Written Tutorial Issue 004

by Carl Surry
Nov 2025

First Look At The New Affinity

Hello and welcome to this written tutorial for
Affinity by Canva. As you will all no doubt
know, Canva brought Serif and their products
- Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher.

On Oct 30th 2025, Canva released a new

version, I guess you can call it version 3. But
where there were three programs, now
there's just one and that one is just called
Affinity.

When you start a new document, the area

visible on screen, no matter if it has a white
background or a transparent, one. Will not
In this issue I want to look at some of the have a layer visible in the Layers panel.
Panels, which are mainly found on the right of
the User Interface. This is because the area you see, is just a
visual aid, so you know the area you will be
The main one, I guess is the Layers Panel. working within.
Just about every document, be it a photo,
drawing or publication, will use layers. In
photographic editing (Pixel Studio) it is best
policy, and safer to use layers. If you make a
mistake somewhere you can just amend or
delete it, without harming the editing
progress too much.

In the Vector Studio, it is almost impossible

not to use layers. Every line or brush stroke
will be given a new layer. Keeping track of
those layers will be your biggest problem.

In the Layout Studio, it is a bit like the Pixel At the top of the Layers panel, are the drop-
Studio and photography. Wiser and safer to down menus for Layer Opacity and Blend
work in layers, to make mistakes easier to Mode. Then a cog icon, to change the Blend
adjust at a later date. Options, then a padlock icon, which will let
you lock or unlock a layer.
The Layers panel will give you a visual aid, to
show you what you have done so far, plus A locked layer is given a certain level of
give you the ability to access each layer to protection from being altered by mistake.
edit or delete the layers you want.

Page 1
The icons at the bottom of the Layers panel In the box next to the File Type icon, will be a
are Edit Within Current Container, which to be basic image of what is on the layer. As my
honest I don’t fully understand what it does, pixel layer is blank, so is this area.
so never touch it.
Next, there is the layers name. Affinity will
Then come the FX icon, which will open the have default names, like Background, Curve,
Effects panel, then there’s an icon that looks Master, Pixel, etc. You can rename them if
like the Japanese flag. This will add a Layer you so desire.
Mask to the currently selected layer. The next
two icons are to add Filters or Adjustments to Just click on the
a selected layer. layer name, it
will then
The last four icons at the bottom of the become editable
Layers panel are Container Layer, Group and you just
Layers, Pixel Layer and Remove Layer. type in the
name you want
If you select two or more layers and then it to be. If
click on the Group Layers icon. The selected you’re going to
layers will be put into a folder and will then do a project
work together separate from other layers. with many
layers, it can be
To add a new blank layer, just click on the very helpful to
Pixel Layer icon. Which is what I did next in rename them.
my open document.
I think it best, more so in the Vector Studio.
If you were drawing a face for example. Every
pen or brush stroke will have its own layer, all
called Curve. Assume you made ten layers
just to do the right eye. You could rename all
those layers Right Eye 1 to 10. May be even
put all 10 layers into a Group and rename the
Group Right Eye. Then if, a few days later you
want to edit the image, it will be so much
easier to find the layers you want to edit.

Now you can see a layer in the Layers panel. The last icon at
The document image hasn’t changed. It is a the end of the
blank layer on top of a visual aid that isn’t actual layer. Is
really there (if you see what I mean). the Padlock if
the feature has
The first icon on this new layer is very small. been turned on,
If you put the cursor over it, its file type and next, finally
name should pop up. an eye icon.

In my
example, its
Clicking on this
file type is
icon, will make a
Pixel. layer visible or
invisible.
But it can
be things That way you can see how your document
like, Image, looks with and without the layer being visible.
Text, Master
Page, There are some other (not so obvious)
Curve, Line, options to be found in the Layers panel, and
and may be in fact just about all panels.
a few other
file types. In the top right area of all panels there is a
downward arrow or V. Clicking on this will
open a new menu.
Page 2
 Moving on to the Effect Panel also called FX or
Quick FX. Slightly confusing this one, as there
are two panels/menus and each looks
different and in some case, one has more
options than the other.

If you do not have the Quick FX panel open

on the right of the Interface, use the Window
menu. Go down to the Vector option, and
select Quick FX from the sub-menu.

The menu you get from clicking on the

downward arrow, may have some options
that are the same in all panels. Yet each
panel will have some feature in this menu
that is just for a specific panel. For example in
the Layers menu you can turn on and off,
showing what type of layer the layers are.
You can change the type of background view
of what is on the layer. By default it is dark
grey, but you can have it white or blank.

If you right click

a layer in the
Layers Panel, you
will get a new The Quick FX
menu. panel has ten
Effects you can
This is a add to objects
collection of in your
options you may document.
find in the Edit, Depending to
Document and what is on the
Pixel menus. layer, they will
only affect the
Things like Cut, currently
Copy, Paste, selected layer.
Merge, Delete,
Duplicate and So, apart from
Rasterise. the Opacity
setting option
A sort of quick the other
shortcut to the options are -
mainly used Bevel/Emboss,
menu Outline, 3D,
commands. Inner Shadow,
Inner Glow,
As you can see in Colour Overlay, Gradient Overlay, Outer Glow,
my example. Outer Shadow and Gaussian Blur.

The Lock or Padlock option is on. I could Next to each named Effect, there is an arrow,
remove the padlock by clicking on the option you can click on, to open that section. Then a
in this menu or by clicking on the padlock small box, you click to add a tick to, to select
icon in the main Layers panel. that option to turn on.

Page 3
 In the image To open the second ‘Floating’ Effects panel,
on the left, I you need to just click on the FX icon in the
have opened Layers panel.
up the Outline
options.

These options
include -
Colour,
Opacity, and
Radius.

In the image
below, I have
opened the
second Layer
Effects panel.
It has the
same ten
options. When
I open the
Outline section So, it is just a case of clicking on the layer in
it has these the Layers panel, to select it. Then, while in
options, Blend Mode, Opacity, Radius, the Layers panel, just clicking on the FX icon.
Alignment, Fill Style, and Colour. As you can
see it has more options than the Quick FX I will now give an example of each Effect’s
panel. affect on a piece of text. Starting with Bevel/
Emboss.

I will alter colours and settings, where it will

hopefully make it easier for you to zoom in
and see the Effects.

Bevel/Emboss above and Outline and 3D

below.

This is why I pretty much always use the

second method to access the Layer Effects.
You get more options, the only real difference
visually, is there is no arrow to open a
section.

You have to put a tick into a box to select an

option, but you also have to click on the
options name, to see the adjustment options
for the Effect you have selected.

A very slight annoyance, but it was always

like this in Affinity Photo (etc), so I am used
to this quirk now.
Page 4
The next one is Inner Shadow, even though I
made the inner shadow, yellow in colour. It
had no affect on the black text. I could have
altered the text colour, but thought it would
have been cheating on this experiment.

The next Effect (above) is Outer Shadow, can

be called Drop Shadow in other Apps.

Then lastly there is Gaussian Blur.

The next Effect is Inner Glow.

Now, just because I have used just one Effect

per image so far, doesn’t mean you can’t mix
Then, Colour Overlay, which can be used to and match the Effects.
change the colour of text and other things.
In the screen grab and finished sample,
below. I have added Bevel/Emboss, Outline,
3D, Inner Shadow, Gradient Overlay and
Outer Shadow.

The next is Gradient Overlay. Works in the

same way as Colour Overlay, but rather than
a solid single colour, you add a Gradient.

The next is Outer Glow, which works better

than Inner Glow did. As the Effect is outside
the black text, its affect is noticeable.

So, hopefully you can see the extra things

you can add to your layers. Using the power
of Layer Effects. As you get more editing
options via the FX icon in the Layers panel,
my advice is to use that option, rather than
the Quick FX panel.

Page 5
Now, one feature I haven’t mentioned about I selected the new version, changed the
using Effects or FX, is you can in some cases colour to blue and then changed the radius
use multiples of an Effect. The easiest one to slider to higher number, so the Effect was
demonstrate with is Outline. noticeable.

First though, lets look at the Quick FX panel I then clicked on the plus icon again, selected
again. the new Outline section and changed the
colour to green and increased the Radius
slider.

In the top right of the Outline section there is

a cog icon. Clicking on the cog, will open the
other Effects panel. So, to add multiple
Effects, you need the other version of the
Layer Effects panel.

Technically, I could just keep adding more and

more Outlines, but it would end up looking a
right mess, but you get the idea.

Note, that at the end of Outline, Inner Not forgetting it is still possible to add the
Shadow, Colour Overlay, Gradient Overlay other Effects and in multiple versions.
and Outer Shadow. There is a plus icon (+)
and an X icon. Clicking on these will either Another thing to point out, is that if you add
add or remove extra selected versions of an Effect to any layer in the Layers panel. An
those Effects. FX icon will be added to that layer.

If I add a red Outline to the text. If you add a new

object or text layer
to your document,
and you want this
new layer to have
the same Effects.

You don’t have to re-

do all the settings.
Then, if I click on the plus icon, a new version You just click and
of the Outline section will be added. drag the old layers
FX icon to the new
layer. All the Effects will be copied to the new
layer.

I think I’ll end this tutorial here, thanks for

your support. Carl

Page 6