How can I replace a specific colour and retain a nice shape?

[Karina]

Hi, I really hope you guys can help me out! I drew a snowflake design in Procreate, but I need to change the black  to a specific value for the printing company in Affinity. How do I do this? See attached picture for the shape. 

If I select the black with the magic wand tool and replace the colour in AP, the edges of the shape become jagged. And I don’t want that. Is there another way? I do have the snowflake file in layers. 
 

THANK YOU! 

[carl123]

Hard to say without seeing the document layout

But based on the image you uploaded, try this...

Select the black background with the magic wand tool 
Hit the Refine button in the context toolbar
Accept the default values and set Output to New Layer
Add a Fill Layer below this new Layer and set its color to whatever is required

[Alfred]

Instead of making a selection, add a Fill layer on top of the snowflake layer. Set the fill colour to the desired value and set the layer’s blend mode to ‘Screen’.

[Karina]

2 hours ago, carl123 said:

Hard to say without seeing the document layout

But based on the image you uploaded, try this...

Select the black background with the magic wand tool 
Hit the Refine button in the context toolbar
Accept the default values and set Output to New Layer
Add a Fill Layer below this new Layer and set its color to whatever is required

Thanks for your help! This didn’t work unfortunately. I think I should clarify that the background is white, and the layer with the snowflake drawing is black. I need to change the CMYK values of the black snowflake layer. 
 

(I did it this way because of the printing process, the black will be printed on gold paper, so the white will eventually be gold.)

[Karina]

2 hours ago, Alfred said:

Instead of making a selection, add a Fill layer on top of the snowflake layer. Set the fill colour to the desired value and set the layer’s blend mode to ‘Screen’.

Thanks a lot, that sounded very sensible, but unfortunately this didn’t work either... 
 

In the end I switched things around and made a C0M0Y0K0 swatch in AP, exported that to Procreate, and made the Snowflake design in white, so I could set the background to the desired black CMYK value in Affinity. A bit of a hassle, but unfortunately it didn’t work to set the right CMYK values in Procreate. Why it DOES work to set the right values in Affinity, export that to Procreate to make the design in the right values, and then export it back to Affinity is beyond me, but hey it works. Affinity is definitely better with CMYK values then Procreate, that’s for sure! Thanks for helping me find a solution! 😀 

[Alfred]

23 minutes ago, Karina said:

Thanks a lot, that sounded very sensible, but unfortunately this didn’t work either... 

What went wrong when you tried it? 

[Karina]

3 minutes ago, Alfred said:

What went wrong when you tried it? 

Well, I did make the fill layer in C100M100Y100K100, then double checked with the colour picker and all was fine. Then I set the layer to screen and checked with the colour picker again, and the wrong CMYK figures came up (again!!!!). Those numbers have been haunting me 🤣 I tried several times, and the same thing kept happening.
 

Maybe there’s a mistake in the Procreate psd file... I worked around all this by now as I described above by making a C0M0Y0K0 swatch in Affinity, exporting that to Procreate to make the drawing in the right CMYK values, and exporting back to Affinity. But, it didn’t work with a black C100M100Y100K100 swatch, the same bewitched Procreate numbers kept popping up... I think Procreate can’t handle those numbers, they’re too high so it automatically corrects them to a lower CMYK number. 
 

That’s the only explanation I can think of anyway... Thanks a lot for your advise! 

[thatGuy]

try lighter color blend mode instead, screen had other cmyk values for me as well.

[firstdefence]

Hi Karina, I used your PNG to make a vector version for you, it might make it easier to colour.

Snowflake.afphoto

[JimmyJack]

8 hours ago, Karina said:

..... I think I should clarify that the background is white, and the layer with the snowflake drawing is black. I need to change the CMYK values of the black snowflake layer. 
 

(I did it this way because of the printing process, the black will be printed on gold paper, so the white will eventually be gold.)

 

6 hours ago, Karina said:

Well, I did make the fill layer in C100M100Y100K100, then double checked with the colour picker and all was fine. Then I set the layer to screen and checked with the colour picker again, and the wrong CMYK figures came up (again!!!!). Those numbers have been haunting me 🤣 I tried several times, and the same thing kept happening.

The print house wants registration black for the artwork 🤔? Oh-kayyyy.

In any regard, if the artwork is truly alone on a layer, try....

Option 1:
Select the artwork layer and give it an FX Color Overlay with the desired color mix.
(If you need vector output be aware that this will only give you a raster export.... but it sounds like that's what you're already working with.)

Option 2 (raster or vector):
Make a rectangle the size of your canvas with the desired final color fill.
Drag you artwork layer to the mask position.

Option 3 (raster or vector):
Make a rectangle the size of your canvas with the desired final color fill.
Drag that to the child position of the artwork layer.