Colour in between lines.

[missy20]

Hi ya 

I must be missing the obvious but I can cannot for the life of me, figure out how to colour in the image shown, with the lines still showing. 

I am a newbie at this so if you could provide a step by step of it please? 

I drew this image in affinity photo using the pen tool now i want to use different colours in it without colouring over the lines if its possible?

I tried flood fill it doesn't work it went over the lines.

Thanks!

Edited September 23, 2020 by missy20
what i tried

[Dan C]

Hi @missy20,

Could you please provide a copy of your .afphoto file, so I can offer the best solution for your file?  

Many thanks in advance!

[missy20]

Thanks for replying but Im not sure what you mean? Its a picture of a hand which I have provided again to be sure. 

Thanks!

[Dan C]

Thanks for that missy20, however I need the .afphoto file, so that I can open this here in vector format. You say you have created this design within Affinity Photo? Please go to File > Save As and save the document in the .afphoto file format, then upload a copy of this file here.

This will allow me to open the file within my version of Affinity Photo, and continue editing the file where you left off. The image you have provided is rasterised, meaning the 'lines' drawn by your pen tool are no longer selectable / editable, which I require them to be in order to show you the fill process.

Please do let me know if you're still having trouble providing the Affinity file

[missy20]

my apologies. I thought I had given an afphoto file previously. So hope this works.

Thanks 

hand3.afphoto

[Dan C]

Thanks for your document! This is what I needed, although I'm a little confused. In your original post you said -

20 hours ago, missy20 said:

I drew this image in affinity photo using the pen tool

The reason I bring this up, is that I would expect the Layers Panel to show (Curve) objects, for each stroke drawn with the Pen tool, whereas this is currently a (Pixel) layer, which has either been imported into the app, or rasterised.

If you want to fill the Pixel layer that's shown in your document, then the Flood Fill Tool is one of the best things to use here -

[thatGuy]

try to adjust the tolerance value of the flood fill, something around 20% or less will no longer fill the outer area.

However, depending on zoom and tolerance, you will have grey pixels between fill and your lines

[missy20]

Thank you for your help! I did bring the image back into the app and saved it that's why it was shown in the pixel layer I think. I had tried the flood fill tool before and it didn't work but what I realised is that; A the tolerance/zoom was too high and went over the lines, B: I must have clicked on the lines and hence they disappeared or didn't show. I hopefully have it now fingers crossed haha 

 

Thank you for teaching me a little bit about the affinity file!

[missy20]

Sorry a quick question! is there something that can be done about the grey pixels and the lines? Im seeing bits of grey pixels in very small areas where I changed the tolerance to zero and zoomed in but trying to flood fill means lines disappear or is that something I'll have to accept?

[R C-R]

If you use the Pen Tool to create vector shape layers, it will be much easier to fill your drawing with colors. You can also take advantage of layer stacking & nesting so that not every shape has to fit perfectly into others.

For example, in this hand3 as vectors.afphoto file note that the top middle part of the 'hand' shape does not have to follow the contour of the two finger shapes because they cover that part of the hand shape, & that some of the crease mark lines & the nail tips actually extend past the shapes they are nested in.

[thatGuy]

a quick (but not overly precise) way would be

- menu select > alpha range > select opaque (basically what you just filled with the flood tool)

- menu select > grow/shrink > grow selection by 1px

- duplicate (ctrl+j), re-apply flood fill or use brush with selection still active

- put your original layer on top

[missy20]

1 hour ago, thatGuy said:

a quick (but not overly precise) way would be

- menu select > alpha range > select opaque (basically what you just filled with the flood tool)

- menu select > grow/shrink > grow selection by 1px

- duplicate (ctrl+j), re-apply flood fill or use brush with selection still active

- put your original layer on top

I tried to follow above instructions but grow/shrink is greyed out

[missy20]

Also when im using the pen tool to draw lines I draw one line then join another line but the first line disappears so im only left with one line instead of two or more why is this?

[Dan C]

2 minutes ago, missy20 said:

I tried to follow above instructions but grow/shrink is greyed out

This usually means that no selection, or layer is active. Please make sure you've selected the fill layer in the Layers Panel and have the selection active for the Grow/Shrink options to be available.

Just now, missy20 said:

Also when im using the pen tool to draw lines I draw one line then join another line but the first line disappears so im only left with one line instead of two or more why is this?

Could you possibly provide a screen recording of this for us?

[Pšenda]

4 hours ago, missy20 said:

Also when im using the pen tool to draw lines I draw one line then join another line but the first line disappears so im only left with one line instead of two or more why is this?

Stroke width is nonzero? Stroke color is differently from background?

[Pšenda]

On 9/24/2020 at 11:58 AM, missy20 said:

is there something that can be done about the grey pixels and the lines? Im seeing bits of grey pixels in very small areas where I changed the tolerance to zero and zoomed in but trying to flood fill means lines disappear or is that something I'll have to accept?

Best way is fill color "under" drawing, not fill area between the lines.
- copy your hand image,
- turn off the top layer,
- on the bottom copy, use the Erase Brush Tool to erase everything except the hand edge,
- use Flood Fill Tool to fill the entire area of the hand,
- turn on the top layer.

[missy20]

I tried to follow instructions as above but I keep running into the same problem with the flood fill. It fills the hand image but also the background but I want to fill the hand only.

I tried changing the tolerance to 0% or 20% No luck. Tried new fill layer as well

Cant figure it all out at all.

still not getting it. Thanks. 

[Pšenda]

Pixel layer, not Image layer? 

[missy20]

Yea I think I am in pixel layer, I opened the file I was working on into affinity photo. Am I suppose to be in image layer? Where is image layer etc. I still haven't figured it out unfortunately 

[Pšenda]

Screenshot?

[missy20]

first step I did was I drew the image straight away. 

2. I saved as a file

3. When I returned to affinity photo I went to: File> Open. 

4. Rasterise the image

5. Changed tolerance to zero and tried the flood fill and the coloured image

 is what I get

 

w.afphoto

[missy20]

[Pšenda]

[missy20]

Thanks, I thought I fixed that line but Im still getting the problem. Flood fill will still cover all of the image

[Alfred]

As @R C-R observed the other day:

On 9/24/2020 at 11:53 AM, R C-R said:

If you use the Pen Tool to create vector shape layers, it will be much easier to fill your drawing with colors. You can also take advantage of layer stacking & nesting so that not every shape has to fit perfectly into others.

 

w-vector.afphoto