christerdk

Is is possible to merge these mask layers into one? It's the result of several mask processes and I'd just like to combine them to ease the work from here on. I've tried merge down, merge visible. Nothing happens. Not interested in Compound mask in this case.

Sure, I'll definitely give it a go. Thank you for checking up on this. I didn't realize until now, however, that the program is only for Windows and I am on Mac. Seems to be for Mac too, so I'll check this one out. Thank you for your inputs!

Thanks. My kitchen isn't very inspiring, both in terms of light and content, which is one of the main reasons why I'm trying this new style with a different background. But I do have a nice cutting board I might feature down the line. On the topic of vignette, I was considering a white outline for the next series of photos, to make it stand out and also to give it a little more cartoon style. Let's see how it goes...

Thanks! I am aware of the concept, but don't really have much practical experience. In the case of, say, the white plate in the previous photo, wouldn't it be prone to the reflection of the green color? And would the green color not change the overall tone of the light box? Color correction might be the way - or would that be taken care of my this specialized software? On the topic of the suggested software, didn't know about these, so thank you for the tip. The former is $99, the price on the other is ... 0? Also, ReMask is made for Adobe PhotoShop, would Affinity Photo be able to load it (plugin compatibility?)?

Thank you for this feedback. I haven't work with converting to curves yet, so it'll definitely take a look at that for next time. Good point. Currently testing this style to make it stand out. It's fortunately only for social media, not a catalogue or similar. See other color tests below. Hehe, to an extent that's true. It started with the Christmas patterns, but since then the patterns haven't been too busy. Below is an overview of the latest few posts. The images are getting better, and I'm ok with making mistakes along while learning (for example there some very light residual coloring of the background (outside the shadow, coming from linear burn) that I'm masking out from now on... and so on and so on An interesting challenge is consistency: like the consistency of the foreground (saturation, curves adjustments) and background colors (the result of linear burn), and of the shadows (some come across more light than others). Also, I think I need to become better a using the measurement tools in Affinity to verify that colors truly are that they are (comparing pixels), because sometimes colors are off by so little that the eye will hardly pick them up. You know, comparing the original background color with the one resulting from burn, even after doing my best with curves adjustments etc.

So, in the end I solved it by making an oval shape fit the plate, then making a mask from it. From there I "cherry picked" the edges I needed (because the layer was already rasterized, unfortunately), making for a well formed edge of the plate, but still allowing the bread to stick out. Curious to hear how those of you that are more experienced would have fixed it, I'm sure I can learn something!

Good folks, 'Tis me again - I hope you're not getting bored with this thread 😆 I have an ultra detailed process question... I took a picture of this (chocolate sourdough) bread placed on white plate on white background (that choice is probably my main issue). After using the Selection Tool Brush quite a few times I think my output is pretty goood, but i struggle a little in areas where plate is hard to tell apart form the background. The edge becomes uneven and will only get worse if I try to fix it manually. What strategy can I use here? I've considered adding some adjustment layer that potentially could make even the smallest differences stand out. Then after finding and adding that to the mask, remove the adjustment again. Alternatively, maybe I can use a shape of sorts that offers a bent line, create a mask from it, then merge to existing mask or make compound mask? Thanks in advance for your inputs!

@Dan C I used your proposed process for this one, preserving a copy of the original below to have that serve as the shadow with linear burn. How am I doing? A challenge was that the white balance was slightly off original picture, making the white have a grey tint. To make up for that without loosing too much of the shadow (loaf is slightly lifted over the surface, fyi), I used a Curves adjustment and adjusted the brighter parts. I'll try to fix the white balance at the source next time. @debraspicher Resizing after upload worked great 👍🏻

Haha, you're not wrong! This view is the "classic" angle / view for bread hobbyists posting online, FYI. I really like your ideas, thank you for lending me your creative mindset, I'll try some of these suggestions on upcoming loaves. I have made other types of shots, with more angle and such, for clusters of bagels, but I haven't considered this so much for loaves. It'll try to get more creative with my newly acquired light box! Definitely so. Didn't know that you could resize here in the forum, good to know!

Another attempt. Improved: the aperture is higher, so better edges on the bread to trace. Definitely a lesson learned. Not yet improved: I don't have a proper stand for this bread, so I had to hold it quite high. Therefore I had no natural shadows to use, so the shadow is fake.

Indeed, that would probably be my preference too - and probably my wallet's preference, too 😆 Apple's trackpads are truly amazing for the everyday use. I produce music as well, and it works really well. In the context of Affinity, I've used the stabilizer to make up for lack of precision. Since I'm a hobbyist I'll probably go down the mouse route first, so see if that is enough for now. Not sure if it's allowed to post here, but here is my IG sourdough page (let me know if not, I'll remove). As you can see, I was taking photos for a while in natural light outside. But after a move this was not possible anymore, so I shot pictures in the kitchen, now with lovely lovely florescent light. And after seeing some of those picture, a friend of my mine commented that "it's time to get a lightbox"... 😄

if I understand you correctly: the inherent perspective of the original picture / plate and the "flatness" of the background yields a strange perspective mix, you mean? That makes sense, yeah. The reason for the strong colors in the background is that I wanted to emulate wrapping paper. But I did spend some time considering the contrast between background and foreground. Only solution I did for this image was adjusting the levels of the foreground. I definitely get what you mean. My thinking behind having the bread / plate taking up such a good amount of space is because it's aimed towards Instagram, so I'm trying to make it "pop" from that little square in the viewers hand. I have some more Christmas themed pictures coming up, and I'll definitely take your input into consideration. Thank you!

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback - and video! I had a feeling there would be a better way to preserve the original shadow. I am very new to all the functions and how they, when performed in a certain order, can produce a given result, so I didn't know in what direction to go. So thank you very much for that, I really appreciate it. A follow-up question to your workflow, of you don't mind? Do you work with mouse or digitizer in your video? I currently work on a Mac with the trackpad, and it works pretty well. You seem to be able to work very fast in your video, so I'm wondering if I can speed up the process of selecting etc by the use of a digitizer.... Thank you. It's a hobby of mine (and side gig). It's been a fun journey, frustrating at times, but now making them is fortunately very predictable. That is, until next time we move... 😄

That's true. I shot it with a bit too low aperture. I accepted this time, as it is not meant to be displayed as large as it is in this forum (which I only realized after pressing Submit, wow!). Haha, fortunately not a cobweb and not a lens issue. It's fine scratches in the silver plate. I'll take a look at what I can do about it.

Hi @GarryP Thanks for the response - for some reason I didn't get a notification, so I didn't see it until now. I've rephrased the question and included an example, in the post below. Would be very interested in your input. Thanks!

Hi, I bake sourdough bread as a hobby and post my results on social media. I've been using Photo 2 for a while now for basic adjustments. I've now acquired a cheap light box to make things stand out a bit more and to have a more balanced light source. Today I made two loaves for my sons Christmas party at school. Attached is the original and the result. Since I'm quite the noob on more detailed photo work, I'd like to hear your critique on the result, from an editing perspective. Here's what I did: Canvas resize and color adjustment Used flood select tool select most of the plate and bread. It worked pretty well, but it started to struggle with the plate shadow. I converted to mask and removed the original shadow by hand. Used Minimum Blur live filter (4px) on said mask to remove white lines along the edges Created a black rectangle below and use a copy of the mask defined above to match the plate and bread The purpose was to use the original shape to create a new shadow, but I ran into some issue. I tried using Gaussian Blur on the mask, but it also blurred the edges which was an undesired side effect. Clicking preserve alpha reverted the blur completely. I tried a few things, but got stuck and removed this layer. Created an Ellipse with black fill to use as shadow Matched the shape of the plate and added blur and adjusted opacity. Worked pretty well. Would there have been a smarter way to work with the background in order to preserve the original shadow, but make it available for recoloring to the new background color? Untested, but maybe it would have made sense to masked out the shadow and the recolor it somehow? It not of great importance in this case, I'm quite happy with the result, but I think I need to learn a little more technique to make smarter and faster decisions in the future. I don't expect a detailed list of feedback, I'd just be very happy with a few pointers of what to look into to move forward. Thanks in advance!

I bake sourdough bread and post photos of my results online. Today I was inspired by this menu and thought it could be great to add some new background color to my photos. Here’s what I would to with my current knowledge: import the bread photo Make a selection of the bread Mask away everything but the bread add new layer below bread layer change new layer to desired color make new drop shadow Is there a smarter and more efficient way?

@GarryP I actually know the answer to this one, if everything is created first, and then made from new Pattern Layer from Selection. Just wondering if it's possible if the pattern layer is already in place with some content in it?

Smart... I love learning new ways to achieve things in Photo. Do you know if it's possible to import an existing bitmap to be part of the pattern? Let's say we start with a box with black stroke and want a bitmap placed inside, so that it repeats with the box?

Correct, but that's more because that's what I'm used to at this point. I have Designer as well, might more beneficial to work with patterns there? In the end I'm going to have this printed in A3 size, working with the patterns in vector and with fills and also a few bitmaps on top. I've been looking into a few videos on patterns in Designer, interestingly without using a pattern layer. Ref 1 and ref 2.

Hi again, What I'm trying to achieve is just that... have everything look the same in the pattern, but have one part stand out. I just drew mine in by hand with stabilizer enabled, obviously very crude stuff. My question is now how did you make yours - seems I could learn something ;)

I normally always prefix the subject with the application and version number, for some reason I forgot in this instance. Many apologies! I was testing patterns in Photo 2.2.1. I don't have any background in this, so coming at this as a novice. Trying to learn the terminology and processes as I go, while I try to expand my expression in these applications. For some reason uploading an image isn't currently working for me, so I pasted a screen shot here. In Photo it's a 4000x4000pix canvas with 512x512pix pattern draw area. Coming back to the original question, what would the be process if I'd like to fill one or more of these with a solid color? (as marked by the blue X here) It might be that Designer would be a better choice here, I'm open to hearing about that too. Thanks!

Hi all, Getting into working with pattern layers. For the sake of example, let's assume I've made a pattern of squares. Now, I'd like to fill one of these squares - how would I go about that in the most non-destructible way? I've tried to select the inner part of the square, but the squares are not "available" as such. Should a duplicate the layer, then either rasterize or rasterize to mask, and continue from there? Or is there a smarter way? Thanks!

This is a great macro, worked well with my goal, to superimpose something on a dollar bill 👍🏻

Hi! I'm currently working on a mascot. The mascot will have a few different facial expressions and eye look in a few different dirations. Also, there will be variations on bod language. I'm am currently having all these vartions in one Photo file, as the expressions share a lot. But I'd like to export them all easily. Is it possible to associate specific layers to an export slice, and in that way export each mascot variation without having to turn off/on layers each time? Or is there a better way to handle this challenge of variations in one file?