How to remove white background using Affinity Designer

[jshah1998]

Hello-

 

I am new to graphics design and to Affinity Designer. I have a simple requirement. I need to remove the white background from the attached PNG file and make it transparent. I think this should be simple with a powerful tool like AD. But I've looked high and low and can't find a solution.

 

Appreciate the help!

 

JS 

[MattP]

Hi JS,

 

You're dealing with a pixel operation, so select your object then go to the Pixel Persona (second button from the left at the top) and choose the Selection Brush Tool (press 'w' on your keyboard) and then just paint somewhere on the white area - it should automatically select all the white for you. Once you're done you can hit the delete key to remove it. If the selection wasn't quite as good as you'd hoped, before accepting the selection just choose 'Refine' on the context toolbar and brush over the areas you're not happy with and it will analyse them more closely.

 

Thanks,

Matt

[FlintHillsSky]

With such a simple image, you might end up better off if you recreate it in Designer. That will let you handle the transparency layers of those blue ribbon things and have much cleaner edges to the image than the bitmap will allow.

[jshah1998]

Thanks Matt P. That worked well enough!

[uncle808us]

Not working here! Want the white to be gone just the black lines to be left Background transparent.

 

[uncle808us]

No help?

[uncle808us]

Why can't I get an answer?? see #5 above.

[MEB]

Hi uncle808us,

I have used your screenshot (cropped) as an example here, so the lines appear a little faint. You can improve them with an adjustment layer if needed but i believe your original file is bigger so this shouldn't be a problem. I've just defined a blend range (select the layer and click on the cog icon in the Layers panel to see it) to get rid of the white.

 

See attachment.

remove_white.afdesign

[uncle808us]

Thank you. I had no idea what that cog did. :)

[MEB]

You're welcome  ^_^

[janbpunkt]

Hi JS,

 

You're dealing with a pixel operation, so select your object then go to the Pixel Persona (second button from the left at the top) and choose the Selection Brush Tool (press 'w' on your keyboard) and then just paint somewhere on the white area - it should automatically select all the white for you. Once you're done you can hit the delete key to remove it. If the selection wasn't quite as good as you'd hoped, before accepting the selection just choose 'Refine' on the context toolbar and brush over the areas you're not happy with and it will analyse them more closely.

 

Thanks,

Matt

Hi there,

 

I tried to remove a white background from a png by following the steps above, but I keep failing.

On my new document, I have a circle and said png (some logo with white space around it).

I select the png, go to Pixel Persona and use the selection brush tool to mark the white space around the logo that I want to keep. So far so good.

Now, when I hit the delete key, the whole png got deleted. Only the circle is left.

My expectation was that only the white space would be removed, but the whole png is going to be removed from the layers panel (and from the canvas of course).

What am I doing wrong here?

 

Thanks a lot,

Jan

[Karl Works]

Not working here! Want the white to be gone just the black lines to be left Background transparent.

Trans.jpg

start with a new document, with "transparent" check box selected 

make a new layer and fill it with color

copy or create the lines on another layer

the layer with color lets you see the image better, and the object you want is on a layer with no background.

[MEB]

Hi Jan,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

You are probably working with an (Image) layer type - you can check this looking at the label between parenthesis after the layer's name in the Layers panel. If that's the case you have to convert it to a (Pixel) layer type which does allow you to perform changes at a pixel level. To do this select the (Image) layer in the Layers panel, right-click on it and select Rasterise.... You can then perform the steps you were doing.

(Image) layers types retain all original image data but can only be transformed globally (scaled, rotated, skew etc). They can't be changed at a pixel level.

[davidlower8]

This solution is dependant upon having both affinity photo and designer.

 

Import or drag/drop image in AP (affinity photo). Click on > filters > colours > erase white paper. Then head up to file > edit in designer. This way it instantly removes all white without messing around with layers, selection tools, pixel persona or whatever. Then it opens directly into designer without having to save or export. BRILLIANT solution and takes seconds.

[thadeusz]

Wow. Thanks mate, that really a brilliant solution!

[Jody]

OK, I could use a little help with Davidlower's instructions. I downloaded a simple black and white line drawing from Shutterstock which is an eps. Opened it in Affinity Photo (newly downloaded so I haven't used the program yet) and clicked on filters > colours > erase white paper. The Assistant popup told me it rasterized the layers (since it wasn't). Then I chose file > edit in designer and it opened in Designer, but the white was still there.

Is the issue the eps file format? Did I need to do something else because of that? 

Update: I exported the eps to jpg and then opened in AF and followed the instructions. THAT worked!

[firstdefence]

Erase White Paper is fine as long as nothing "within" the image you want to keep is also light in colour i.e. portrait on a white background and the person has white teeth, then you will find you have a very unflattering and empty mouth. Just something to consider when using Erase White Paper, even on seemingly simple graphics..

Personally, I would have gone with Flinthillsky suggestion and just created it in designer, you then have a scalable graphic with good detail, same goes for the grid, simple job with the Grid and Power Duplicate tools.

[Abandon]

Kinda like Designer, but having a non-existing white background in my layers that appears on screen and on png files kinda suck. Do you even happen to work with your soft? This is extremely inconvenient and non-sensical. Designer should either not add a white background (that appears in none of my layers) or create a default white layer named 'Background". Having to check google for such trivial things is really annoying.

[Old Bruce]

Hi Abandon welcome to the forums,

7 minutes ago, Abandon said:

having a non-existing white background in my layers that appears on screen and on png files kinda suck

Do either of these solve it for you?

[Xzenor]

Or for an existing picture,

File -> Document Setup-> 'Color' Tab.

[Latergator]

I've had the same problem (copied text retaining its white background when pasted into Photo or Designer), until I recently had a DUHHH! moment. Copy the text, then paste it into text EITHER a Photo or Designer document. Change the blend mode of the pasted text layer to "Multiply". The troublesome white bg will drop out, rendering the previously white background transparent.  

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Latergator
to add illustration re topic

[PixelPest]

@Latergator I don´t get why your text has a white background Artistic text objects usually don´t have. And how do you proceed with white text then?

[Joachim_L]

3 minutes ago, PixelPest said:

I don´t get why your text has a white background Artistic text objects usually don´t have.

Unless the text has a background colour from the Character panel.

[PixelPest]

I know - but why adding it in first place and then use "Multiply" to get rid off? I think this makes more sense for rasterized objects but not editable text:

[Joachim_L]

10 minutes ago, PixelPest said:

but why adding it in first place and then use "Multiply" to get rid off?

Maybe @Latergator did not see the option in the Character panel? Otherwise you are of course right.