Bloomin' portraits

James Paterson gets creative with flower composites and layer blending skills in Affinity Photo... and the good news is it’s far easier than it looks

- James Paterson

Compositing is one of the most creative techniques in image editing, and it’s easier than you might think. All it takes is a few simple layer skills. Affinity Photo offers a host of useful compositing tools to get you started, from clever selection features that let you isolate and cut out objects, to intuitive masking and transforming tools that let you position each element with ease and blend everything together into a cohesive whole. In this project, we’ll explore these tools and features while creating a great flower portrait composite.

We begin by cutting out our subject so that we can place flowers in front and behind the figure. Once done, we can copy in a range of flower images, using selections and masks to remove their backgrounds and then placing them to fit around the subject. This involves one of the most powerful selection tools in Affinity Photo – the Refine command. It allows us to make incredibly precise selections by seeking out and improving edges for us. We’ve supplied a portrait for you to use (download link on the left), but why not shoot your own? All you need to do is photograph a person against a plain wall. You can also take some flower photos if you like or – as we have done – make use of free downloadable flower images from sites like Pixabay and WikiCommons. After combining the flowers with the portrait, we can use a few simple tricks ranging from help everything come together, from blur filters to creative colour shifts.