Tips on customising the Abstract Alphabet by Chroma Supply?

[seandownunder]

Hi Everyone,

I recently purchased the Abstract Alphabet by Chroma Supply. 

I'm using Affinity Designer, and what I am looking to achieve is create a greyscale version of the coloured letters, and thought applying an adjustment layer (Black and White) would do the trick. However, instead I get a highly illegible end result.

Does anyone have any advice for an alternative method to create what I am after?

This definitely shows gaps in my knowledge of the fundamental tools of the program. Maybe the workbook is a necessary purchase? 😐

Kind Regards,

Sean.

[lacerto]

(...)

[firstdefence]

Because of the complexity of the colouration the black & white filter will; by default, favour certain colours making others washed out, you would need to adjust the black & white filter for each letter. Reducing the predominant colour should help you get some balance.

Or you could try to just desaturate the images using the HSL filter and dropping the S: option to zero (0)

 

[Alfred]

4 hours ago, seandownunder said:

Does anyone have any advice for an alternative method to create what I am after?

There are several different methods, producing quite different results.

 

[seandownunder]

On 9/4/2020 at 3:54 PM, Lagarto said:

Or do you mean that problems appear only when exporting to some specific format?

One thing that affects, too, is the document color mode. Ensure that it is RGB since if it is CMYK, the grayscale rendering would look a bit different. You can also strengthen the grayscale conversion by using e.g. levels adjustment.

UPDATE: Check also the order of layers and positions of adjustments so that they only affect the desired layers.

Thanks for the response @Lagarto. Original problem I was referencing was not alluding to the export.

I went ahead and experimented with your advice. Document was in fact CMYK as it was a template for a business card (my oversight). Also made sure my layers were cleaner and combining the B&W with the levels produced a much stronger result 😎

[seandownunder]

On 9/4/2020 at 4:35 PM, firstdefence said:

Because of the complexity of the colouration the black & white filter will; by default, favour certain colours making others washed out, you would need to adjust the black & white filter for each letter. Reducing the predominant colour should help you get some balance.

Or you could try to just desaturate the images using the HSL filter and dropping the S: option to zero (0)

Thanks @firstdefence. It does seem like the colouration complexity is making the standard B&W filter require finesse. Didn't expect this in the first place, but a lesson learnt.

In this instance your suggestion using the HSL filter and dropping the 'S: option' gave me an effect much closer to my original goal. Also helpful it was a 'single filter' application 👍

[seandownunder]

On 9/4/2020 at 5:46 PM, Alfred said:

There are several different methods, producing quite different results.

@Alfred thanks for the links. I have always been curious about B&W conversion and whether it's an on/off scenario. Have bookmarked for further reading 🤓