How to Create a Long Exposure Effect in Affinity Photo

Posted on 16th June 2023

Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo is a professional photo editing software available for Mac and Windows. It offers a wide range of features and is comparable to Photoshop in many ways. One of the things that sets it apart is its ability to create stunning long exposure effects.

What is a long exposure?

A long exposure is a photography technique where the shutter is open for a long period of time, typically 1 second or more. This allows more light to enter the camera, resulting in a brighter image. It also has the effect of blurring moving objects, such as water or clouds. This can create a very beautiful and surreal effect.

How to create a long exposure effect in Affinity Photo

The first thing you need to do is open your image in Affinity Photo. Then, go to the “Layers” panel and create a new “Blend Mode” layer. Set the blend mode to “Lighten” and the opacity to 100%.

Next, go to the “Filters” panel and apply the “Gaussian Blur” filter. Set the radius to 10px. This will soften the image and help to blend the exposure effects together.

Now, go to the “Exposure” panel and increase the “Exposure” value to 2.0. This will make the image much brighter. Finally, go to the “Layers” panel and flatten the image.

That’s it! You should now have a beautiful long exposure effect. You can experiment with different values to get the perfect look for your image.

How to Create a Long Exposure Effect in Affinity Photo

In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to create a long exposure effect in Affinity Photo. This effect is often used to create light trails or to capture the motion of water.

To create a long exposure effect, we’ll need to use a slow shutter speed. This will allow more light to reach the sensor, and will result in a longer exposure.

To set a slow shutter speed, we’ll need to use a tripod. This will keep the camera still during the exposure.

Once the tripod is set up, we’ll need to set the camera to Manual mode. This will allow us to control the shutter speed and aperture.

We’ll need to set the shutter speed to a slow setting, such as 1/4 second. We can then set the aperture to a low number, such as f/16.

Once the camera is in Manual mode, we’ll need to focus on our subject. Then, we’ll need to press the shutter button and hold it down. The camera will take the photo over the course of the exposure.

Finally, we’ll need to download the image to our computer and open it in Affinity Photo.

In Affinity Photo, we’ll need to go to the “Develop” persona. Then, we’ll need to find the “Exposure” tool.

We’ll need to increase the exposure until the image looks correct. We can also increase the Contrast and Saturation to taste.

Once the image looks how we want it, we’ll need to export it as a JPEG.

And that’s how you can create a long exposure effect in Affinity Photo!

To create a long exposure effect in Affinity Photo, you will need to use the “Exposure” tool. This tool can be found in the “Develop” persona.

To start, open your image in Affinity Photo. Then, go to the “Develop” persona and select the “Exposure” tool.

Next, increase the “Exposure” slider to the right. This will increase the overall exposure of your image.

Then, increase the “Highlights” slider to the right. This will brighten the highlights in your image.

Finally, increase the “Shadows” slider to the right. This will brighten the shadows in your image.

You can also use the “Clarity” slider to increase the clarity of your image.

Once you have increased the exposure, highlights, shadows, and clarity of your image, you will need to increase the “Gamma” slider. This will increase the contrast of your image.

Once you have increased the contrast of your image, you will need to increase the “Saturation” slider. This will increase the vibrancy of the colors in your image.

Once you have increased the saturation of your image, you will need to increase the “Sharpness” slider. This will make the details in your image more pronounced.

Now that you have increased the exposure, highlights, shadows, clarity, gamma, saturation, and sharpness of your image, you will need to increase the “Noise Reduction” slider. This will reduce the amount of noise in your image.

Finally, you will need to increase the “Grain” slider. This will add grain to your image.

Once you have increased the exposure, highlights, shadows, clarity, gamma, saturation, sharpness, noise reduction, and grain of your image, you will need to save your image. To do this, go to “File > Save As”.

In the “Save As” dialog, select the “JPEG” file format. Then, click “Save”.

Your image will now be saved as a JPEG file.

How to Create a Long Exposure Effect in Affinity Photo

Step One: Choose Your Subject

When deciding what to photograph, think about what kind of movement you want to capture. moving water, for example, creates a beautiful soft blurring effect. If you want to capture light trails from cars or stars, look for an area with little light pollution.

Step Two: Set Up Your Camera

  1. Mount your camera on a tripod to keep it steady during the long exposure.
  2. Put your camera in Manual Mode so that you have full control over the exposure settings.
  3. Set your aperture to a low number (f/8 or lower) to let in more light.
  4. Set your ISO to a low number (100 or lower) to avoid introducing too much digital noise.
  5. Choose a shutter speed that will give you the effect you want. For moving water, try 1-2 seconds. For light trails, try 30 seconds or more.

Step Three: Take the Photo

Press the shutter button and hold it down for the duration of the exposure. If your camera has a Bulb Mode, you can use that to keep the shutter open for as long as you want.

Step Four: Edit the Photo in Affinity Photo

Open the photo in Affinity Photo and go to the Develop Persona. In the Exposure panel, increase the Blacks slider to darken the photo and make the light trails more visible. You can also increase the Contrast slider to make the photo pop.

And that’s it! You’ve successfully created a long exposure effect in Affinity Photo.