 So why don't I flatten the image so much when editing an infinity photo? Come along for the ride, we'll talk about it. Damn, I'm on my bike. Not my usual out with my camera. I'm just trying to rehab a injured hip that's keeping me from getting out with my camera. So I figured today I'd go out and take a ride, try to get this hip to recover. And while I'm out here, I'll do a little multitasking. We're going to talk a little bit about affinity photo. So why do I flatten my images so much when editing an affinity photo? I get that question a lot. And I thought today would be a good time to see if I can answer that question. There's really just a couple reasons that I flatten the image and affinity photo quite a bit. First is I found that when I'm doing something like cropping an image, when I want to take it into a plug-in like SilverFX Pro or ColorFX in one of my NIC plugins, if I don't flatten the image, it doesn't seem to take the information into the plug-in. So it looks a little weird. It doesn't look cropped. So I just got an habit of flattening the image before I go into a plug-in. And the second is, it's just habit. It's quite, it's just that simple. It's a habit. I don't know where I picked it up. I use it for an organizational tool. It's just kind of, after I do certain steps, it just kind of clears the board for me and I go into my next step. Now I know that that's probably not the most efficient way to do it. And I'm not saying it's right to do it. It's just how I do it. I don't view my videos as tutorials. When I started making these videos, it was really just to show how I use Affinity Photo. The main reason I started making these Affinity Photo videos in the first place was really just to show that there's an alternative to Photoshop out there. I'm by no means an expert in editing with Affinity Photo. I just got tired of seeing other photographers trying out Affinity Photo for a couple of hours and just saying that this software isn't good enough to put out professional work or just not as good as Photoshop. I just wanted to show people that yes, you can do high quality images, good quality edits with Affinity Photo. Really, it was nothing more than that. Even every once in a while I would do something that I would actually call a tutorial, like simple simple like putting a border around a photo, stuff like that. But generally, when I'm sharing my workflow, this isn't really supposed to be a tutorial. I hope you don't try to copy what I do. It's just showing some possibilities of what this software can do. My background really influences how I edit images. I started out in the dark room, which really was a big asset for editing images in the digital world. Then I went to Photoshop, programs like that, and then I went to Affinity Photo. And through each step, I think I carry some of those processes with me. And if I have bad habits, it's usually because they were created a long time ago. So when I take a photo into Affinity Photo, I generally have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to be trying to do to it. So that's one reason I don't really worry about doing it technically right way. I just do it the way that works best for me. You can use a lot of different layers. You don't have to flatten the image. You can keep those layers open. You can merge the layers. But for me, the way I do it, it just keeps my workflow moving along. I don't spend a lot of time editing my images. The way I feel about it is if I've done my work behind the camera correctly, I'm not going to have to do that much in the edit. So my needs are pretty simple when it comes to editing. I didn't use that much in Photoshop, and I don't need that much in Affinity Photo. And if there's something I need to do, that's when I learn how to do it. My goal isn't to become an expert in Affinity Photo. My goal is to use this software to get the images to where I want them to be. And Affinity Photo does everything I needed to. It does everything that I did when I was using Photoshop. And in some ways, I think there are some things it does that I like the way it does better. So when you see me do something in Affinity Photo that you think looks weird or you've seen it done in a lot of different ways, just don't pay any attention to that. That's just me doing it my own way because it's all kind of connected. I process the raw file a certain way because later on in the edit, I'm going to be doing something else that I'm relying on that raw file to be the way it is. Everybody's got different needs and they have different expectations for their images. Now that I'm shooting mostly black and white, it even simplifies the process even more. I'm not really worried about getting the colors perfect. It's all about the contrast for me, not blowing out the highlights unless I want to. I'm not crunching the blacks too much unless I want those blacks to be really black. Now that I'm using film more, I even have less editing to do in Affinity Photo. It's just mainly just tweaking the contrast a little bit, lightening, darkening, that kind of thing. A little dodging and burning because the film is taking with it some of the attributes that I'm looking for in the photograph to begin with. So it actually takes more time to process the film and to scan it. But once it's in Affinity Photo, just a matter of cleaning up some of the dust spots, tweaking the contrast, fine-tuning the crop a little bit and I'm out of there. Because the film itself is being picked for a lot of the attributes that it brings to the image. I'm really sorry for the confusion. I actually have considered pulling down some of these videos just because I'm worried that I'm going to keep using more people than I'm actually helping. I do feel there is some useful information in these videos. Just seeing how different people use the software I think in itself can be pretty valuable. And you see the results at the end. If those results look like crap to you, if those results don't look good to you, then you probably don't want to do it like I do it. But if you like how my images turn out, then you might emulate some of it. But you would probably be better off learning Affinity Photo from the experts. I'm just a photographer who uses it to try to get the most out of my images. I don't see a negative side to flattening more than you need to. I haven't seen degradation on my images. I haven't seen extra noise or lack of sharpness in my images. So if I was seeing a negative effect in flattening my images, I would certainly change my workflow. Now, just because I edit the way I do right now doesn't mean a year from now my process won't have changed considerably. It's always evolving. I've only been using Affinity Photo for a couple of years. Once I gave it a good run, I knew for sure that I didn't need Photoshop. I don't have to pay the subscription if that makes me less of a professional. So be it. So, long story short, I probably do flatten the images too much in Affinity Photo. It's just the way I do it. Find what works best for you and get that workflow down. If you're getting the images you want, if it's turning out the way you like it, that's all that matters. Just like in Photoshop, there are a lot of different ways to edit a photo in Affinity Photo. There's a lot of approaches, a lot of different techniques. And I still feel that Affinity Photo is the best bang for the buck. It's the best $50 on a piece of software I've ever spent. And I would recommend if you're considering Affinity Photo, just download the trial version. I mean, that's the way to find out, download it, try it out for the period that it's free, and determine for yourself if that's something you want to use. You have nothing to lose. If you don't like it, try something else. We have all these great choices. I'm not sponsored by Affinity Photo, and I'm not trying to sell Affinity Photo to you. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they hate that I'm making these videos. They'd probably rather have someone with more expertise in photo editing than myself. I have edited a lot of photos in my lifetime. Thousands and thousands and thousands. Well, it's getting kind of hot out here. I think I need to finish my ride. So I'm in this video right here. Hopefully I've cleared up some of the confusion on my Affinity Photo videos. So until next time, literally. Thanks for coming along for the ride.