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Venturing into the world of graphic design for the first time may cause you to pause and consider the hardware requirements of doing so beforehand, and rightly so. Depending on the type of design Inkscape and Affinity Designer are both vector-based alternatives to Adobe Illustrator — the industry standard in vector design software. Just think about what that means…add raster brush texture to your illustrations, edit single pixels on icons, mask and add grain to your crisp vectors, enclose and clip pixel layers.

This is true creative freedom and the possibilities are endless. Built for your workflow Thousands of designers around the world told us how they need their graphic design app to behave. We put that knowledge at the core of Affinity Designer. This is what we mean by power. From the beginning we developed our engine to work to floating point accuracy. What does this mean? Layout all your screens, pages, menus and other items in a single project across any number of artboards.

What is going on? Out of all of them, Affinity Designer on the iPad has proven itself to be a workhorse. I have put it through the fire, doing some annotated Concept Drawings on the iPad, and it worked with no problems whatsoever. I especially like the fact that the controls were quite similar to the Desktop version, which made it easy for me to navigate between the Personas. All files are native Affinity files that can be seen not just on the Mac, but also on the iPad. The key, though, is to make sure that you work on one platform at a time to ensure your work carries over between platforms.

The work that we’ll do together is similar to a job we had for a client of ours. Part Two of Masks In this second part of learning how to use masks, we’ll be using two images as our two layers instead of two colored layers. We recommend you have the images for this second part of this lesson ready to go before you start. Good luck doing the next part of this lesson. It’s a bit more challenging than the first part.

We will repeat some of the same information we made in part one as a refresher. Pardon us if our repetition is annoying. Here are the hyperlinks to the images we’ll be using in this lesson. The image of the surfboard should be on your screen now. Go to the Menu bar and click on the Commands icon see white square.

Click on Place see yellow rectangle and then click on its submenu Place from Cloud. This will reveal the city image on top of our surfboard image. Don’t worry that city image is slimmer than the surfboard image. The first thing we need to do is do a two-finger pinch on the screen to make our image shrink so it isn’t taking up too much screen real estate.

Next, we want to change the Opacity or see-throughness of the city image so we can partially see the surfboard image below it. Then, we’ll rotate the city image, so its main street is going in the same direction as the surfboard.

Lastly, we’ll resize the city image, so it covers the entire surfboard image. Now that we’ve explained what we’ll be doing, let’s do it Pinch the screen with two fingers so our image size is about half as high as the Toolbar. Click on the Layers Studio icon see white square and then click on the Layer Options button see yellow square. This will cause the Layer Options window to appear where we can make lots of changes to the active layer. Look at the image below and you’ll see which layer is active.

Hint: It’s the one that’s highlighted. You can also click once on the slider and manually type the percentage you want. Since the city image is active, this change of Opacity will only affect the top layer and not the bottom layer.

We need this layer halfway invisible so we can see the layer beneath. Go back to our image and click on the top rotation node see yellow square and turn it to the right so the middle street is pointed in the same direction as the center of the surfboard.

Click on the corner nodes see white squares and resize the city image its image fully covers the surfboard image. You’ll need to re-adjust the rotational node before you’re done. Note: The Preview Thumbnail is a helpful tool you can use to see how a specific layer looks in comparison to the other layers. It also shows you what kind of layer it is normal, grouped, mask, child, etc. You can tell the active layer has been repositioned and resized and has had it Opacity changed.

Click on the Layer Options button see yellow rectangle in the above image to re-open the Layers Studio panel. In the iPad version, you want to see a full blue line in the position you want the layer you are moving to be in see the yellow arrow for this action as well as the blue line.

We’re exactly where we want to be in this lesson: Step 2 of 5. Sometimes it takes a few steps to align the two images we need. Hopefully you now know how to resize, rotate, and place images. We’ll continue to work on these three skills all throughout this book. The second step of using masks is to click on the top layer and then add a Mask layer to it.

Since we already have the Layers Studio open, this will be simple. Click on the top layer so it’s active. Not having the correct layer selected before adding effects to it is the 1 mistake of all new users.

By making the top layer active, it will be the one receiving the mask layer. If the bottom layer stayed active and we pressed on the Mask Layer button, then the effect we want to make wouldn’t work. Question: How can you tell if a layer is active. Answer: It’ll be highlighted. Click on the Add button yellow square and then click on the Mask Layer button. Note: Check out our top layer in the below image and let’s talk about what’s going on.

Now there are two preview thumbnails on the top layer and a funny triangle symbol on its left side see white square.

The triangle symbol tells us this layer is a grouped layer meaning it is made up of more than one layer.

If you click on this triangle button, you’ll see the Mask Layer preview thumbnail see yellow square will move off this top layer and make its own layer.

After we clicked on the triangle button, it’ll change its appearance so it’s pointing downwards see image below , and this means the grouped layers are now visible. The mask layer’s preview thumbnail is now located on its own layer and this layer is below-and-to-the-right of the surfboard layer see yellow arrow. Layers that are thusly positioned in the Layers Studio are called child layers because they are a subordinate to their parent layer.

This means that when you do an edit on this child layer the effect is only visible on its parent layer. You’ll see this in action when we do the next two steps. Remember what we said about the importance of having the correct layer selected before doing an effect? As we were creating this lesson, for some reason we had the top layer selected and active and not the middle mask layer. When we went to paint in black, the effect didn’t work and the layer beneath never revealed itself.

So, before we continue, make sure your middle Mask layer is active and highlighted as we have it in the above image. Click on the Paint Brush Tool so it’s active.

You know a tool is active when you can see a vertical blue line on its left side see this image. Click on the Color Studio icon see the white circle right side of the below image so its pop-out window appears. Before we do the next step, let’s talk about this window.

The other white circle with the star in it we placed it there is called the foreground color. This is the color a Tool will use. The black circle see red square is called the background color. The small white circle inside the color wheel see start of the arrow is also the color of both the Foreground and the Color Studio’s icon.

The white circle see yellow square has to do with the Color Picker Tool see the eyedropper to its left. We’ll cover this tool in another lesson. To continue, we need to change the foreground color from white to black. Drag the inner white node straight up see the yellow arrow in the above image. Notice what happens to the foreground circle see the white circle with the star in the above image and the icon for the Color Studio.

Both will change to black see the below image. Go to the Contextual Toolbar at the bottom of the screen and set the values for each other these four options just like we have in this image below.

Note: This is not what we want to use for this effect, but now is as good a time as any to learn how Opacity, Flow, and Hardness affects our work.

Here’s what each does to our Paint Brush Tool. Opacity is the see-throughness of the paint. Flow is the wetness of the brush. Hardness is how definite or fuzzy the edges of your brush stroke is. With the values set as they are Looking at this image you can see several things.

These are: When you paint in black, you reveal the below image. Like we said, this is not what we want to do to our image. But how can we now go back and fix this mistake? There are two ways: We can tap the screen once with two fingers to undo our last action, or we can go back to the Color Studio and change the foreground color to white and paint over our brush stroke to conceal the lower image from what we just did to it.

Do either of these two methods to get us back to having the surfboard image in front of us on our screen. These lower values allow us more control over our effects.

It’s important to know that every time we do a new brush stroke the effect will increase. Paint over the four corners to show the city image below. This is what our image looks like after we did this. We think it looks very cool. We like this look but wonder if we made the city image appear more prominently over the entire image. We can do this by continuing to paint in black over the center of the image, but there’s a simpler method. Click on the Layers Studio icon and click on the top layer so it’s activated and highlighted.

This will make the underlaying city image reveal itself over the entire surfboard image. Looking at our image the effect is looking great. The only problem with this is that we don’t want the city to be visible thru the surfboard or the man. Simply changing the Opacity won’t change anything. We need another solution. Do you know what we need to do to conceal the lower layer from being visible?

Click on the Layers Options button see yellow rectangle in above image to return us to the Layers Studio. Click on the middle Mask layer so it’s active and then click on the now black Color Studio icon yellow square. Click on the white background circle to change the foreground color to white.

If you guessed that we’ll be painting in white to conceal the city image from the man and his surfboard, then you are correct.

Make sure your Color Studio looks like this before you continue. Paint in white over the man and his surfboard to conceal the city image from where we don’t want it. This is the image our client was after. They wanted to promote their surfboard for city dwellers. We think the effect is pretty cool. What do you think? This ends the second part of this lesson. We hope you now have a good understanding on how to use masks. Just remember the two most important facts regarding painting on mask layers.

Black reveals. White conceals. Note: If you ever need help while going through this book, please email us and we will be able to help you very quickly – usually within hours of your email. Basics 7 — How to Add Text to an Image Adding text to an image is a very useful skill to know how to do. In this lesson we’ll teach you the basics and add some cool effects, too.

We hope by the end of this lesson, you’ll have a good grasp on how to do this skill and won’t have any difficulties in the future as you hone your Affinity Photo skills. For this lesson, we’ll be using the image in the image folder titled: Basics 7 Text – Forest.

Here’s the hyperlink to the image as well. Click on the Artistic Text Tool so it’s active. Please make sure all letters are in CAPS.

The text will be the size of the first letter. Don’t worry if the size isn’t what you imagined. It’s very easily fixed. You can see by the little dialogue box that this first letter has the size of Now that we have our first text added to our image, we’re now going to go to the Studios on the right-side of the screen and use the Text Studio. Inside this studio are all of the functions we need to change the layout and format of our text. Click on the Text Studio icon see the only white Studio icon and let’s discuss the different text options we have to work with.

For this lesson, we’ll only look at the top options. We placed the different options in separate-colored rectangles.

We’ll explain what these are using bullet points. These choices are specific to the actual Font type. For example, the font Copperplate only offers Regular, Bold, Light. This is different from the default font of Arial. Depending on the chosen font, these may or may not work. Like for Copperplate, the Italic button won’t work. The lower three squares represent Regular text, Single Strikethrough, Double strikethrough.

Red: These are the standard text positioning choices. Bottom row: Justified options – sets the paragraph to be justified and aligns the last line of the paragraph to the left, center, right, and justified. Stop and Practice Time In keeping with the old saying “practice makes perfect”, we’re going to stop the lesson here for a few minutes and let you explore the character options we just discussed.

Before you do this, we need to take a few simple steps so that your practicing won’t interfere with the lesson. This is what we’re going to do Click on the Layers Studio icon see yellow square and click on the top layer so it’s highlighted. It may already be, but it’s always best to doublecheck.

Press Duplicate. This will duplicate the layer we just selected see above image. Uncheck the current text layer we are working on see yellow square and look to make sure the top layer is checked – or active see white square.

Because we unchecked the middle layer, nothing we do on the top layer will be affected. In point of fact, it’s actually not necessary to uncheck the middle layer, but we do it anyway. For us, it’s just a precaution we like to do because it shows us that the top layer is a practice layer, and the unchecked layer is the layer we want to protect.

Now, we are ready to experiment with the buttons in the Text Studio. If you ever feel you are completely lost, or you want to stop practicing, simply go back to the Layers Studio and uncheck the top layer and recheck the middle layer and you’ll be returned to our starting point. Click again on the Text Studio icon and do these actions for practice: 1. Change the Font to five different fonts.

Watch how your text changes on the screen. Change the Font size to three other sizes. Change the color of the Font by clicking on the color dot and moving the Color Wheel about. When you click on the outside ring, you’ll change the main color or Hue. When you click on the middle triangle you will change the darkness or brightness of the Hue. Click on the different underline and strikethrough options. Change the color of the underline bar and the strikethrough lines by clicking on the white circle with a diagonal line going thru it.

Change the different text positions. Our text will only allow the bottom word to be affected but click away anyway. Explore on your own. Are you done practicing? Did you learn a lot? We hope so. To bring us back to where we left off, follow these instructions: Click again on the Layers Studio see yellow square and uncheck the top layer and recheck the middle text layer see white rectangle.

This will hide all of your practice and let us continue the lesson. You don’t have to delete the top layer if you don’t want to. Now that we’re done practicing by ourselves, let’s continue to work thru this lesson. You now know how to add text to an image and how to adjust the text and do different things to it like underlining, strikethroughs, bold, italic, coloring, and positioning. This means you have learnt quite a bit.

Now, we want to teach you how to work with the actual characters to create a cool effect. Click on the Text Studio icon again and change the Font to Rockwell Bold and change its size to 36 see yellow rectangle.

Try to do this without looking at the next screenshot. If you spent time practicing above, we think you can easily do this.

If you’d like some help, take a look at this screenshot Click on the Center Text button see green square and watch as the word ‘Earth’ is centered. When we made these changes, the first letter of the first word ‘S’ looks like it’s not on our image anymore but slightly off the image. Let’s fix this. Click on the Move Tool looks like an arrow cursor and it’s located near the top of the Tool panel on the left-side of the screen.

Click on the now outlined text with your finger and reposition the text to the approximate center of the image see this screenshot for comparison. The Nodes and their functions: The white node rotates whatever is inside the blue square. The four corner blue nodes see yellow squares will reposition and resize the text however you want it.

Now that you know how to move the text box around because the Move Tool is activated , let’s continue learning what we can do with the text. Click on the text box and reposition the text so that its top left blue node is in the very top left of the image see this image below. To save space, we’re only showing you the text in the top-left position. Notice how the top three blue nodes are all along the top border of the image and the left vertical nodes are also along the border of the image.

Because our other finger will be on the screen, we have more control over the size and position of the text box. If our other finger was not on the screen and we moved the bottom right blue node, we would not be able to do what we’re about to do. Click on the bottom right blue node yellow square in above image and then while you’re pressing the screen with your other finger drag the bottom right blue node into the far bottom right corner of our image and release.

Next, we’re going to use the Layer FX Studio to change the effect of the text. What we want to do is increase every letter’s stroke and delete its fill color. The stroke is a line that surrounds each letter or object that you can’t see until you increase its thickness. The fill is the color of the letter – in this case, the fill is black. Click on the Layer FX Studio icon see white square below and watch as its pop-out window appears with lots of choices.

Click on the word Outline this will cause its Contextual Toolbar to open at the bottom of the screen and then slide over its slider button to the right see yellow rectangle for both of these actions. This browser is no longer supported. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

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Alfred Posted January 9, We pride ourselves in trying to take a complex effect and make it accessible to anyone. This ends this tutorial. Opacity is the see-throughness of the paint. Pinch the screen with two fingers so our image size is about half as high as the Toolbar. These two Preference changes are the only ones we do. Not having Snap to edges on will save us a lot of frustration.