Have a look and try it for you: Affinity Photo Workbook

Here in the blog it was often about Affinity Photo by Serif. This is the app for image and photo editing, which with its scope and functionality on the Apple Mac, the iPad and competes with the market leader Adobe Photoshop on Windows PCs. If you switch from Photoshop (or GIMP, Paint.NET, Photoscape or other apps) to Affinity Photo or want to use the Serif software as an introduction to photo and image processing, you can come in, orientate yourself in the program and practice Buy “Workbook”. What that Affinity Photo Workbook has what it takes, I took a look at it.

Affinity Photo Workbook - 475 pages of concentrated knowledge!

Once you have the 3,5 cm thick compendium with basic knowledge of the program and user interface, tools and filters, layers and brushes as well as exposure and depths, etc. in your hand, you can literally feel: I can learn something here! So if you have bought the Affinity Photo App from Serif for the Apple Mac, iMac or MacBook or for the Windows PC, then you are rightly thinking of purchasing this book;)

Contents

A picture created with Affinity Photo can already be seen on the cover, which is treated as a DIY project for the reader in the book. On the first pages there is information about the software and the workbook as well as about the contributors. The people who worked on the Affinity Photo Workbook are presented on three pages - and the projects they have already made available are shown.

Then there is the table of contents, in which the contents of the first ten pages of the “Welcome” section are broken down and then the other chapters are shown. There are a total of five chapters, the last three of which deal with specific projects, effects and techniques. The Affinity Photo Workbook not only provides bare theory, but also a lot of possibilities to get to know everything practically step by step. And you can proceed in this order:

• Chapter 1: Tour through the program interface
• Chapter 2: Basics
• Chapter 3: Projects for Photo Enthusiasts
• Chapter 4: Commercial Projects
• Chapter 5: Creative Effects & Techniques
• Index
• Enclosures (keyboard shortcut overviews to detach) 

The individual chapters

Chapter 1 - Tour through the program interface

From page 14 to page 83 you get to know the program interface in detail, the toolbar, the various "personas" and studio panels as well as tools and toolbars. In addition, it is shown how everything can be individually adjusted and reset.

Chapter 2 - Basics

On pages 86 to 134 you will find the basics, i.e. opening and saving images and developing Raw images, Cropping, restoring, fitting, masking and so on. It also explains what layers are and why they can be so essential in image editing. In addition, the automatic corrections are shown so that you can work quickly.

Chapter 3 - Projects for Photo Enthusiasts

Pages 138 to 261 follow and it gets down to business. What are tonal values? How do I deal with HDR images? How do I turn photos into stunning black and white images? How do I edit images from city photography? What about the city lights? How do I go with Depth of field around? These and other questions are answered with practical examples.

Chapter 4 - Commercial Projects

It continues on pages 264 to 361 with commercial projects that have been realized in Affinity Photo. Among other things, it is about portrait retouching, panorama processing, the creation of a book cover and a cheese sandwich. The latter project shows how to process the heated cheese bread in such a way that it not only causes interest, but also torrents in the mouth;)

Chapter 5 - Creative Effects & Techniques

From pages 364 to 467 there are other projects that I personally particularly like. Among other things, the double exposure is explained, the particle decay as an effect is explained, macros and their strengths are dealt with and the creation of your own brushes is shown. There is also a project to create the picture on the book cover yourself - and I tried that out.

"Discovery" project in self-experiment

So far I haven't dealt with all the projects in detail - but I've taken the copy of the cover image to heart. This begins with the download of the required files and brushes. 

In addition, the chapters and sections in the workbook are named that you should have looked at beforehand in order to be able to carry out individual steps and assign tool names. In addition, an introductory explanation of what a photo montage is and what to look out for - for example, the lighting, sharpness, colors and other properties of the original files.

Then it starts. First the brushes are imported and the background, which serves as the starting point for the first steps of the project, is opened. Then you create the first layers to separate the foreground, center and background (optically at the end with the Gaussian blur). Then there are the astronauts, the space element, masks, light, fog, shadows and lots of corrections. Erasing is also an important step. Light, its generation or pretense and its omission also play a major role.

I tried to understand all the steps as well as I could and also to imitate them. Because I used different values ​​here and there or played with additional layers, different mixing options or colors myself, the result is different compared to the default. For the first big photo montage project with the Affinity Photo Workbook from Serif, it is certainly not that bad: D

Buy Serif Affinity Photo Workbook

Buying the Affinity Photo Workbook online, i.e. ordering in a shop, can be done in different ways. In exchange with the developers, I was advised to go to the official Serif webshop, as there are often discounts and other promotions there. You can find the official compendium for Affinity Photo there: Click here for Serif

On the other hand, you can also buy the book from Amazon or with the ISBN 9781909581067 in bookshops. Here is the link to Amazon, where you can also find other instructions and basic courses for image processing on the computer:

Official compendium of Serif

The Affinity Photo Workbook with approx. 475 pages, clearly laid out, shortcut overviews to cut out, projects to imitate and all the basics that beginners and those who switch need. All content in German and with pictures in color. In my opinion it is worth every penny.

57,65 EUR

Buy it at Amazon Price includes VAT, plus shipping costs (updated: 8.12.2023 at 19: 16 clock)

Conclusion

The book convinced me. Although I worked with Photoshop for Windows for many years before buying and using Affinity Photo for macOS, you can always learn something new. The extensive introduction and instructions are therefore not only something for beginners, but also for those who are already (a little) familiar with image processing, photo montage and the like. So a very clear recommendation!

Johannes Domke

[On vacation] After graduating from high school, Johannes completed training as a business assistant specializing in foreign languages. But then he decided to research and write, which led to his independence. He has been working for Sir Apfelot, among others, for several years now. His articles include product introductions, news, instructions, video games, consoles and much more. He follows Apple keynotes live via stream.

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