Affinity Essentials

Learn photo editing, vector design, and document layout in one unified creative suite. Join Dan Scott to build practical design skills and master Affinity from the ground up.

rated excellent by our students!

START LEARNING FROM $12.00

100+ students 111 lessons / 11 hours 29 quiz questions 22 class projects Certificate of achievement

rated excellent by our students!

Affinity Essentials

Who is this course for?

🎁 A launch week bonus, just for you! To celebrate Affinity Essentials, get instant access to a Color Starter Kit, a Brand Mockup Kit, and Dan's very own signature brush, plus the videos to show you exactly how to use them. This is limited time bonus content so start the course and download now before it's gone!

Whether you're completely new to Affinity or looking for a powerful alternative to traditional creative software, this course is designed to help you build confidence from the very beginning. Perfect for designers, photographers, illustrators, content creators, and aspiring creatives, you'll learn step-by-step how to use Affinity's professional design tools to create polished artwork and real-world creative projects.

What will I learn?

You'll learn step-by-step how to use Affinity to create professional designs while developing practical skills you can use across your own creative projects. Through hands-on exercises and real-world examples, you'll explore essential tools for working with vector graphics, images, typography, layouts, and more, while learning efficient workflows that bring everything together in one powerful creative application.

Retouching photos and replacing backgrounds in Affinity Pixel
Enhancing color and contrast for polished social media graphics
Creating clean geometric icon sets in Affinity Vector
Building scalable vector logos from hand-drawn sketches
Combining photography and typography for cinematic poster designs
Designing professional business cards with print-ready setup
Creating multi-page layouts in Affinity Publish
Working with flowing text and linked images across documents
Designing realistic product packaging mockups
Creating interactive PDFs with clickable navigation and links
Combining vector, photo, and layout tools in a unified workflow
Creating branded marketing materials for print and digital use
Preparing files for professional printing and client delivery
Building polished portfolio presentations and lookbooks
Developing efficient workflows for real-world creative projects
... and more!

What’s in the course?

Hint: Get a feel for the course by watching the free lessons!

Course contents

1. Introduction to the Affinity Essentials Course FREE 2:14

2. Getting Started in the Affinity Essentials Course FREE 1:54

3. How to Earn Your Certificate FREE 2:28

4. How to Reset Defaults & Workspace in Affinity FREE 3:25

5. Understanding How Vector, Pixel & Layout Work Together FREE 10:04

6. How Affinity Compares with Adobe & Canva FREE 8:07

7. Your Brief for the Affinity Course FREE 2:01

8. Creating New Pages and Importing & Locking Images FREE 2:57

9. Navigation & Undos in Affinity FREE 4:15

10. Color Basics and Stroke & Fill FREE 10:18

11. Drawing Lines with the Pen Tool in Affinity FREE 5:02

12. How to Round Corners in Affinity Vector FREE 7:10

13. How to Scale Strokes Using Scale Override FREE 3:09

14. What is the Artistic Type Tool? FREE 3:37

15. Basic Export & Saving in Affinity FREE 3:16

16. Class Project 01 - Cocktail FREE 2:54

17. How to Select & Mask Objects in Affinity FREE 10:15

18. Using the Selection Brush in Affinity Pixel FREE 5:48

19. Class Project 02 - Fruit Collage FREE 2:04

20. How to Use Levels in Affinity Pixel FREE 8:09

21. What is White Balance in Affinity Pixel? FREE 3:45

22. Class Project 03 - Photo Correction FREE 4:07

23. Generative Image & Enhance in Affinity Plus Costs? FREE 7:21

24. How to use Generative Fill in Affinity Canva AI Studio FREE 8:13

25. How to Create a Document in Affinity Layout FREE 5:33

26. Working with Images & Vectors to Affinity Layout FREE 12:29

27. Class Project 04 - Drinks Menu FREE 3:59

28. Cropping Images Inside a Circle in Affinity Layout FREE 4:15

29. How to Import Text & Join Text Boxes in Affinity Layout FREE 7:13

30. How to Make Paragraph Styles in Affinity Publisher FREE 7:12

31. Class Project 05 - Finished Menu FREE 6:08

32. Mock Up Your Design Work Using Canva FREE 3:54

33. Pencil Tool & Path Brush in Affinity Vector 8:13

34. Class Project 06 - Pencil & Brush Drawing 1:44

35. Node Tool & Outline View in Affinity Vector 12:20

36. Class Project 07 - Palm Tree 1:25

37. How to Master the Pen Tool in Affinity Vector 21:20

38. Class Project 08 - Sunset 1:06

39. How To Use the Shape Builder Tool in Affinity Vector 8:38

40. Class Project 09 - Company Logo 2:03

41. Company Logo Ride Along 21:35

42. How to Create Artboards in Affinity Vector 4:38

43. How to Make Arrows in Affinity Vector 2:28

44. Making Dotted & Dashed Lines in Affinity Vector 3:55

45. Repeating Lines & Weird Artboard Behavior 7:26

46. Class Project 09 - Abstract Lines 54

47. Importing Brand Colors in Affinity 7:38

48. What Are Color Cords in Affinity? 3:42

49. How to Create Gradients in Affinity 6:39

50. Type on a Path & Curved Text in Affinity 4:18

51. How to Add Text Around a Circle in Affinity 7:03

52. Class Project 10 - Badge 1:27

53. How to Use Styles & Appearance Panel in Affinity 5:15

54. 50 Drop Shadow & Glow Layer Effects in Affinity Vector 5:49

55. How to Trace Image & Turning Images to Vector 8:33

56. Class Project 12 - Door Hook 4:36

57. Masking, Compound Shapes & Expand Stroke in Affinity Vector 9:02

58. Class Project 13 - The Crop 1:41

59. Exporting SVG, JPG, PNG, PDF, Webp in Affinity 5:29

60. Export Affinity to Canva 3:50

61. How to use Canva Brand Kits in Affinity 2:49

62. What is the Difference Between Pixels & Vectors in Affinity? 4:19

63. Levels vs. Curves in Affinity Pixel 8:12

64. What Does Clarity do in Affinity Pixel? 3:52

65. What Does Unsharp Mask Do in Affinity Pixel? 4:32

66. Why Is Vibrance Better Than Saturation in Affinity Pixel? 3:52

67. Class Project 14 - Photo Adjustments 3:32

68. Using Masks with Adjustments in Affinity 13:02

69. Combining Different Masking Techniques in Affinity Pixel 8:14

70. How to Remove Background & Select Layer Subject in Affinity Pixel 8:59

71. Refine Selection Tool To Make Perfect Masks in Affinity 13:54

72. Class Project 15 - Founder Message 5:07

73. How to Set White Balance in Affinity Pixel 3:57

74. How To Color Correct in Affinity Using HSL Adjustments 13:54

75. How to Crop & Straighten Images in Affinity Pixel 3:05

76. Resizing Images in Affinity Photo 3:26

77. How to Retouch Skin Using the Inpainting Brush Tool in Affinity 4:41

78. How To Warp Images To Use in Mockups in Affinity 10:32

79. Class Project 16 - Mockups 2:28

80. Hook Hanger Perspective Ride Along 9:19

81. How to Use More Filters in Affinity 3:23

82. AI Image Generation Using Reference Images in Affinity Canva AI 5:57

83. How to Use the Generative Fill Tool in Affinity Canva AI 3:43

84. How to Use Generative Expand in Affinity 7:54

85. How To Setup Multi-Page Folded Documents in Affinity Layout 4:55

86. The Benefits of Using Affinity and the Layout Studio 4:16

87. Class Project 17 - Cover Page 1:55

88. How to Make Master Pages in Affinity Layout 6:02

89. How To Restart Automatic Page Number in Affinity Layout 5:34

90. Adding Lots of Text & Placeholder Filler Text 2:45

91. How to Make Columns in Affinity Layout 9:07

92. Justify, Hyphenation & Space After in Affinity Publisher 6:38

93. What's the Difference Between Character & Paragraph Styles in Affinity Layout? 11:37

94. Class Project 18 - Text Layout 3:04

95. How to Create a Table of Contents in Affinity Publish 5:53

96. Class Project 19 - Table of Contents 1:43

97. Adding Images to the Text Flow in Affinity Layout 2:07

98. Wrapping Text Around Objects & Images 6:15

99. Embedded, Linked & Missing Images in Affinity Layout 4:58

100. Class Project 20 - Text Wrap 1:10

101. What’s the Difference Between RGB vs. CMYK in Affinity? 4:25

102. How to Use Pantone & Spot Colors in Affinity 8:07

103. Class Project 21 - Finished Report 5:17

104. How To Set the Resolution PPI DPI in Affinity 8:32

105. How to Use Preflight in Affinity Layout for Printing 11:25

106. What Is Bleed & How To Set It Up in Affinity Layout 5:21

107. How to Export a Print Ready PDF with Crop Marks 9:01

108. How to Package an Affinity Document to Share 5:16

109. Distinction Certificate Project 4:36

110. How to Request Your Certificate FREE 59

111. What’s Next After the Affinity Essentials Course 6:03

Class projects & community

Build real world projects as you learn, create portfolio worthy work, and gain practical experience by doing - not just watching. Share your work with our global creative community, get feedback and support, and learn alongside other students every step of the way.

Student project: sunglasses e-commerce design

Meet your instructor

Daniel Scott

Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor

Figma | Illustrator | Premiere Pro | Lightroom

I discovered the world of design as an art student when I stumbled upon a lab full of green & blue iMac G3’s. My initial curiosity around using the computer to create ‘art’ developed into a full-blown passion, eventually leading me to become a digital designer and founder of Bring Your Own Laptop.

Sharing and teaching are a huge part of who I am. As a certified Adobe instructor, I've had the honor of winning multiple Adobe teaching awards at their annual MAX conference. I see Bring Your Own Laptop as the supportive community I wished for when I was first starting out and intimidated by design. Through teaching, I hope to bring others along for the ride and empower my students to bring their stories, labors of love, and art into the world.

True to my Kiwi roots, I've lived in many places, and currently, I reside in Ireland with my wife and kids.

Affinity Essentials

Learn photo editing, vector design, and document layout in one unified creative suite. Join Dan Scott to build practical design skills and master Affinity from the ground up.

rated excellent by our students!

START LEARNING FROM $12.00

100+ students 111 lessons / 11 hours 29 quiz questions 22 class projects Certificate of achievement

rated excellent by our students!

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