Kiara Posted January 7, 2020 Posted January 7, 2020 (edited) Hello, I’m new to using Affinity products and I’m hoping I can use them in my process. I want to prepare my watercolors for print on demand products. I need to remove the white of the paper and leave the paint. I’ve read through and watched everything I can find on this, yet I can’t seem to produce something that will work. I’ve tried using the remove white paper filter, however I use a watercolor paper which has a grain and isn’t perfectly white. The grain and cream of the paper remains even after the filter so it looks like nothing has been removed (when I added a white background layer to check my work). Also, I worry with so much of the image being transparent (including much of the painting itself) it won’t show up when being printed, especially on fabric products. Second, I tried using the selection tool and refining the selection, but it struggled to read the transition from paint to paper. The more I used the matte, foreground, and background tools, the muddier it got. The finished result looked unprofessional. Does anyone have any suggestions to working with watercolor scans and getting them ready for print products? I purchased both Designer and Photo, so hopefully between the two I can accomplish this task. Edited January 7, 2020 by Kiara Quote
Staff Callum Posted January 8, 2020 Staff Posted January 8, 2020 Hi Kiara, Welcome to the forums If possible could you provide one of the images in question so I can look into this further? Thanks C Quote Please tag me using @ in your reply so I can be sure to respond ASAP.
Kiara Posted January 8, 2020 Author Posted January 8, 2020 Absolutely! Hopefully these images are helpful... The first is an image of the original painting. The second is after using the white paper filter. I can see that large portions of the painting itself are transparent. I know you might not know the answer to this question, but like I said in my original post, I’m worried about sending a highly transparent image to print. In this image I just added a white layer behind the painting. You can see it doesn’t look like it removed the paper because the cream and grain is still there. This final image is after using the selection tools instead. I made a selection and refined it using the matte option. If you look at the bottom of the painting and around some of the tuffs of fur compared to the original image, there is a muddy look. It may be minor, but I would like to have a quality product. Also, as I’m working with selections, I can’t seem to find functions such as deleting what’s inside a selection, or copying what’s within a selection to a new layer. There doesn’t seem to be a trash can icon at the bottom left corner like in Designer... I've had to use a Bluetooth keyboard to attempt to delete within a selection, but it just deletes the whole layer. Thank you! Quote
Staff Callum Posted January 8, 2020 Staff Posted January 8, 2020 Could you provide the actual image file in question so I can play with it at my end and try to find a method that works for you. In regards to deleting the contents of your selection long-tap on the screen and choose delete please note you may need to rasterise the layer you are working on first. Quote Please tag me using @ in your reply so I can be sure to respond ASAP.
Kiara Posted January 8, 2020 Author Posted January 8, 2020 That would be so great! I’ve been trying to upload the actual file, but it fails every time. I’ve tried to save it different ways, but it still fails. It doesn’t appear to be two big (31mb). Also, I’m a little concerned about putting out the original file online, as I plan to sell prints. Is there another way I can get it to you? Quote
Staff Callum Posted January 8, 2020 Staff Posted January 8, 2020 I will send you a PM regarding this Quote Please tag me using @ in your reply so I can be sure to respond ASAP.
DM1 Posted January 8, 2020 Posted January 8, 2020 7 hours ago, Kiara said: It doesn’t appear to be two big (31mb) I've found when posting files, this forum site restricts upload size to 20Mb. Quote M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen). Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas. Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/
Kiara Posted January 10, 2020 Author Posted January 10, 2020 On 1/8/2020 at 5:51 PM, DM1 said: I've found when posting files, this forum site restricts upload size to 20Mb. Ah, that makes sense. As I’m preparing files for print, I’ve been told I need to check the gamut warning to make sure my colors will print correctly. If I understand correctly, this is a feature commonly used in Photoshop, but not available in Affinity? From the reading I’ve done on the forum, there is a soft proof filter which is suppose to simulate prints? I’m not sure I understand the different variations of the filter, and which one applies to my case. Is there a way of doing a gamut check in Affinity to see what colors are out of gamut? Quote
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