Photo: How to texture paint without blending?

[JeffreyWalther]

Hi,

I am struggeling with this:
I want to brush onto my canvas with an image, e.g. a seemless stone texture.
Therefore, I created a new brush and set an image texture.

But when I draw the image over and over again the same area, the image darkens more an more like the brush is multiplied or so.
This should not be the case.



Putting the brush down and painting over it again leads to darkening:



I even tried several blending modes without that desired effect: just painting it over.

Here is an example from Blender, how I expect to work the brush with different sizes and overpainted areas (note: black area is unpainted!)

Is this a bug?

[firstdefence]

Try creating multiple layers and filling them with the seamless texture, resizing each texture to get finer grades, then use the erase tool to erase parts on each layer to reveal the other layers.

Texture layers.afphoto Saved with history so you can jog back and forth in the history panel so you can see the process.

Seamless texture used

 

 

[JeffreyWalther]

No, that's not what I want.
I just want to brush my texture over and over to retouch other things. But the painted image is getting darker with every stroke. That's an error.
 

[R C-R]

9 hours ago, JeffreyWalther said:

But the painted image is getting darker with every stroke. That's an error.

It is just the way the Affinity pixel brushes are designed to work -- they more or less mimic how real world brushes build up paint on repeated strokes, & how texture brushes have to be 'dabbed' (stamped) to avoid smearing the texture.

AFAIK, the only way to avoid this is to use multiple layers, various opacity & hardness settings, & so on.

[walt.farrell]

37 minutes ago, R C-R said:

It is just the way the Affinity pixel brushes are designed to work -- they more or less mimic how real world brushes build up paint on repeated strokes, & how texture brushes have to be 'dabbed' (stamped) to avoid smearing the texture.

AFAIK, the only way to avoid this is to use multiple layers, various opacity & hardness settings, & so on.

Not pixel brushes, in general. Look at a basic round brush with 100% opacity and wet edges off. You can make many strokes, overlapping, without that issue.

But, set the opacity lower, and accumulation will happen with repeated strokes.

Similarly, with a texture brush, overlapping strokes will overlap high density areas with low density areas. This can act like having opacity less than 100%.

[StuartRc]

Hi

Walt is quite correct.. the issue lies with the 'format' of the base texture. In effect you are applying a 'greyscale' image to the brush to act as a texture....

It is possible to acquire the kind of effect that you are looking for but requires editing of the original image you are using for texture generation.

Essentially the base image needs to be black/white. When I created textures using images I built a template to apply layer adjustments to the image/selected area before exporting

Basic Method For Base Texture
1. Open the base texture (seamless!)
2. Set resolution to 300dpi or higher if want to preserve > detail; export size as 200 or 400 px (they do not need to be large!)
3. Use (experiment!) Brightness and Contrast | Black and white Adjustment and Threshold to reduce the greyscale element of your image. so becomes B/W Hi res
4. Export as PNG
5. Apply as base texture

Basic method for Brush Nozzle
To create a working nozzle .
1. Apply same method as above
2. Use another textured brush as eraser to 'erode' the edges (and get rid of square appearance!)...this will give you the appearance of a blurred edge. USe a mask to do this if want to be non-destructive 


Its a bit trial and error but you should get a better result! You will lose the fine detail but gain a textured rock pattern....A bit like the image below..Which was just paint on canvas

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

AFAIK, the only way to avoid this is to use multiple layers, various opacity & hardness settings, & so on.

Not pixel brushes, in general. Look at a basic round brush with 100% opacity and wet edges off. You can make many strokes, overlapping, without that issue.

 But, set the opacity lower, and accumulation will happen with repeated strokes.

That is what I meant.

[lacerto]

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[lacerto]

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[JeffreyWalther]

Thank you guys for all your tips.
But indeed, I was looking for a dynamic "clone" brush without setting up a layer with the source texture.

In Blender, you can set up such a brush, by simple loading a texture.
And dependent on the brush size, the sampled texture is applied accordingly.
You even can set that the painted texture should be randomly sampled from the source texture.

This I really like to see in Affinity Photo. Will put this to the feature request.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, JeffreyWalther said:

This I really like to see in Affinity Photo.

From what I can tell this would almost be like the inverse of AP's "protect alpha" brush option. IOW, something like 'paint only where there is not already paint,' if that makes any sense.

[JeffreyWalther]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

From what I can tell this would almost be like the inverse of AP's "protect alpha" brush option. IOW, something like 'paint only where there is not already paint,' if that makes any sense.

No, it is just patching over. No matter of color or opacity underneath:

Blender example:
Some brush painted image.


Now, I brush again (just one brush click, no stroke).

You see? It is just patching over. This is not possible in Photo. You cannot brush images that way.
 

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, JeffreyWalther said:

You see? It is just patching over. This is not possible in Photo. You cannot brush images that way.

I am still not quite sure what you mean by "patching over." Some Affinity brushes are designed to be used as 'stamps' -- IOW, to just click & not to drag as well.  An example is the Frankentoon Concept Master Nature Pack, which includes 21 stamp brushes. Most of the other brushes in that pack lay out strips of landscape elements like flowers, grass, or dirt when brushed (in part because the flow rate is low so the texture does not 'smear' when those brushes are dragged).

The Affinity Spotlight article about that pack includes a few examples of what can be made with them, but the e-book that comes with the pack explains how to do much more. Well worth $10, IMO.

[Cecil]

18 minutes ago, R C-R said:

the e-book that comes with the pack explains how to do much more.

I purchased these and they are great. However, I did not receive e-book, package had two PDF files.

[R C-R]

16 minutes ago, Cecil said:

I purchased these and they are great. However, I did not receive e-book, package had two PDF files.

I used the term "e-book" because it is referred to as the "Tips & Tricks eBook" on the Affinity Store purchase page, but the file as downloaded from the Affinity Store Downloads & product keys page is named "concept-master-nature-users-guide.pdf." There is also a "concept-master-nature-brush-guide.pdf" available from that page, basically a stroke sheet.

[Cecil]

32 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I used the term "e-book" because it is referred to as the "Tips & Tricks eBook" on the Affinity Store purchase page, but the file as downloaded from the Affinity Store Downloads & product keys page is named "concept-master-nature-users-guide.pdf." There is also a "concept-master-nature-brush-guide.pdf" available from that page, basically a stroke sheet.

Thanks, just wanted to ensure I didn’t overlook link to download the e-book.