how to set color as transparent

[Desi Gnarnaz]

How do I set a color as transparent in Affinity Designer? I have spent a couple of hours now reading the docs, watching the tutorials, and searching the forums, but nothing I have found has given me the answer. Can someone help please?

I have an image with a black logo on a white background which loads as one layer. (I tried importing it in its native .ai format and as .png but I can't get either format to work.)

I want the background to be transparent. I have tried Designer Persona and Pixel Persona and I have tried changing the opacity of the color selector and the opacity of the layer. I tried changing the layer's blend options (via the Studio Layers gear icon) but that made the black logo transparent. I tried changing the blend mode (Normal, Multiply, etc.). Oddly, when I select the Layers tab menu item Checkerboard Background, the layer in the Studio view displays the logo correctly on a checkerboard background, but the main document still shows white and exporting confirms that's what it still is. 

In GraphicConverter it's simple: all I have to do is select the transparency tool and click on the white background and it becomes transparent.

I was able to do it by first creating a second document with transparent layer turned off from the start, going back to the other file and copying the logo object and pasting it in, and that worked.

But there must be a way in Affinity Designer to change the original file to be transparent, no? Thanks. 

[MEB]

Hi Desi Gnarnaz,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Go to menu File > Document Setup, Colour tab and check if Transparent background is ticked.

[Desi Gnarnaz]

That solved it. Thank you for your quick response!

Please also add that to the documentation. Right now when you search on "transparency" a lot of documentation is listed that doesn't include this which leads to a lot of frustrating experimentation. For example, the top response doesn't mention "background" or "document setup":

 

Transparency

Transparency can be applied in lots of ways in Affinity Designer.

Here are the typical methods for its use.

• As solid Opacity, applied to strokes, fills and brush strokes.
• As a transparency gradient, again applied to either stroke or fill.
• As layer opacity.
• As a layer effect property. 

[Apseom]

I'm afraid this solution didn't work at all for me.  I've got a piece of line art with a white background. Absolutely nothing I have done will separate the background. I've followed video tutorials, have the background set to Transparent (as evidenced by the gray checkerboard on my screen). I've rasterized, selected my color (black), punched the "Mask" button in the Layers toolbox... and although it creates a new masked layer, nothing actually changes. The white background never disappears to reveal the gray checkerboard. The exported PNG, despite selecting "Transparent background" and only the Selected Item, still comes back with a black image on a solid white background.

In Publisher Pro, which I swear was a progenitor to this package, it was a simple two click operation. It literally had a button called "Select Transparent Color". I've been working with Affinity for two years, and this has been my constant, brutal frustration. I will literally walk to another building to fire up my old PC and use Publisher Pro to make a background go away because I simply cannot figure out how to do it in Affinity. 

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.

[John Rostron]

Make sure that your layer is a pixel layer (rasterise if necessary). Then use the Flood Selection Tool, with the Contiguous box unticked, to select the white background. Then click on delete.

John

Edited December 18, 2020 by John Rostron
Corrcted error in tool name

[Apseom]

Thank you for this. It worked perfectly... up until I hit "delete" and the entire image vanished.  Now when I go back in I can't replicate the Flood Fill Tool effect where it selected the white area. Open a whole new project, repeat the exact same steps, get no response now to the exact same sequence of commands.

I now have my assistant in here watching me. We're both laughing and crying at the screen, her because it's absurd, and me because I now have a witness and I feel like I'm not going quite so insane.

 

I'm working on a 2015 iMac. 

For the record, I've watched an Adobe tutorial that explained how to use the Brush Selection tool, and I finally got that to work. I need to fine tune the process, but at least it's a start. Your process sounds much quicker and easier, so I"d like to figure it out for future reference.

 

[Alfred]

The Flood Fill Tool (paint bucket) fills an area. What you want is the Flood Selection Tool (magic wand).

Please see my post below for alternative ways to make the white background transparent:

 

[John Rostron]

7 hours ago, John Rostron said:

Then use the Flood Fill Tool,

@Apseom, @Alfred

My fault for confusing you!

John

[Apseom]

I know the exact button you're talking about... but it's not on my toolbar! Talk about a cursed project!

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Apseom said:

I know the exact button you're talking about... but it's not on my toolbar! Talk about a cursed project!

I don't think you've said what Affinity application you're using (and, by the way, there are no progenitors to any of them; they are brand new applications).

However, the Flood Select Tool is only in Photo, and of the Photo Persona in Publisher.