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Overview
Hello and welcome to the first video in the Affinity Studio course. I am VL from ConceptArtVL.com and I'll be your guide in using this program. First of all, this program can be used on Mac or Windows computers. In my case, I'm using a Windows computer, but if you're using a Mac, that's totally fine. Before we begin, I would just like to provide you with a brief breakdown on the history and development of this program.
Affinity actually started as three separate programs. Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher. In 2025, these three programs were combined into one program called Affinity Studio. By combining these three programs into one program, we now have access to all of the tools we need for Pixel Graphics, Vector Graphics, and Layout Design.
On a personal note, I have been a lecturer for the Adobe programs for over 20 years, mainly Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Many of the tools that I use in the Adobe programs I can also find here in Affinity Studio.
User Interface
Now, with that said, let's have a look at the User Interface. We'll begin with the Home button. The Home button is the big letter A that's in the upper left hand corner. I'm hovering over it right now. This button allows you access to your account settings and you can also view any recent documents that you have opened.
Next to the Home button are the Studio buttons mainly the Pixel, Vector and Layout buttons. With my background in teaching the Adobe programs, I tend to think of these buttons as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
You can also show additional Studio buttons by clicking on this button right here, the Studio Manager. Here I can decide to show additional Studios. I can also change the position of the various Studio buttons by simply clicking, holding, and dragging. So let's say for example, if I wanted to take Vector and put it after Layout, as you can see, it's changed there. I'll just put it back to where I had it before.
Below the Studio buttons, we have the Context Toolbar. This Toolbar presents options for the currently selected tool. The Tool Options and Settings will change depending on the Tool that is selected. So for example, I'm currently using the Move Tool. These are the Options for the Move Tool. Let's say if I were to change to a Text Tool. So I'll come down here and click on the Text Tool, and as you can see, the Options up here will change accordingly.
Here's a little tip to keep in mind when using Tools. Whenever you change your Tool, always make sure to look up in the Context Bar and make sure that you are using the correct Settings for that Tool.
On the left hand side, we have our Main Toolbar. The Tools that are shown in the Main Toolbar will change depending on the Studio that we are using. So for example, the Tools that I'm seeing here right now are the Tools under the Pixel Studio. If I were to change to the Vector Studio or the Layout Studio, you'll notice that the Tools will change accordingly.
On the right hand side of the interface are my Panels. Just like the Adobe programs, every Panel comes with its own Panel Menu. So, for example, here's the Layers Panel and here's the Layers Panel Menu. If I go to the Channels Panel, here's the Channels Panel Menu. If you would like to find additional Panels, you can go up to the Main Menu and click on Window. Here you can find all of the additional Panels under these various categories from General all the way down to Vector.
The Status Bar is at the bottom of the interface. The Status Bar displays Tool Hints and available Keyboard Modifiers for the selected Tool.
Affinity Studio Views
Finally, here's our Main Document View. Here's a photo from one of my personal stock photo collections. The Main Document View will change depending on which Studio you are using. I'll click on the various Studio buttons and let's see how the Main Document View will change.
At the moment we are in the Pixel Studio. Let's switch over to the Vector Studio. Okay, so there's no change there.
Let's go to the Layout Studio. For the Layout Studio, I can see my Pages and Master Pages, very similar to Adobe InDesign. Let's go to the Canva AI. Okay, so there's no change there. Let's have a look at the Slice Studio. All right, there's no change there.
Let's have a look at Retouching. Ah, so we have a number of various additional Tools here for Retouching.
Now let's go to Color Grading. All right, so there's some similarity there between the Retouching Studio and the Color Grading Studio.
Finally, let's go to the Typography Studio. Okay, so this is similar to InDesign. We have our Paragraph Panel, our Character Panel and other related Panels.
Okay, so just keep in mind that depending on which Studio you are using the interface will change. Now let's go back to the Pixel Studio.
Affinity Studio Workflow Uses
Having access to all of these various Studios, it might be a bit confusing as to which one to use. I'll give you a brief breakdown of each of these Studios so that you'll know exactly which one to use for any given task.
The Pixel Studio has all of your core photo editing tools, including painting and retouching tools. This Studio is also perfect for creating pixel-based digital art just like the artwork that's in this document window. You can also add pixel-based textures to vector designs created in the Vector or Layout Studios. If you're familiar with Adobe Photoshop, you will find similar Photoshop tools in this Studio.
The Vector Studio has all of your core vector design tools. This Studio lets you create all types of vector-based illustrations. You can create illustrations for digital or print projects, logo designs, icons, user interface design elements, design mockups, and much more. If you're familiar with Adobe Illustrator, you will find similar Illustrator tools in this Studio.
The Layout Studio is used for publishing page-based layout designs. This Studio focuses on creating professional page layouts, combining text and images together for digital or print publishing of books, brochures, magazines, posters and more. If you're familiar with Adobe InDesign, then you will find similar InDesign tools in this Studio.
The Canva AI Studio provides a mix of powerful AI generated Canva tools and machine learning tools. This is great for incorporating AI elements into your existing designs.
The Slice Studio is used for exporting artboards, layouts, groups, objects or regions of your image as export slices to different file formats and image sizes simultaneously. The Retouching Studio provides you with tools and panels that are suited for retouching images.
The Color Grading Studio provides you with tools and panels that are suitable for changing the style and look of your image by affecting tone, color, and other image elements.
The Typography Studio provides tools and panels that are focused on text formatting and styling. If your design mainly focuses on text, make sure to use this Studio as part of your design workflow.
The final Studio is the Compositing Studio. To get to this Studio, I'll just need to click on this arrow and then click on Compositing. You can use the tools and panels in this Studio to creatively combine multiple images and assets together.
So, as stated before, the Studio that you use all depends on the task that you need to perform. Now, let's go back to the Pixel Studio.
Customizing User Interface
Let's talk about customizing the user interface. Go to the Edit Menu and then click on Settings. In the Settings Dialogue Box, click on User Interface on the left hand side. Now we have some user interface settings that we can modify.
For example, we can adjust the background gray level. Okay, I'll leave it here.
We can also adjust our Artboard Background Gray Level. Now, at the moment, I don't have any artboards, so this would not apply right now.
I can also adjust my overall UI Brightness. Okay, I'll leave it right here in the center.
I can also adjust the contrast of the user interface by using either Default or High contrast. I'll leave it on Default.
I can also adjust the Tool Tip Delay. Tool Tips would refer to a Tool Tip that would show up when you hover over any of the buttons on the interface as I'm doing right now.
So these are some of your basic user interface settings that you can modify.
Customizing Tool Options
Let's have a look at our Tools options.
First of all, we can adjust the size of handles from small to large. If you're not sure what those handles refer to, well, at the moment I'm on the background layer as you can see in the Layers Panel and I have this picture selected. With the picture selected, I can see these handles on the corners around the image. I can adjust the size of those handles. So, for example, if I were to click on Small and I hover over the image, now the handles are very small. If I click on Large and I hover over the image now, the handles are indeed very large. I'll put it back to Medium.
There's an option here that says Use Mouse Wheel to Zoom. I don't use this option. I prefer to press and hold CTRL and while holding CTRL scroll with the middle mouse button. That's the method that I've been using in Photoshop and other design programs, so I would prefer to keep it that way.
Lower down, we have our Nudge options. So, I'm just going to go down and it's these options right here. When you nudge a selected item, it will move one pixel at a time. So, for example, if I click on this image and I just nudge it by using any of the arrow keys, as you can see, it will slowly nudge this image one pixel at a time. However, if I press and hold Shift while nudging it will now move the selected item 10 pixels at a time. This is similar to the Adobe programs, so I'm going to leave these settings just as they are, and I'll just hold on to the image and move it back. There we go.
If you want to change any of your shortcuts, you can click on the Shortcuts command. I've noticed that alot of these shortcuts are similar to shortcuts that I'm accustomed to in the Adobe programs, so I tend to leave the shortcuts just as they are. But if you want to change your shortcuts, here is where you would need to go.
You can also create your own custom Studio by doing the following. Go to the bottom of the toolbar on the left and click on the Customize Tools button. From here, you can decide what tools, toolbarss, or panels to turn on or turn off. Once you're satisfied, you can close this window and then click on the Studio Manager button and then click on Create Studio. From here, you can give the Studio a name, choose an icon color, background color, and icon. You can also provide a description if you want to. You can customize the Studios in almost any way that you want. This gives you the flexibility to create your own Studios for your own design needs.
If you would like to show or hide the Toolbar, you can go to the View Menu and then click on Show Toolbar. I'll just put it back on.
Also, if you would like to show or hide your Rulers, you can go to the View Menu again and then Show and then Rulers. Notice the shortcut is CTRL and R just like the Adobe programs. So, I can hide my Ruler and then I can just use CTRL and R to show it again.
If I would like to hide all of my Tools and my Panels, I can press the TAB key on my keyboard, then I would just press TAB again to bring it all back, and if I would like to see nothing at all, I can press CTRL and R to hide the Ruler and then press TAB to hide the interface, so I'm not seeing any Tools or Panels. This allows me to have a good look at my design without any distractions. So, I'll just press CTRL and R again to bring back the Ruler and then press TAB to bring back the Tools and the Panels.
Showing and Hiding Subtools
Just like the Adobe programs, the Toolbar on the left hand side comes with a number of Subtools. I like to see my Subtools. If you're not seeing your Subtool bar here, simply go to the View Menu again and then come down to Tools and then Subtools. That would show or hide the Subtool bar. So I'll go back again to View Tools and then Subtools. So what this means is that if I were to click on a Tool, so let's say if I were to come down here and click on the Clone Brush tool, I would see any Subtool that comes with that Tool. Let's say if I go to the Paint Brush Tool and I could see the Subtools for the Paint Brush Tool tool. So that saves me from having to click and hold and see the Subtools here. Well, I could just simply see them right here.
Customize Tools Button
Here's another aspect of customization that I would personally prefer. You don't have to do this. This is just another one of my personal preferences. For the Toolbar on the left hand side, I prefer to see these Tools in two columns. In order to do that, I can click on the Customize Tools button and then just simply change the Columns setting here from one to two columns. Then I'll close this, and now we can see all of the Tools in two columns. This is just another one of my personal preferences because I've been using the Adobe programs for many years. So I prefer to see these Tools as two columns.
Conclusion
So that's it for now. So feel free to customize the interface in whatever way you wish. Make sure to stay subscribed to get access to the next video of this Affinity Studio course.
