Transparent Text

[Juan T]

How do you make text transparent so the background will show through using Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher?   

[Old Bruce]

8 minutes ago, Juan T said:

How do you make text transparent so the background will show through using Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher?   

Easiest way

[thomaso]

... or with nested layers, masked by their parent layer:

[v_kyr]

15 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Easiest way

That erases the background and so isn't shine through in the sense of "that the background will show through". - Instead I would more suggest to set no contour and an outline so it's obviews that there is some text on top.

[thomaso]

... or a combination of nested masking & erase layer blend mode for the text:

[RNKLN]

For me, this is the most elegant way.

[thomaso]

But Compound doesn't work with an image, right?
Compound seems to convert/reduce an image to its shape only, around the punched out text.

[RNKLN]

Correct. I had missed that part. Your suggestion above is than the better way to do it.

[lepr]

19 hours ago, thomaso said:

But Compound doesn't work with an image, right?
Compound seems to convert/reduce an image to its shape only, around the punched out text.

This should work, but something sometimes goes wrong with the fill of the Compound:

1. Select the Image object
2. press cmd+return for Convert To Curves
3. make the Compound.

Workaround:

1. Select the Image object
2. press cmd+return for Convert To Curves
3. press cmd+c for Copy (so we have the raster fill of the rectangular Curve)
4. make the Compound
5. press shift+cmd+v for Paste Style so the raster fill is applied to the Compound

Edited May 15, 2020 by anon2
added "sometimes"

[lacerto]

(...)

[lepr]

18 hours ago, Lagarto said:

Thanks, a nice workaround. It first appeared as if the reason for failure of the first method would be related to using an image scaled up and having a placed ppi value bigger than that of the document dpi but no, it happens anyway.

The non-workaround procedure I posted can work,  but it depends on the image file used by the Image object but only if the raster fill of the Curve object has no transformation.

I think I've an explanation, but don't have time to write it up now. I'll be back much later today.

 

Edited May 15, 2020 by anon2

[lepr]

The explanation seems to be quite straightforward.

The Compound should be initialised with its fill being copied from the fill of the Curve object that was created from the Image object, but there is a failure to copy the transformation matrix of the Curve's fill.

Doing the Paste Style does successfully paste the fill transformation matrix to the Compound.

I'll post a bug report.

[thomaso]

There seems to be some more oddity: I have put the image in the Compound layer (> curves > paste style) which also was placed inside the compound set.

Then I replaced the image inside the compound with another. Now when I move this new image (which I understand to be a mask only) then the image in the compound layer occurs quite strange: it enlarges the area according to my layer moves but the image content looks like stretched edge pixels.

 

[lepr]

4 hours ago, thomaso said:

There seems to be some more oddity: I have put the image in the Compound layer (> curves > paste style) which also was placed inside the compound set.

Then I replaced the image inside the compound with another. Now when I move this new image (which I understand to be a mask only) then the image in the compound layer occurs quite strange: it enlarges the area according to my layer moves but the image content looks like stretched edge pixels.

The stretched pixels effect is correct if the Compound's raster fill has Extend mode 'Repeat'.

[thomaso]

> if the Compound's raster fill has Extend mode 'Repeat'.

Is the Extend mode an option which can be set by the user? If yes, where?

[lepr]

8 minutes ago, thomaso said:

> if the Compound's raster fill has Extend mode 'Repeat'.

Is the Extend mode an option which can be set by the user? If yes, where?

It's in the context toolbar for Fill Tool (named Gradient Tool in AP).