Preserving a scanned watercolor card

[DestinyRose]

Hi all, I am new here and to using Affinity Designer. A few weeks ago, I didn't know how to use this program at all and never used photo shop, so I am a true newbie.

I've been using Skillshare and watching Youtube videos, but I am stuck with my current project. I am hoping, even briefly, if someone could tell me what tools I would use to clean up this scanned card.

I just want to clean up some of the paint, make the brown watercolor border even all the way around and brighten the white canvas,..I really don't want to remove it, but I suppose if I could replace with a canvas texture, that would be cool too. I've learned adjustments and can do some, but I think because of the different colors of pixels in the canvas, it's making it tricky for me. 

Any tips on this and in the mean time,..I will keep watching and learning so I can solve these issues myself.

 

 

[firstdefence]

You can get the background lighter using curves, but it will affect the other colours too so less is more, by example see image below.

https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/pages/Adjustments/adjustment_curves.html

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @DestinyRose
In addition to the advice above, if you want to do this sort of thing often then you may find that Photo could be better-suited to your needs than Designer. Photo has way more photo/bitmap manipulation tools than Designer, which is more for vector-based work.
You might be able to do what you want with Designer – don’t forget the Pixel Persona – but Photo might allow you to do it more quickly.

Note: If you download the trial version of Photo don’t forget that it’s a ten calendar-day trial which starts as soon as you run it for the first time (maybe from when you install it, I can’t remember), so you will need to set aside a good chunk of time to get to grips with it before the trial ends. The trial version is fully-functional but the time you get with it may not be enough to see everything that Photo has to offer.

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, GarryP said:

If you download the trial version of Photo don’t forget that it’s a ten calendar-day trial which starts as soon as you run it for the first time (maybe from when you install it, I can’t remember)

It’s from first run, as far as I’m aware.

https://affin.co/phototrial

[thomaso]

A solution with APub only, mainly using an image copy + Channel Mixer for yellow + Blend Modes:      test1_watercolor frame.afpub

 

[DestinyRose]

Thanks everyone. I actually meant to put this in photo. I will move there so I can get advice. the only thing I am really still stuck on is I wasn't to clean up the lines of the brown border. I obviously can't erase. I tried to add a rectangle and fill with the main card background filling, but that looked cheesy. I know there is a simple way to do it, my nimble head just can't seem to figure it out.

[Fixx]

If you want to fill corners try selecting them (you can select with Freehand selection tool with some overlap) and Edit > Inpaint