STEP BY STEP GET YOUR GLOW ON

Use the Pen tool and layers to make glowing shape composites

01 TRACE A SHAPE

Make a shape with the Pen tool. We’ve used the Affinity logo. Go to Affinity Photo > About for the logo, make a screenshot and open it in Affinity Photo. Click around the shape with pen tool to add anchor points. Set Fill to empty and set a stroke colour and size.

02 PASTE INTO THE PORTRAIT

Once you’ve traced around all the shapes with the Pen tool, highlight the shape layers (Cmd/ctrl+click to highlight more than one) then go to Layer > Geometry > Add to combine them. Copy with Cmd/ctrl+c. Open Shape.jpg and paste in with Cmd/ctrl+v.

03 MAKE IT GLOW

Grab the Move tool and use the bounding box to resize the shape to fit the portrait. You might want to adjust the stroke size. Click the FX icon in the Layers Panel. Check Outer Glow and set Blend Mode: Linear Light, Opacity 85%. Set Intensity 0, then increase Radius.

04 ADD MORE LAYER EFFECTS

Check Inner Glow and choose a pink colour. Set Blend Mode: Normal, Opacity 100% then adjust Radius and Intensity to give the lines a coloured edge. Next check Outer Shadow. Set Blend Mode: Linear Light, Opacity 45%, Offset 0, Intensity 0, then increase Radius.

05 MASK THE SHAPE

Click the Mask icon in the Layers Panel to add a mask to the shape layer. Grab the brush tool and set colour to black paint to hide parts of the shape so it looks as if it’s going behind the subject. You can clone out parts to make it look as if the shapes are in front.

06 MATCH THE COLOURS

Highlight the bottom layer then click the Adjustment icon and choose Recolour. Shift the Hue to a pink tone. Click the cog icon for Blend options and drag the left point on the right side graph to colour the highlights. Add a HSL adjustment, shift reds to a pinker hue.