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USER’S MANUAL 2.0

©2021, Frankentoon Studio MADE FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

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INSTALLATION
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 INSTALLATION
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

INSTALLING MACROS (MAC, WIN)

First, open the Library Panel, View>Studio>Library. From that

panel, select Import Macros...

Done! You’re ready to dive into this new adventure with us!

From the browser window locate the file: Frankentoon -

Splat! Color Process.afmacros

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 INSTALLATION
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

INSTALLING TEXTURES (MAC, WIN)

Open the Assets Panel, View>Studio>Assets. From that

panel, select Import Assets...

Wait a few seconds while your Assets get imported into the
Panel. And that’s it, your new vintage paper textures are ready
to be used!

From the browser window locate the file: Frankentoon - Splat

Textures.afassets.

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USING THE
PACK
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 NEW!

SPLAT!
MANGA BACKGROUNDS
MACROS
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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

Splat! 2.0 introduces Splat! Manga Background. a small set

of Macros aimed at artists who want to create quick manga-
style monochrome graphics out of photographs.

The first step would be using the Greyscale Macro. It has

It involves just a few steps, tweak a couple of settings, and only one adjustable setting: Brightness. Tweak as needed.
you’ll be done in like one minute.

STEPS 1 AND 2

Then, select the Manga Toning Macro. Here you can select
the dots size and their angle. Usually, default settings should
Let’s take, for example, this photo of a Tokyo alley by DLKR. do the job.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

1 2

The Brightness slider of the Greyscale Macro will control

how the toning Macro will interpret the final shading of your
image.

For darker and more dramatic environments, slide the

brightness down FIG.1 or to get cleaner and more luminous
backgrounds, turn the brightness up FIG.2.

You’ll get a beautiful monochrome background ready to be

inserted into your layout in just a few seconds.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

FULLY EDITABLE

Isolated Inks Isolated Tones

The Manga Toning Macro will generate separate layers for
black inks and tones. This way, you’ll be able to clean up and
add further edits to your background.

I.E., Masking your Toning layer to delete unwanted areas.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

SOFT TONING MACRO

Since the Manga Toning Macro aims to output high-contrast
images, it may not be suitable in some cases where you are
looking for a subtler result.

If we treated these clouds using the Manga Toning Macro, On the other hand, the Soft Toning Macro will read mid-
we’d lose some details in the final result. range values better. In addition, it will ignore darker tones,
resulting in less intricate backgrounds.
Instead of a super high-contrast image, we’re looking for
softer gradients and milder value changes. Soft Toning also features a Dots Size slider and a Dots
Angle controller.

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SPLAT!
FLAT PROCESS
MACROS
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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

WHAT IS SPLAT! FLAT PROCESS? 1:SINGLE FILM SEPARATION

It is a streamlined version of our full Splat! Color Process.
Consists of a set of Macros aimed to work on regular images
(flat or merged down layers).

It’s way simpler to use than Splat! Color Process. All you
need to do is running all Macros from Splat! Flat Process
from 1 through 8. That’s it!

This Macro will separate your image into single CMYK color
plates. We need to be able to manipulate them independently.

2: APPLY RED AS SPOT COLOR

Apply Red as Spot Color Macro will simulate applying direct
inks on old-school presswork.

Fuzzy Half-toned Reds Solid Red Tones

The image at the top-right features red rendered as spot

color. A more realistic approach to traditional printing.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

3: SPOT RED DAMAGE 5: SPOT BLUE DAMAGE

This Macro will give your Spot Reds a more natural look, by
degrading their quality using procedural textures.

Spot Blue Damage, will mistreat our Spot Blue layer using
procedural textures, simulating bad quality printing.

4: APPLY BLUE AS SPOT COLOR 6: SCREENING

On this step we gonna simulate direct blue printing.
Screening will apply a selective half-toning effect on our
regular Cyan and Magenta channels.

Fuzzy Blue Half-toning Solid Blue Tones

Again, for a more organic and realistic approach, all tones
closer to pure blue, will be processed as a solid color during
the screening step

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

7: MISALIGN SPOT COLORS

As the name indicates, this Macro will slightly shift around

your Spot Color plates.

8: VINTAGE PRINTER
Since this is a non-destructive process, feel free to turn off,
modify and change the opacity of any layer. You’ll be
surprised on how many variations you can come up with just
by doing this.

Have fun!

Finally, you’ll be able to create a convincing bad quality

printing, using a few but powerful settings.

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SPLAT!
COLOR PROCESS
MACROS
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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

As you can see, you’re also able to use the powerful embed
THE BASIC DOCUMENT STRUCTURE documents feature. This way, you’ll be able to edit your
artworks without the need to keep saving a new copy
For Splat! Color Process work properly, we need to stick to a
whenever you make a new change.
fixed document structure, which is really simple and it only
requires two layers. To learn how to embed your inks and color layers JUMP
HERE.

2
1

Document color mode should be set to RGB

A top layer named: Inks and, a bottom layer named: Colors

(FIG.1). This structure is mandatory, since many actions
during the process will rely on this structure to make
everything work flawlessly.

On a second note, for the Inks layer to work properly, it must

have a transparent background as shown in FIG.2.

If you have a scanned file (or one with a white background), Of course, regular pixel layers will work perfectly as well.
please go to THIS PAGE. Embedding editable documents is only an option.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

WORK FILES
If you’re impatient to test all the features from Splat! Color Process immediately, you can follow this walkthrough using any of
the samples included with your pack. These files come formated to be tested right away. If you haven’t download them yet,
well... What are you waiting for? We’ll be waiting here for you!

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

CORE MECHANICS

PREPARATION COLOR PROCESS

POST-PRODUCTION

0
4
2
1

Splat! Color Process is a straightforward set of Macros for Affinity Photo. These Macros work in a linear way, you’ll start
processing your image from Step 0 and will finish at Step 4. There’s no other way around to make it work. There are certain
steps that can be skipped and we’ll see every step in detail in the next few pages.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

USING MACROS: STEP 0

We’ll walk you through all Macros included with the pack.
These Macros are part of a single process, broken down into
small steps.

The image above has been previously flattened, so our

background and inking works are merged together. Same
situation would apply, if we had an scanned inked image.
Select this layer and click the Macro: Erase Paper (If any).

ERASE PAPER
As we mentioned before, sometimes you won’t have your
Inking layer on a transparent background.

This first Macro works on scanned files, where the inking

work has been applied traditionally, or flattened digital
documents where inks have been applied directly onto a
white layer.

If your Inks are already on a transparent layer, feel free to skip

the Erase Paper Macro. And, that’s it. White paper is gone!

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

The next steps Misprinted Inks: Global and Misprinted Inks:

Selective (1 and 2), cannot be used in conjuction. You’ll need
to choose either one or the other. Both do the same, but in a
different way. Let’s find out how they work.

Click the Misprinted Inks: Global Macro. A slider where you

can control the amount of Ink Damage will appear. This
setting is quite subtle by default.

MISPRINTED INKS: GLOBAL

What Misprinted Inks (Global and Selective) do is to simulate
a low-quality black ink press process. It will fade away your
inks a bit and will add an overall gritty texture.

Let’s ramp Ink Damage up to 50%. I recommend to enter

these values manually, instead of doing it using the slider.
Many CPUs would spend more time calculating the results
when using the slider.

As you can see, the texture is now more evident on the darker
areas.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

This Macro will create the structure shown above. As you can
see, these effects are non-destructive. You can tweak them
Here you can see a side-by-side comparison. The image on even further by double-clicking on them.
the left is our original inks layer and, at the right we have the
one that has been ‘damaged’.

MISPRINTED INKS: SELECTIVE

If you don’t want your entire image being affected by this

effect, you can select which parts of it will take the ‘damage’.
On the top-right image above, the Ink Damage value has been So instead of using Global, we’ll jump into Misprinted Inks:
set to 100%. Looking aged enough so far isn’t it? Selective, which has two steps.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

STEP 1 STEP 2

This one is straightforward. It will create a new layer, where

you can paint the areas you’d want the Macro to take effect.

Once you’ve finished painting, apply the Misprinted Inks:

Selective (Step 2) Macro, and a familiar slider will appear.
Notice how the Macro is only affecting the areas you’ve
painted over. From here on, this Macro will do the same as
the Misprinted Inks: Global one. Adjust the Ink Damage
slider and click Apply when done.
Then, using a soft brush, paint on this layer using any color
over the areas you need the damage to be applied. Like a Feeling excited already? You haven’t seen anything yet... Let’s
mask, this effect is sensitive to your stylus pressure. move onto the next step.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

FILM SEPARATION

Now, we’re arriving at Step 1 (globally). Poor thing, it only has

one Macro, but oh boy, what a powerful one!

IMPORTANT!

To avoid any funny results, make sure your Foreground Color

is set to white before applying this Macro.

Film Separation will create a Yellow layer turned off Magenta Opacity Set to 50%
traditional CMYK color separation
using layers as color plates. You can play around turning on and off these new layers to
see how this affects your entire color scheme. Old printing
To avoid burning up your CPU, methods used to suppress certain color plates to keep the
the Ink Damage effects will be printing output affordable.
turned off temporarily, so don’t
worry if your Inks layer (now For now, we gonna work with all layers on and at their full
renamed Black), looks too clean. opacity. Let’s move forward, it’s getting more interesting!

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

Click on the Apply Red as Spot Color and wait a few seconds.
This Macro has no extra settings.

APPLY RED AS SPOT COLOR

If you look closer at a vintage comic book, not every color
was printed using halftone dots. Certain inks were applied
directly, depending on the publisher. Apply Red as Spot Color
Macro will simulate that process for you.

Apply Red as Spot Color will create an extra layer, where the
tones closer to pure red will be extracted.

Regular Reds Half-toning Spot or Direct Red Colors All Macros from Step 2 aren’t essential, which means they
won’t affect the global color process. However we
The image at the top-right features red rendered as spot recommend taking a couple of minutes to apply them, since
color. A more realistic approach to traditional printing. they will give more realism to your final image.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

This Macro has two settings: Ink Damage (FIG.1). This will
degrade the quality of the ink applied on spot red tones.
Higher values mean lower ink quality.

2
SPOT RED DAMAGE
Alternatively, we can add some character and realism to our
Spot Red layer, by adding this Macro that will mangle our
extracted red tones, making them appear more organic and
authentic.

1
Pores Density (FIG.2), will ‘dry out’ spot reds and will apply
some random grain overall.

Usually these settings look great as default and don’t need to

be tweaked at all. But, it is always good to have extra options.

IMPORTANT!
After applying spot colors, general tonality may vary. These
tones will get normalized once we reach Step 4, “Bake
Colors,” so keep bearing with me here.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

SPOT BLUE DAMAGE

Spot blue inks used to create different textures than red ones
when printed out. Spot Blue Damage, will simulate the
scratches and fiber-like textures these inks tended to
produce over time.

APPLY BLUE AS SPOT COLOR

As its Spot Red counterpart, certain tones of blue were
applied directly as well (think of Superman’s blue).

Apply Blue as Spot Color will extract tones closer to pure blue
and give even more tonal depth to your artwork.

Since this Macro relies on our home-made procedural texture

algorithms, it will take a few extra seconds to be applied. Nice
chance to have a sip of coffee!

The settings on this one are self-explanatory. I will only

This Macro is really simple as well. It will create a new layer recommend, as before, input the numerical values manually,
named “Spot Blue”. to avoid loading your CPU with extra calculations.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

LINE WORK PHASER

This is one of my favorites! This Macro will briefly misalign

your inks (or Black) layer and will wash out its pigment, so it
will look as if the press has been misplaced during the
printing process. Beautiful!

Notice how nicely underlying colors bleed through the black

layer, making the entire page look more analog.

Controls for this Macro are pretty simple as well. Black Ink
Fluidity will set the overall clarity of black ink. Horizontal and
Vertical Misalignment will do what the name indicates and
shift your black plate's position. We recommend setting your
document's units to pixels so you can move them around in The bleeding and phasing effect is more noticeable on darker
small increments. areas.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

COLORS ALIGNMENT

Like black plates, old-school color printing represented quite

a challenge to get all colors lined up together. Nowadays,
these mistakes look beautiful on vintage comic books.

Don’t worry if the color bleeds too much at the moment. All
glitches will be less noticeable once the process is done, so
it’s good to exaggerate them now.

This Macro works great right off the bat and, most of the
time, won’t need you to tweak any setting. Just run the Macro
and hit Apply. If you still want to play around with settings,
our recommendation would be to shift Spot Red X Position Look how closer we’re now from getting our gorgeous old-
and Spot Blue Vertical Shift just a bit to see some cool school comic book look!
results.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

SCREENING

This single Macro from Step 3, will create those beautiful

sets of Ben-day dots for us. Colors marked as Spot Colors
won’t be affected by this Macro. Again, closer to the actual
thing.

Notice how nicely the spot colors we prepared before, blend

together with screen tones.

You’ll be able to manipulate Cyan and Magenta dots size. Now we have all sorts of textures across the entire artwork.
Yellow is applied as base color by default. Awesome! Now, it’s time for the grand finale...

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

BAKE COLORS
Bake Colors will dry out colors, line work and paper
together. It will bring original colors back (as much as
possible) and it will also show again the Ink Damage
effect we set previously.

It will glue everything together, in a non-destructive way.

This Macro will add a

couple of Live Filters and
one extra Adjustment
Layer to the whole
document structure.

Notice how nicely the spot colors we prepared before, Bake Colors will also create a uniform look across
blend together with screen tones. different patterns throughout the canvas.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

VINTAGE PRINTER
Vintage Paper works like
magic! Evens out the
entire scene tones, adds
a nice warmth to inks, a
paper-like texture and a
vintage color shift to the
whole illustration.

Paper Age controls the ‘yellowness’ of your artwork, Line Above you can see the layer structure generated by this
Work Temperature sets the warmth for your inks, and Colors Macro. You’ll have full control to manipulate, hide and re-
Shift makes a mess out of your entire color scheme. position these layers in any way you want.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

NEWSPAPER ME!

Finally, the last Macro Newspaper Me! will add a custom-

made procedural texture that emulates cheap newspaper
prints. This one also adds some extra filters to give a worn-
out flavor to your final artwork.

At this point, you should check your artwork at its actual size
(100%) to really appreciate all the details. Due to the number
of Live Filters and Adjustments, looking it zoomed out may be
deceiving from the actual appearance since Photo has A LOT
Before After to process on the fly. Now, let’s add the cherry on top...

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

DRAG N’ DROP PAPER TEXTURES

As a final touch, you might want

to add one of the 8 vintage paper
textures provided with the pack.
These textures are ready to be
used. Just drag one or more at
the top of your layers, adjust their
opacity if you need to, and that’s
it.

They will add a subtle extra

character to your artwork. You can
also combine two or more on top Comic Paper 01 Comic Paper 06
of each other to create stacks of
unique and grungy textures.

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 HOW TO USE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

EMBEDDING EDITABLE DOCUMENTS

Both Designer and Photo have the ability of placing entire
editable documents as if they were regular images.

To place a document, go to the top menu, File>Place...

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Above, we have an Affinity Photo document, where I worked
my inks on (FIG.1). Next to it, we have an Affinity Designer
document (FIG.2), where I colored this artwork using vector
shapes, in case I wanted to edit its colors swiftly later.

Of course, I worked the entire thing in a solo document, but

for the sake of using the Splat! Color Process pack on it, I
saved two documents. One with the raster inks and another
with the editable color vector paths, in case I needed to edit Browse for the Affinity Designer or Affinity Photo file you want
them later. to add and that’s it.

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SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

Go to the Context Menu and select Assistant Options.

Now, you’ll be able to align this document as a regular image.

To edit an embedded document, just double-click its
thumbnail in the layers panel. The file will open on a new tab.
Once you’ve done editing, just close the document and the
changes will be reflected immediately.

IMPORTANT!
In some cases these editable documents might be rasterized
Look for the option Applying filters to vector layers. From the
(flattened) by the Assistant Manager. To avoid this, we need to
dropdown menu select Take no action.
tell the Assistant not to do that.

IMPORTANT!
Don’t forget to rename your layers to Inks or Colors
respectively, after embedding your documents.

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 LICENSE
SPLAT! COLOR PROCESS
FOR AFFINITY PHOTO

Splat! Color Process for Affinity Photo - End User License

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 CC applies to the brush set kit as a product. However,

users are free to create personal and commercial products with this product without
attribution.

You MAY use Splat! Color Process for Affinity Photo:

• For unlimited personal projects.
• For unlimited commercial projects for yourself or a client: As long as the parts of the
Splat! Color Process for Affinity Photo, modified or in original form, aren't available in a
distributable
form on its own.
• To create an End Product for a client.

You may NOT:

• Share or re-sell this design kit in part or as a whole.

For other licensing queries or if you want to extend your rights to commercially exploit
these digital brushes please contact Enrique Figueroa at: [email protected]

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 @frankentoon /frankentoon @frankentoon

youtube.com/FrankentoonVideo

©2021, FRANKENTOON STUDIO http://frankentoonstudio.com