STEP BY STEP THE PROPER CHANNELS

Learn to enhance your sunset photos with a simple Channel Mixer trick in Affinity Photo

01 ENHANCE THE REDS

Open sunset_before.jpg into Affinity and click the Photo Persona at top right. Go to the Layers panel, click the Adjustment icon and choose Channel Mixer. Make sure Output Channel is Red, then set Red +200, Green -50, Blue -50 to boost to the reds.

03 LOWER THE OPACITY

The effect here is too strong – let’s tone it down. Go to the Layers panel and lower the opacity to around 80%. The boost in saturation can cause colours to blow out, resulting in a loss in detail. We can tone it down with a mask. Click the Layer Mask icon in the Layers panel.

05 BOOST THE WAVES

We’d like some colours to be bolder. We can duplicate the Channel Mixer with Cmd/ctrl+j, then right-click the layer mask and Delete. Hold Alt and click the Layer Mask icon to add a full mask. Now, switch the primary colour to white and paint to reveal the effect over the waves.

02 SET THE BLUES

Go to the Output Channel dropdown and choose Blue. Set Blue +200, Red -50, Green -50. This adds a warm orange tone. If it’s not right for your image you can experiment with different values. Just ensure the combined total of the three channels equals +100.

04 TONE DOWN THE CLOUDS

Get the Brush tool, then hit D to set the primary colour to black, and press 3 to set the brush opacity to 30%. Zoom in to the clouds and paint to selectively hide the effect in parts where it works too strongly. Use the ] and [ keys to resize your brush tip as you paint.

06 MAKE A PRESET

Double-click the thumbnail on your Channel Mixer layers to re-enter the settings. Click the Add Preset button at the top and give your preset a name. Click OK. You’ll find your saved preset in the Adjustment Panel under Channel Mixer, ready to be used again.