is an ideal situation to use the double raw processing
technique my first step is to correct the image tones to do this I'll increase the black point to
around five percent because the darkest tones are too light this makes the image quite dark so I'll
then increase the shadows to around 60 percent after that I can reduce the highlights to about
40 to prevent the bright sky from becoming blown out this creates a reasonable histogram allowing
me to use the contrast slider increasing it to around 10 percent and before I forget I'll just
set the profile for this image to be Adobe RGB these changes have improved the image tones but
the colors are still looking muddy neither the yellow on the right or the blue on the left look
particularly strong what I'm going to do is first produce a version of this image for the
stronger yellow sky all I need to do is increase the temperature by a couple of clicks this makes
the yellow stronger in the clouds and on the sand but at a cost of the blue sky to make this easier
to see in the video I'll increase the vibrance to about 30 percent the final change I want to make
is to add some sharpening to this image having applied a basic set of adjustments to the image I
want to develop it and switch to the Photo Persona but before I do this I also need to check to make
sure that the output is set to be a raw layer and I want to use the embedded option now I can click
the develop button back in the Photo Persona I can see the newly developed layer in the Layer Studio
panel my next step is to duplicate the layer by right clicking and picking the duplicate option
I can then rename the layer to be blue because I want to use this layer to enhance the blue in the
image next I can open the duplicate layer in the Photo Persona by double clicking it because this
is a duplicate raw layer it has the same settings as the layer it was copied from to strengthen the
blue I'll reduce the color temperature slightly I should also point out that this technique isn't
only for use with color you can adjust the raw development in any way you want for example let's
increase the clarotech to 15 because it seems to emphasize the blue a little more and because
I'm doing this for the video Let's increase the saturation to around 15 to make the effect more
obvious when I've finished adjusting the copyrol layer I can click the develop button and return
to the photo Persona we now have two raw layers in the Layer Studio but developed with different
settings when I hide the top layer you can see how different it is to the lower layer next I
want to create a layer mask to combine the two images together first I'll click the blue layer
to select it then I'll click the new mask option icon and pick the hue range mask let's turn on the
preview so you can see the mask the white areas of the mask reveal the top layer in the image whilst
the black areas hide it the four dots on the color wheel represent the colors being selected in the
mask any colours that appear between the two middle dots on the color wheel are selected at the moment
this is selecting the orange area of the sky if I drag them clockwise it changes to select more of
the yellow now let's move it around to the blue area because it's the blue of the top layer we
want to be visible if I turn off the preview you can see the difference this is now making
what the two outer dots do is just help blend the adjustment if we don't need a precise mask
to blend the two layers together as in this image we can also use the blur slider at the bottom to
help with blending if I turn on the preview again you can see what's happening let's close this now
because I want to refine the image further the first thing I want to do is reopen the blue layer
in the Develop Persona because the settings are just a little bit too strong now that I'm back
in the Develop Persona there's something else I want to highlight what you're seeing in the
display isn't just the blue layer you're seeing the two raw layers combined in a preview you can
use this to fine tune any adjustments you make to make this image a little bit more believable I'll
reduce the saturation to zero and the vibrancy to around 15 percent I'll also increase the color
temperature slightly to around 5000. that's now looking like a better blend of the colors between
the two layers I can then click the develop button to return to the photo Persona if I
had the bottom layer you can see the parts of the blue layer being included in the image and if I
had the top layer you can see how it improves the blue this is looking better but I'm not entirely
happy with the blending between the two layers I think that the cutoff between the blue and the
yellow isn't subtle enough also I'd like more of the yellow clouds on the left to be visible what
I'm going to do is add a new mask layer to the blue layer I can now use the paintbrush tool to
paint black onto the mask to reveal the yellow in the clouds it also helps with the blending of the
two layers to make it appear more natural this is an extremely flexible approach because Affinity
Photo 2 has made it non-destructive for example if I open the range mask again I can remove the blur
I applied and I can change the colour selection then if I want to strengthen the orange in the
image I can double click the background layer to increase the saturation I can now return to
the Photo Persona to make any further changes I want this technique just wasn't possible in the
previous version of affinity photo something else you can do with this technique for even
more control is combine it with blend ranges let's select the blue layer and then click the cog icon
to open the blending options The source layer is the layer I currently have selected in the layer
Studio panel so I'm going to use that control I can then drag the point over on the right down
to the bottom this prevents the blue layer from showing in any of the brightest areas of the image
if you want to know more about how to use the blem ranges control watch this video next it explains
how this control works in detail thanks for watching today and I hope you've enjoyed the video
don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already and I hope to see you soon for another video