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Level up your skills with top tips and tricks from Affinity pro users

This year, we teamed up with some incredible artists who use Affinity to share pro tips and advice on how to get the most from the apps, along with valuable insights into their respective workflows. Here’s a recap of our 2023 Creative Sessions, all of which are free to watch on the official Affinity YouTube channel.

Beauty retouching in Affinity Photo

If you’re looking for tips on how to make your beauty edits look more natural, look no further! In this session, beauty and fashion photographer Kayleigh June walks you through her retouching process in Affinity Photo, demonstrating how she beautifies her photos using healing tools, Dodge and Burn, the Clone Stamp Tool and more. She also shares her top tips for achieving the best results.

You can download the image of the RAW file she uses to follow along here: affin.co/KJFC.

Learn how to retouch a beauty photo with photographer Kayleigh June.

Creating a badge design in Affinity Designer

We are huge fans of Luc Sauve’s retro badge designs and were delighted to get an in-depth look at his process for designing a lettermark and badge for a fictional Hockey team—Affinity Wild Hockey Club—in this session. Among other tools in Affinity Designer, he shows you how he uses 3D and warped text to create a unique design.

You can download the working file and other resources for this session here: affin.co/LSFC.

The free Google font pack Oswald also used in Luc’s design can be downloaded here: fonts.google.com/specimen/Oswald.

Graphic designer Luc Sauve talks you through his lettermark and badge design process in Affinity Designer.

The art of crafting “things” with Felix Hernandez

In our very first Affinity Masterclass series, multiple award-winning photographer and artist Felix Hernandez gives us an in-depth look at how he creates one of his signature miniature masterpieces over four fascinating sessions.

From making physical assets to posing and shooting them to post-processing using Affinity Photo, follow along as he takes you through his unique creative process from start to finish. This is a must-watch for anyone interested in miniature photography and a great chance to gain an insight into Felix’s workflow.

Downloadable resources for the first session can be found here: affin.co/FHFC.

The other three pro sessions and resources are available from our YouTube playlist: Affinity Masterclass with Felix Hernandez.

Go behind the scenes with multiple award-winning photographer and artist Felix Hernandez as he creates one of his signature miniature masterpieces.

Create vector repeat patterns in Affinity Designer

If you’re a pixel-based pattern designer looking to work in vector or someone wanting to get into pattern design, this one is for you! Learn how to create repeat patterns from start to finish using Affinity Designer in this creative session led by pattern designer and Skillshare teacher Weronika Salach.

You can follow along and create your own pattern by downloading the free Repeat Pattern template file (for Affinity Designer V1 and V2) here: affin.co/WSFC.

Learn how to create vector repeat patterns in Affinity Designer with Weronika Salach.

Macro photography workflow in Affinity Photo

Marit van Ekelenburg’s stunning macro work first caught our eye on Instagram, where her behind-the-scenes videos and striking close-ups of insects have captured the imagination of hundreds of thousands of followers. In this fascinating session, Marit demonstrates her post-production workflow using Affinity Photo 2, showing you how she uses Image Stacking and Focus Merging to achieve eye-catching end results.

Watch as macro photographer Marit van Ekelenburg demonstrates her post-production workflow using Affinity Photo 2.

Infographic workflow with Rhys Thomas (RSKT)

Learn how to create an eye-catching infographic using multiple styles of graphic design in this creative session led by artist and YouTuber Rhys Thomas (aka RSKT). Taking you through his workflow step-by-step, Rhys will show you how he sources information and creates a visual outline and script before experimenting with various layouts and ultimately crafting the final visual piece using adjustment layers in Affinity Photo and Designer.

Learn how to create eye-catching infographics using Affinity Designer and Photo with artist Rhys Thomas.

3D render post production workflow

Interested in learning some non-destructive techniques for 3D render post-production? Be sure to check out this creative session from our in-house product expert, James Ritson. Focusing specifically on render imagery from Blender, James guides you through his non-destructive workflow using placed render passes, adjustment layers, live filter layers and vector fill layers in Affinity Photo. He also covers esoteric techniques (like producing a diffuse glow effect non-destructively) as well as advanced techniques such as blend ranges, masking images and adjustments, tonal blending between foreground and background elements, and adding an organic grain effect.

He’s also provided free-to-use downloads of the source files and everything else you need to follow along, which you can download here: affin.co/JRFC.

Our in-house product expert James Ritson demonstrates some powerful non-destructive techniques for 3D render post production using Affinity Photo.

Creating a lifelike illustration in Affinity Designer

In this session, artist and educator Isabel Aracama shows you how to use a combination of Vector and Pixel personas in Affinity Designer to create an incredibly realistic-looking illustration of a butterfly. If you’ve ever looked at a photo-realistic illustration and wondered how it was done, this is your chance to learn some of the techniques!

To accompany the session there is an Affinity Designer file to download: affin.co/IAFC. This file is locked like our in-app samples but allows you to browse the layers and see how everything is put together.

Discover how to use a combination of Vector and Pixel personas in Affinity Designer to create an incredibly realistic-looking illustration with artist Isabel Aracama.

Creating an illustrated book in Affinity Publisher

In a Halloween-themed Creative Session, our in-house product expert, Benjamin Viney, shows you how to create an illustrated book with our award-winning Affinity Publisher software. If you dare, follow along as he reimagines his own version of Bram Stoker’s 1897 classic, Dracula… First, Ben will show you how to illustrate and design a cover utilising Affinity Publisher’s fantastic array of creative tools, such as the Pen Tool, Transparency Tool, layer blend modes, and the Gradient Fill Tool. He’ll also talk you through how to choose the best font for your cover as well as book size. After that, Ben will focus on chapter one of the spine-tingling vampire tale, demonstrating how to lay out the internal pages of a book using master pages, automatic fields such as running headers and page numbers, as well as text styles and auto-flowing text.

He’s also provided free-to-use downloads of the source files and everything else you need to follow along here: affin.co/BVFC.

Our in-house product expert Benjamin Viney shows you how to create an illustrated book in our award-winning Affinity Publisher software.

Editing architectural photography in Affinity Photo

Nashville photographer Quinn Ballard has over ten years of experience in architectural and interior photography. In this creative session, he runs through his top tips and tricks for editing exterior photos in Affinity Photo, sharing plenty of nuggets of wisdom for anyone wanting to get the best from their images and speed up their workflow.

If you’d like to follow along, download the supplementary free content, “All Kinds ’o Clouds”—a selection of images for replacing skies in your own photos—here: affin.co/QBFC.

Watch as photographer Quinn Ballard he runs through his top tips and tricks for editing exterior photos in Affinity Photo.

Whether you’ve just started out with a free trial or have been using Affinity for quite some time, we hope you find these sessions useful. There are many more to discover in our Creative Sessions Playlist, including topics such as comic and cartoon illustration in Affinity Designer, faking the underwater look in Affinity Photo and typography fundamentals in Affinity Publisher, so don’t forget to check them out!

To get notifications about future sessions and tutorials, subscribe to the official Affinity YouTube channel.

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Spotlight editor

As editor of Affinity Spotlight Melanie oversees the stories, interviews and tutorials published on the site. Outside of work she enjoys travelling, reading crime thrillers, Pilates and dabbling in a spot of oil painting. Get in touch with Melanie if you would like to contribute or be featured on Affinity Spotlight.