Affinity Photo Editor for iPad

I just imported a bunch of dng files from my iPhone to try in Affinity. My eye caught on a focus stack set of peppers. So I’m doing Focus Stacking with DNG files. I was curious to see if there would be any hitches. Nope. Just as easy as jpegs, except with better detail potential.
View attachment 106522
This first image is #2 in the focus stack, focused about the level of the front edge of the orange pepper. Any time you make photos with the plane of focus not parallel to the subject plane you can expect this sort of focus fall-off.
View attachment 106521
This second photo is the Focus Stacked one from Affinity. It is just coincidence that the examples I have shown were all stacks of 5 images. I’m just as likely to use 4 or 7, or 9, or whatever, depending on the subject.
If you try Focus Stacking I can tell you my most common early failures were caused by the closest focus position not being close enough the keep the very nearest parts of the subject in focus. It’s a good idea to make an extra shot at either extreme just to be sure.
If you decide to try Focus Stacking using a manual focus camera app rather than a focus Stacking app I think a good candidate for a Focus Stacking camera is Prime, because: it shoots RAW, it has an excellent focus peaking display so you get a much better idea of the area in focus, and it has a long focus scale up the left side of the frame as another guide to your focus position. It appears I made this focus stack set in PureShot using manual focus.
Can you guess I was from the f16 school of thought when I photographed with larger format cameras. Actually, the large view camera people were in the f64 club. With my smaller 4 x 5" view camera, the more common size, f22 was good enough. On top of that, with a view camera you have tilt and shift movements allowing you to tip the lens forward and down toward the subject, in this case, which would actually move the plane of focus to be on the same plane as the flat surface of the peppers. And the 4 x 5" negatives or transparencies were spectacular. That’s how you shoot black and white!
Gosh, the detail is amazing.
 
One thing I’m disappointed about in Affinity Photo is the Lens Corrections, or lack of lens corrections. The lens distortions studio in raw develop. It has very basic lens distortions like overall barrel or pincushion distortion but real lens corrections are always more complex than that. Also, there would need to be some way to select the type of lens being used, if nothing else that would be all the iPhone models plus the tele lenses on dual lens phones. Each one of them is different. That doesn’t even touch the chromatic aberrations which are also very lens specific.
When you’re in a program with real lens corrections it is quite fascinating to observe what happens as you switch lens corrections off and on. It gives you a whole different impression about why we need lens corrections. To manually correct these distortions would be exceedingly difficult.
Now maybe someone will prove me wrong and show me where the real lens corrections are hidden and I’ll be very happy.
 
One thing I’m disappointed about in Affinity Photo is the Lens Corrections, or lack of lens corrections. The lens distortions studio in raw develop. It has very basic lens distortions like overall barrel or pincushion distortion but real lens corrections are always more complex than that. Also, there would need to be some way to select the type of lens being used, if nothing else that would be all the iPhone models plus the tele lenses on dual lens phones. Each one of them is different. That doesn’t even touch the chromatic aberrations which are also very lens specific.
When you’re in a program with real lens corrections it is quite fascinating to observe what happens as you switch lens corrections off and on. It gives you a whole different impression about why we need lens corrections. To manually correct these distortions would be exceedingly difficult.
Now maybe someone will prove me wrong and show me where the real lens corrections are hidden and I’ll be very happy.
No, you’re not wrong Brian. There is the Lens Studio, but that’s clearly not what you want. Others have asked the same question and been told by Affinity that it’s because Apple IOS doesn’t support it yet. One day maybe.:rolleyes:
 
Lately I have been getting weird things happening with Affinity. I do a bunch of edits, let's say to an HDR set, and close the file. When I go and look at the file the edits are not there even though I'm sure I saved after the steps. So I opened it again and did some edits, saved for sure and closed. Opened again and it was as if I had done nothing. It was exactly in the same pre-edited state. I've had a few save failures like that so I'm watching more carefully what is going on. I also had a photo I was editing and since I already had the experience of the edits not being saved I decided to export the photo before closing the image. The exported image had non of my editing work on it.
I've also had several images where everything went well, saved as expected, reopened to the last saved state with no problem, worked perfectly. So I haven't figured out why it mostly works OK but then acts unexpectedly on occasion.
 
Lately I have been getting weird things happening with Affinity. I do a bunch of edits, let's say to an HDR set, and close the file. When I go and look at the file the edits are not there even though I'm sure I saved after the steps. So I opened it again and did some edits, saved for sure and closed. Opened again and it was as if I had done nothing. It was exactly in the same pre-edited state. I've had a few save failures like that so I'm watching more carefully what is going on. I also had a photo I was editing and since I already had the experience of the edits not being saved I decided to export the photo before closing the image. The exported image had non of my editing work on it.
I've also had several images where everything went well, saved as expected, reopened to the last saved state with no problem, worked perfectly. So I haven't figured out why it mostly works OK but then acts unexpectedly on occasion.

I’ve had the problem with exporting that you’ve seen. It’s very frustrating, and I’ve just been avoiding using Affinity for a while because of it. I hope they do something to address the problem soon.
 
I used to automatically go for Gaussian blur when I wanted some softness for a background or to smooth out the graininess in a background. Affinity has a selection of different types of blurs and this particular photo brought home the evidence that Gaussian blur is not always the best choice.
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You can see that the flowers in focus on the top layer have also been blurred on the background layer, smearing the edges of the flowers and reducing the separation from the background.

D5D84383-F76E-4EE1-BC87-7E16B8C98D2D.jpeg

There are 14 different blurs in Affinity and only two did what I wanted in this case - Box Blur and Median Blur.
 
I’ve had the problem with exporting that you’ve seen. It’s very frustrating, and I’ve just been avoiding using Affinity for a while because of it. I hope they do something to address the problem soon.
I’ve noticed this too. I do hope they do something about it as overall this is a wonderful app
 
I used to automatically go for Gaussian blur when I wanted some softness for a background or to smooth out the graininess in a background. Affinity has a selection of different types of blurs and this particular photo brought home the evidence that Gaussian blur is not always the best choice.
View attachment 110137
You can see that the flowers in focus on the top layer have also been blurred on the background layer, smearing the edges of the flowers and reducing the separation from the background.

View attachment 110138
There are 14 different blurs in Affinity and only two did what I wanted in this case - Box Blur and Median Blur.
Love median blur, and this is such a great use of it. I did an article on a few types of blur a few years ago.

https://enthusiasmnoted.wordpress.c...hrough-a-glass-darkly-taking-a-look-at-blurs/
 
It seems I am either looking for more depth of field through Focus Stacking or more background isolation using masking and an out-of focus version of the picture as a background. Going back to have another look at some older photos.
A5021F7B-39B9-4472-9595-E264E47F29D9.jpeg

I have had pretty good success with the selection brush and then following that with the selection refining tool. I still find it necessary to do some painting on the mask to tidy up certain areas. I like being able to smooth out noise in the background.
 
It seems I am either looking for more depth of field through Focus Stacking or more background isolation using masking and an out-of focus version of the picture as a background. Going back to have another look at some older photos.
View attachment 110891
I have had pretty good success with the selection brush and then following that with the selection refining tool. I still find it necessary to do some painting on the mask to tidy up certain areas. I like being able to smooth out noise in the background.
Nice image!
 
It seems I am either looking for more depth of field through Focus Stacking or more background isolation using masking and an out-of focus version of the picture as a background. Going back to have another look at some older photos.
View attachment 110891
I have had pretty good success with the selection brush and then following that with the selection refining tool. I still find it necessary to do some painting on the mask to tidy up certain areas. I like being able to smooth out noise in the background.
That’s absolutely gorgeous!
 
I can tell you one thing about Affinity Photo. My collection of Affinity Photo projects takes up a lot of memory. My 256 GB iPad was running out of space so I went looking to see what was using the most. Affinity was using 175GB! Time to delete a bunch of projects.When you have a project with lots of steps and maybe a few layers it takes a lot more memory space that you expect. It is remembering all the steps, etc.
 
It seems I am either looking for more depth of field through Focus Stacking or more background isolation using masking and an out-of focus version of the picture as a background. Going back to have another look at some older photos.
View attachment 110891
I have had pretty good success with the selection brush and then following that with the selection refining tool. I still find it necessary to do some painting on the mask to tidy up certain areas. I like being able to smooth out noise in the background.
This is wonderful Brian :thumbs:
 
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Perfect Browser is on for free right now, regular $9.99US

Perfect® Web Browser by AppSimply
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I have been using their first version of the web browser which they have renamed (Legacy version) and watching for this app to come on sale, was hoping it would come on for a couple $ like the original one but they did better for free....

Since I got the Legacy version it is my main web browser and I have scrapped most of the others as Perct Browser was for me a great app. I will have a better look through the new version but so far looks and is as fast as the previous one.
 
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