Dorchester — Nov 10th 2015

Euan asked how many members had bought or are testing Affinity and the levels of interest in photo editing. He clarified the difference between Raster and Vector graphics and the colour systems RGB and CYMK before showing two short introductory videos for Affinity Design (Vector) and Affinity Photo (Raster). These were followed by a quick tour of the user interface and several photo editing examples with the history of each action he had taken to bring the images to life. Affinity Photo offers a huge range of editing and compositing features, but the learning curve is eased by the excellent tutorial videos available on the Serif web site. Euan stressed the need to try out the wide variety of available adjustments each of which, though related, can bring subtly different improvements. Better results are usually achieved with several slight adjustments than one or two big ones. Moving on to Affinity Design, Euan used vectors to draw a female Martian figure. She had a wonderful bouffant green hairdo created in Raster, but within Designer. A photo of the Weymouth Clock Tower was transformed into a rocket in a flourish of decorative design, combining Raster and Vector graphics. That Affinity Apps share a common core engine makes this simple to do. Affinity Publisher (coming in 2016) should share the same core engine and interactivity.

Michael gave us an introduction to Numbers for iOS, pointing out that Numbers is a more complex program to use than its siblings Pages and Keynote, so he concentrated on the very useful basics. On opening Numbers you are offered a variety of templates and Michael gave examples of the most immediately useful and offered examples of what you can create for yourself. He showed the basic principle of a spreadsheet made up of a matrix of cells, how cells are numbered by Column and Row, what they can contain and how they can relate one to another via simple to complex formulae. With a table of related numbers, Michael showed how selected cell contents can be displayed in 2D & 3D charts. Being an Apple App, these can be adjusted for fine presentation. Michael concluded by recommending “Take Control of Numbers” available at a discount to Wamug Members, no need to log in, search for Numbers, discount given on checkout.

David drew members’ attention to the facility on both IOS and Mac to look up the definition of a word in almost all Apps. In iOS, simply hold a finger on the word to bring up a menu and select “Define”. Having selected Define, note that, as well as getting one or more dictionary definitions, you also have option to Manage and Search Web. Selecting Manage offers additional dictionaries which can be downloaded from the Cloud. In OSX on the Mac hold down the control key to control-click the word and choose “Look up …” from the dropdown menu. As well as being shown the dictionary definition(s) of the word, you can also open it in the Dictionary. You have the option to check the definition in Wikipedia and any other chosen dictionary. Open Dictionary preferences to see the list of available dictionaries (including several foreign language ones), tick those required and place in order of preference. You can, of course, always open the Dictionary App on its own.

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