Hello, I’m Robin Whalley. Welcome to Lenscraft. Today we’re diving into the Photo
Person in Affinity. And we’re going to tackle Adjustment Layers and Filters.
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We’re starting with the image from our previous video and we have this open in Affinity Photo.
If you look over to the right-hand side of the interface, you can see we have a layers window.
Here you can see just the background layer which is the displayed photo.
What we're going to do now is add an adjustment layer to our image.
There are a few ways you can do this, but we will use the adjustments tab.
The tab has a lot of different adjustments that you can apply to the image. For example
you can adjust the levels, or the vibrancy or convert the image to black
and white. Let’s start by adding a vibrancy adjustment layer.
When you add a new layer, you’ll notice a dialog window opens. And there may also be thumbnails that appear below the heading.
When you click on the thumbnails, it changes the settings in the adjustment dialog.
But you can also adjust the settings manually in the window. In this example I’m going to increase the vibrancy to the maximum value.
I can then save this adjustment as a new preset.
When you save the new preset it appears as a new thumbnail. You can also delete and
rename these thumbnails by right clicking on them with your mouse.
If we now go back to the Layers tab, you can see the new layer's been added.
If you select the layer and click on it again you can rename it.
This is a good practice to get into as it helps you organise your editing. Let’s go back to the Adjustment tab
and this time we’ll add a Black and White conversion.
Rather than select one of the presets though, we’ll make our own adjustments using the colour sliders.
Back in the Layers tab we can see that we now have two layers as well as the original image. Notice that there’s
a difference in the type of layer we have. The original background layer is a pixel
layer because it’s made up of image pixels. The adjustment layers though
aren’t pixel layers. Instead these are mathematical calculations the software applies to the image layer to create an effect.
It’s the combination of all the visible layers that you see here in the preview window.
We can turn a layer’s visibility off and on by clicking the tick mark to the right of the layer.
If we want to we can change the opacity of the layer.
This controls how strong an effect the layer's having on the image.
We can also change something called the Blending Mode for each layer.
This controls how that layer blends with the other layers beneath it.
If you want to change the settings you applied with a layer, double click the layer thumbnail.
Let’s now look at filters which work slightly differently.
Filters can also be used to apply effects to an image. Unlike Adjustment layers, filters are applied directly
to the selected layer. It’s important to understand when you’re applying filters, you need to apply them to a pixel layer
or won’t see any effect.
Let’s start by duplicating our background layer.
I’ll also move this to the top of the layer stack by dragging it. Notice how it’s now hiding all the layers
below it. That’s because it’s a pixel layer has an opacity of 100%
and the blending mode set to normal. This prevents you from seeing the other layers below it. Now let’s apply the Gaussian
blur filter again.
As I change the radius notice how it changes the preview.
If I click the cancel button nothing happens to the image. But if I click the Apply button, the effect’s applied directly to the selected layer.
This is known as a destructive edit on the layer. If we decide our effect is too strong there’s no way to adjust it without
undoing and starting again.
There is however an alternative to applying filters directly to a layer. It’s called a live filter. You find these in the Layers menu.
You’ll notice that the available live filters are similar to the regular filters.
And when you add one, the dialog is very similar to the regular filter. Notice though that we don’t have a cancel or
apply button but there is a merge button. This causes the live filter adjustment to merge with the layer you’re editing.
It’s then working just like the filter we saw before. So I suggest you don’t use this unless you need to. Instead
we'll make our change
and close the filter.
You can now see the live filter's been added below the layer we were adjusting.
One of the benefits of using a live filter is that we can change the adjustment.
We can also turn the effect of the filter on and off in the Layer tab.
And we can also reduce the opacity of the filter effect.
The final thing I want to show you in today's video are the icons at the bottom of the Layers tab. Here there’s an icon
you can use to add a new adjustment layer.
There’s also one to add a new live filter.
These shortcuts saves you from needing to use the menu or switching to the Adjustment tab. The other useful icon here is the
ability to group layers together. If I select all the layers by holding down my shift key whilst clicking the top and bottom layers.
I can then click the Group icon.
This places all the layers into a single folder or group in the Layers tab.
I can then name the new group to help me organisation of my layers.
As with other layers I can toggle the group off and on
and I can change the Opacity.
That’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed the video. If you have, please
click the like button below and please share it with others. Next week
we’ll be looking at using masks with our layers. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the episode.
I’m Robin Whalley. You’ve been watching Lenscraft. I’ll see you next week.
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