Practicing with effects-how to make areas transparent again

[Kfaye4]

I have a file I am attempting to make workable for screen printing. As I color filled the phrase it filled in all of the middles of letters in gray. I of course didn't think twice and just colored in the middles, however this does create an issue with effects and it certainly will cause trouble for me when utilizing this design later as the middles would appear white instead of transparent. Is there a way to recify the issue, everything I have tried just jst turns it back to gray, or removes the middle all together. I have watched all of the basic & advanced tutorials so far. I am very new to Affinity, but not design programs in general. 

 

Thanks!

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @Kfaye4.

How did you apply the colour fill? It looks as though there’s an ‘Outer Glow’ filter effect, but that would cover all of the text and wouldn’t leave you with those white counters.

[Kfaye4]

I am fairly confident I grabbed the little bucket and hit the gray (first choice-now it is black) it filled in all my middles of the letters gray too. Then I color filled them white, then added the effect later which made for the funky view you see in my attachment. I started over and tried grouping my text first and then color filling....same result. I imported using an svg. I have tried importing many, many formats and have yet to find an easy solution to improting, breaking apart, color filling and regroupoing...yet. I would however, like to be able to accomplish the effect you show here on my own OR remove all color from the middles of the text, then recreate the efefct thus accomplishing the same thing. 

 

I appreciate you taking the time to try to help. 

[v_kyr]

You can take the magic wand tool, select area and press the delete key.

• whiteinsides.afphoto

 

[Kfaye4]

Hi There Thank you, but I am in Affinity designer, you may be in photo? I tried all the ways to delete just that area with the magic wand and it deletes all of the text, grouped or ungrouped. 

[v_kyr]

Did you used vectors or pixels for the text stuff? Meaning is the text a vector layer or a rasterized bitmap/pixel layer?

If the test is rasterized (aka on a pixel layer), then you can switch to the Designer pixel persona and accomplish the same (just zoom in to better hit only white areas with the magic wand tool).

• whiteinsides_ade.afdesign

 

 

[Kfaye4]

Hi v_kyr,

I did see the magic wand in pixel version and tried it several ways, currently the text is a vector: I did try deleting layers: no luck. Since I am used to working with vectors, converting this is more difficult than I would have imagined. I have saved and re-saved, imported, and exported in several formats including dropping in the remove bg website and re-importing it (that did work but it looks like trash after re-importing): nothing is coming easy to fix the issue....sadly. I have been working on this fix for several days since downloading Affinity, and watching many of the tutorials (all basic and advanced so far). I certainly don't mind learning, I currently work with several softwares for different machines: VCarvePro, Lightburn, Inkscape, Older versions of Photoshop and Illustrator, Silhouette Basic & an old vinyl program Sure Cuts a lot. I have tried moving them there and back to Affinity too. I am looking for a solid one stop program, it was this or another popular one, Affinity had a sale so won. Currently, I am using 4-5 softwares per project to move things in and out for various purposes. The current obssession brings me to needing png files, however since I have designs I have worked on since 2014 in svg format I would love to be able to bring those in and break them apart to fill and get ready for t-shirt prints, or otherwise. Maybe I am asking for too much? 

I don't claim to know much, but I feel like it should be easier. At the base of the issue I am not understanding why it fills the middle of the letters anyway when I color fill?

I do really appreciate your help.

[v_kyr]

Well if it's instead vector, it depends on how you did colored the rounded letters middle parts then here, in order to undo or make those transparent fills instead. If you provide (attach) your Designer file sample here, people can see how and help you better.

[Kfaye4]

HI There,

 

Great, I just re-created just that phrase in a new file with the same steps (no glow as that is a non issue). I lost even more middles this time, moving layers back does nothing for that. I am sure its something really easy for you pros, but I duplicated the process the best I can. The original is on a "board" with so many other things I am playing around with. 

Affinityproblemfile.afdesign

[v_kyr]

Well you've embedded an SVG-File there (probably via drag'n'drop or "place file"), which then allows adjusting only via an double click on that embedded file. If you instead open the SVG file regulary (via File > Open") you would have all curve layers directly underneath in the layers panel.

Further, since those are all as default (from the SVG embedded code) single letters created out of a bunch of single black (also filled) curves, it's difficult to deal with that afterwards. - Thus I made you a simple one curve transparent sample of that text stuff here.

• feels_so_good.afdesign

Usually if you have that Lobster font installed on your computer system, you just need to type the text as artistic text and you would get the rounded text letter areas transparent (as far as your document is setup with a transparent background).

• Lobster (Google fonts)
• Lobster (dafont)

[Kfaye4]

Thank you! I know I will eventually get it. I do have the Lobster font and did re-do it using the Artistic tool. I was ust curious if there was a fix. Always trying to learn something 🙂

Appreciate your time on this for me and sharing your knowledge. Have a great day!