STEP BY STEP POLYGON PORTRAIT EFFECTS

Make amazing angular effects with time-saving Macros in Affinity Photo

01 MAKE A TRIANGLE

Open the portrait and grab the Pen tool. Click four times to make a triangle over the cheek. Go to the Fill box in the options and choose any colour to fill. Double-click the layer name and call it ‘pen shape.’ Go to Window>studio>macro and hit the Record button.

03 FINISH RECORDING THE MACRO

Click the fx button in the Layers panel and pick Inner Glow. Set blend mode to Multiply, choose a grey colour and set Opacity to 20%, Radius 5px, Intensity to 0, hit OK. Press Cmd/ctrl+d to deselect, click on the Pen Shape layer. Press the stop button in the Macro panel.

05 BUILD IT UP

Plot triangles to cover the subject, using the Macro and Node tool. Try to keep triangles in areas of similar colour. Use larger triangles for smooth areas like the cheeks and smaller ones for details like eyes. Each one should meet at the corner with the one beside it.

02 BLUR THE AREA

Hold Cmd/ctrl and click on the shape layer to load a selection, then click on the background layer and hit Cmd/ctrl+j to copy the selection to a new layer. Go to Arrange>move to Front, then rename the layer ‘triangle.’ Go to Filter>blur>average.

04 REPOSITION THE SHAPE

Grab the Node tool from the toolbar. Click on one point of the triangle and drag it to another position, then hit the play button in the Macro panel to repeat the process to create a second triangle. Keep making triangles this way to build up the polygon effect.

06 FINISH OFF

Cover the whole subject, then make a few more shapes for the background. Once done, finish off by boosting the colours and the contrast. Add a HSL Adjustment and boost the saturation, then use a Brightness and or Contrast adjustment to increase contrast.