Hi all,

I am a beginner photographer, and start to play with Affinity Photo. I know how to use basic tools (curves, exposure, filters) and I am starting to play with masks.

I have a portrait photo, for which I would like to do two different operations:

  • Desaturate the background
  • Sharpen a bit the person on the foreground.

For example, if you consider this stock photo:

I would like to desaturate slightly the yellow background and sharpen the person.

I have tried playing with various masks, but I don’t manage to obtain the effect I want. I either manage to desaturate the background and sharpen everywhere, or to sharpen the person and desaturate everywhere.

I am a bit at lost at what to search for to find adequate content. Does anyone have a link towards some guide or give me a quick idea of what I should use?

Thanks!

  • KorydweenOP
    2·
    1 year ago

    Wow! Thank you so much for the detailed answer. I will totally watch their video, and I’m trying this out on my picture tonight. But I can already see where I made the mistakes. I think I stacked the masks wrong, as all my masks were on separate / duplicated layers on top of the background layer, not nested masks.