Anna Aden Writes

Happy New Year. Last year, Affinity Photo became free to use and because I no longer had access to PS I decided to go for it. To be fair, it has been on my list of software to use if I lost access to PS. However I know from being on their mailing lists they had two main sales where prices where slashed to 50-70%. The summer and black Friday sales. When that didn't happen this summer, I held on tight because it a fair bit of cash. Then before black Friday there was this announcement. In the interim I was using Photopea which is pretty good. The caveat was I using it on my current Mac which has about 4GB. It works so why change it. Actually, I got a new one before I left my organisation because they gave 10% discounts.  Note I say free to use because you still need a license to access this and I'm not really sure what Canva is doing when it checks.  Affinity vs Photoshop vs Photopea the main difference to me. For now the main difference is Photoshop (PS) is super efficient and r...

2026 Goals Realistically based on my past performances, I'm carrying forward the two main goals. I tend to grossly underestimate the time given, and overload myself. It makes me feel productive to have many goals. :) Anyway, I've been carrying over my goals from 2023 where stretch became actual. Without further ado. Finish my main novel-in-progress book 2 : This needs more draft passes than I am willing to admit, but I'm working on being realistic and seeing how much effort things take me. Draft passes, then editorial-copyediting/proofreading-which can take up to 3 months, cover design and all that. I rarely consider those steps in my goals. Publish my novella : I want to do this in January but I'm thinking of reader magnets and all that stuff. It was a world to sharpen my 'commercial' writing skills. I have three shorts associated with it. If I do write those, it may be delayed. Am I going to put them on my PadlockStack (Substack) or blog or some reader magnet?...

Change in circumstances, meant I no longer had access to Photoshop and I was dithering about whether to buy Affinity but I decided to wait for the Black Friday sales.  I tried Canva, too clunky and tedious. Then  I found out about Photopea which for a light user isn't bad (see below). So I used that instead. I could have subscribed but I'm a very light user only using it when I needed to do a book cover, therefore it didn't maks sense. But I think it's okay.  Using Canva and Photopea While trying Canva for my cover I got a seven free pass to Canva premium so I used it. I've been a member for years, but for occasional and light use, when I'm doing books.   It has some good premium templates though the layering is clunky, maybe that's why the integrating with Affinity. Who knows. However I was able to get some good ideas. The main issue with me was licensing because I heard Amazon was terminating accounts over copyright infringements, and there was no clear do...

I found chapter 2 which was playing around with masks a bit tedious. As I said the instructions aren't very clear however a good tip with I think is worth remembering is the blending option. It's described below.  These are a screenshot of the 'before' images  Layer Masks Theses were just playing around with masks, nothing serious or interesting. Blending Options According to Caplin 'this is one of the most powerful tools in Photoshop that allow users to hid or show picture elements automatically without TOUCHING A BRUSH OR LAYER MASK'. A good tip was using the underlying layer in blending mode  I think this is best tip so far, and worth playing about with. This is show the firearm in the library and the airplane.