How to get my painting with only black and white?

[Gregory Dubus]

Hi,

I am a begginner with Affinity Photo and I am struggling to change my coloured painting in black and white. I have done Layer -> New Layer adjustment -> Black and white but my painting still shows lot of variances of grey. I want a totally white painting keeping the black lines. (And ideally making sure that all the black lines are uniformly dark black)

Could somebody explain me how to reach my objective?

Thanks,

Greg.

 

 

2018-05-03_Relax-BandW.afphoto

Edited May 16, 2020 by Gregory Dubus

[firstdefence]

With the image being low quality it’s difficult to get a clean black and white due to the pixelation but you will get further using the develop persona.

1. Open the image (I used the image from your previous post (Before you used erase white paper)
2. Click on the Develop Persona icon
3. On the Tones tab activate Black and white and move all the sliders over to the right.
4. Next activate curves and use the red and green channels to remove the remaining colour
   Should look something like this...
    
5. Once you are happy click on develop.
6. You can now use Erase White Paper more effectively.

If you have a higher resolution image the result should be better.

 

[Gregory Dubus]

Dear Firstdefence,

 

THANKS YOU!!! I did steps 1 to 4 and I was able to get the image like I wanted

I have high resolution image available so I will do it using such image.

I have not done steps 5 and 6:

Step 5: Where to be able to click on develop? And what is the objective doing it?

Step 6: Why using white paper functionality if the painting is now black and white?

Have a great day.

Greg.

[carl123]

You could also try...

Filters > Colours > Monochrome Dither

It does tend to leave some annoying white dots but these are easily selected en masse and changed to black

[firstdefence]

39 minutes ago, Gregory Dubus said:

Dear Firstdefence,

 

THANKS YOU!!! I did steps 1 to 4 and I was able to get the image like I wanted

I have high resolution image available so I will do it using such image.

I have not done steps 5 and 6:

Step 5: Where to be able to click on develop? And what is the objective doing it?

Step 6: Why using white paper functionality if the painting is now black and white?

Have a great day.

Greg.

I worked out the process in Develop Persona which is primarily for RAW files but it was easier to see the filter controls, in Pixel persona you have to make sure you have the curves filter layer below the black and white filter layer else you will get discolouration, also, you have to keep flicking between filter windows and I’m always one to have the path of least resistance lol!

In develop persona you don’t need to do flick between filter windows, you can see both filter controls at once. It was just easier for editing this particular project and working out how it could be done, so the last part was applying the edit to the image by confirming the developing of it and to get out of the develop persona with those edits applied and the last part i.e. remove white paper was just to show that only the black remains.

Now the method is worked out it can be done simply by...

1. Applying the black and white filter and move all the sliders over to the right.
2. Applying a curves filter and move it below the black and white filter, then alter the red and green curves similar to the image shown above in the previous reply to remove the remaining colour

Job done

[lacerto]

(...)

[lepr]

1 hour ago, Lagarto said:

I took yet another approach and started by using Threshold Adjustment (on the original color image without Black and White filter). For some reason it does not do the job very well, but I completed it by sample selecting (Select > Select Sampled Colors) the remnant grays and filled them with white.

These greys were actually semi-opaque black. You started with a coloured image that had varying alpha (because Remove White Paper had been used before the image was provided to the forum), then the Threshold Adjustment ignored the alpha and changed the RGB to pure black and pure white, resulting in a pure black and pure white image with varying opacity. If you put a white Fill layer under the semi-opaque coloured image, and the Threshold Adjustment above them, then the adjustment at about 32% will produce a result close to your Photoshop result.

 

By the way, Gregory's fully opaque coloured image can be found in  

 

[lacerto]

18 minutes ago, anon2 said:

These greys were actually semi-opaque black. You started with a coloured image that had varying alpha

No, I just forgot to mention that I removed the transparent background before starting.

[lepr]

37 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

No, I just forgot to mention that I removed the transparent background before starting.

That makes no difference to the input to the Threshold Adjustment, so my explanation above still holds.

The Threshold Adjustment (and the other adjustments and filters in Affinity) doesn't "see" the canvas, so it was operating on an image with varying alpha, and its result was pure black and white with varying opacity, which was then blended with the white of the canvas to give a greyscale view composite.

You can put a white Fill layer (or Rectangle or Pixel object covering the canvas) under the semi-opaque coloured image and then the Threshold Adjustment above them, and that will make the adjustment produce a result like Photoshop's.

[lacerto]

(...)

[Lisbon]

Hi Gregory Dubus!
Gradient maps are another option.
Just add black and white points and change the position until you find something you like.
Cheers.

[Fixx]

Easiest way is just to use Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Threshold...

Use the slider to select threshold point after which all colours go white and all others go black.

Mind you, you have transparencies in your file so these parts show grey anyway. Remove that by removing tick from Document > Transparent Background.

[Gregory Dubus]

THANK YOU ALL for all your feedbacks! When I get time, I will try all the proposed options and see what works best/is easier.

Greg.