Raw power to the people

James Paterson has lots of tips for editing portraits with Affinity’s Raw tools

- James Paterson

If you want to get more out of your portraits, shoot in the Raw image quality. Not only does this give greater editing headroom, it also gives you more control over colours. But it does mean you need extra editing time to process the Raw file. Thankfully, Affinity Photo’s Raw workspace – the Develop Persona – offers powerful Raw tools to enhance portraits with ease.

Raw files do tend to look slightly flat and soft to begin with – especially compared to jpegs, which go through in-camera processing to boost their colours and detail – but this is actually one of the benefits of Raw editing. Rather than relying on generic processing, you make your own decisions about how you would like your finished portrait to look, whether that means tweaking the colours, boosting contrast or shifting white balance. These kinds of edits are best done at the Raw processing stage, when you have maximum dynamic range and colour data to work with.

THE MISSION

Enhance Raw portraits with the Develop Persona in Affinity Photo

Time needed

15 minutes

Skill level

Beginner

Kit needed

Lightroom