Pen Tool: How to select a Doughnut shape and fill between the inner/outer curves?

[cayenne]

Hi all,

I'm coming from using the Photoshop pen tool....and have been watching videos on YOuTube today and finding out the differences that were driving me mad with the AP pen tool.

I like it, and love AP....but had to find where the key commands were that were different.

At this point I'm a bit stuck.

It appears that AP creates a new layer with every pen path you create....what I"m trying to do is select a shape, with an outer curve and an inner curve.  Think like a doughnut...one curve for the outer and one for the inner that leads a hole.

I want to make a selection like this....and then either fill or mostly likely do a curves adjustment on that area and play with the luminance (I"m selecting around an object in a picture but this is the best way I can think to describe it.

I just know I"m missing something here basic but I can't put my finger on it.

Can someone give me some hints, or point me towards a HowTo, or a tutorial or video showing this?  I think I"m doing well on the basics of the AP pen tool, but this one is stumping me.

 

Thank you in advance,

cayenne

[GarryP]

It’s difficult to know which technique to advise for this as there’s not much information to go on.
I’ve attached a quick video showing one method but it might not be good for what you want.
If it’s not what you want then if you can explain a bit more about what you want to do then someone can advise further.

Note: You need to fill the merged curves in order to later make the selection.

[cayenne]

7 hours ago, GarryP said:

It’s difficult to know which technique to advise for this as there’s not much information to go on.
I’ve attached a quick video showing one method but it might not be good for what you want.
If it’s not what you want then if you can explain a bit more about what you want to do then someone can advise further.

Note: You need to fill the merged curves in order to later make the selection.

Thank you very much!!

That does appear to do what I"m looking to do...but wow, I'd never have thought of all those hoops to jump through to do this.

I see where you said you need to fill the combined curves in order to make a selection out of them....I see you do it, but I"m confused on why this is a necessary step.

This may work for me, the end result IS what I am wanting....it just seems to me that there should be possibly a more straightforward way to do this...but I'll try whatever works!!

Thank you very much!!

Has AP with latest upgrades given the ability to save a path yet?  I know you can save selections which could work...so,  maybe I could do this instead as that what I"m actually trying to use this for is to fix the outlines and letters on a street sign....outline the outer band around the sign and the individual letters on the sign....I'd like to be able to do this all as ONE selection, so that I can either paint in there all the same thing, or do the curves to darken the washed out text and lining on the sign to a consistent level...

 

Lemme see if I can clip out the sign and post here for an example...

Thank you VERY much for the video and help, this is definitely putting me on the path I need to be on (no pun intended, haha)...

 

C

[cayenne]

Following up to my last reply.

I'm attaching a quick cutout I did of the sign.

I want to select the outer band and all of the letters precisely with the pen tool...make them into one big selection so that I can fix the faded look of them....to match the rest of the image which is very contrasty and sharp....the sign is fairly small, but noticeable in the foreground of the whole image and I"d like to make the sign much easier to see and read at a glance.

 

Thank you again for all the help so far!!

C

[GarryP]

When you give the shape a Fill you are telling the software which part of the shape you want to select.
The Opacity of the shape, in this instance, at any pixel in the shape tells the software which pixels to select so an unfilled shape leads to no pixels being selected – fully transparent = no selection.

If your requirements were to darken the stuff on the sign then that’s probably what you should have asked for first as the technique is different, see attached video for one possible method (no “doughnuts” involved).

[Xzenor]

17 hours ago, cayenne said:

That does appear to do what I"m looking to do...but wow, I'd never have thought of all those hoops to jump through to do this.

Yeah.. I agree..

here's a less-hoops version. It's a curve so you can change the nodes afterwards if you want to. I just ctrl+clicked to make it a selection.

2021-02-21_11-32-53.mkv

[cayenne]

8 hours ago, Xzenor said:

Yeah.. I agree..

here's a less-hoops version. It's a curve so you can change the nodes afterwards if you want to. I just ctrl+clicked to make it a selection.

2021-02-21_11-32-53.mkv 4.06 MB · 2 downloads

That link was apparently a video to download, but QuickTime player wouldn't play it.  Could you embed it on this thread like Garry P did here?

Thank you,

C

[cayenne]

9 hours ago, GarryP said:

When you give the shape a Fill you are telling the software which part of the shape you want to select.
The Opacity of the shape, in this instance, at any pixel in the shape tells the software which pixels to select so an unfilled shape leads to no pixels being selected – fully transparent = no selection.

If your requirements were to darken the stuff on the sign then that’s probably what you should have asked for first as the technique is different, see attached video for one possible method (no “doughnuts” involved).

Thank you.

I actually had tried the selection thing....in Capture One first, and since there is variability in the the destiny of that marking...I was using a luminance mask...it didn't select everything.

I will try this in AP, but the reason I was trying to do it in AP...was to have the pen tool at my disposal to make sure I selected everything and basically could paint it fully.

I've always felt the pen tool was the best way to go for things like this, where you have hard edges and can make sure to accurately select everything....again, I came from PS with the pen tool as my close, close friend....and I know I can do it in AP too, but just trying to figure out how the controls for the pen tool are different from the old way I knew.

I can't imagine I"m the first one wanting to do something like this...but I"m just having a heck of a time finding an exact example of this type of use case, again of which I have to guess is fairly common.

You selection DID look pretty accurate....and I will play with it....but I really want to learn how to do this in AP with the pen tool as that I will be wanting to do this exact type thing again and again...so, still looking for the "doughnuts" type example.

Again, thank you VERY much for your help so far and the video samples are most helpful....

cayenne

[Alfred]

For something like this where there is lettering and a border, why not simply recreate the text with a suitable font and draw the border as a round-cornered rectangle? You can adjust the angle either by shearing/skewing the objects or by using the Perspective filter, depending on how accurate you want the result to be.

[cayenne]

2 hours ago, Alfred said:

For something like this where there is lettering and a border, why not simply recreate the text with a suitable font and draw the border as a round-cornered rectangle? You can adjust the angle either by shearing/skewing the objects or by using the Perspective filter, depending on how accurate you want the result to be.

Yes, I suppose I could, but this technique I"m trying to use with the pen tool, is something I (and from what I can tell ) many other people use commonly....in this case it isn't just the letters, but also the stripe outside...what if this were a one way sign, and I'd need the arrow, etc....

The pen tool, IMHO, is the best way to make accurate selections...its something I"ve done for years in PS, and I just have to think other would be using this also in Affinity Photo, this really shouldn't be an edge case use case...?

Again, I VERY much appreciate the input and suggestions so far....but I really really need to know how in AP that I can use the pen tool to do multiple paths/closed curves. on a single layer, so that I can make selections of all the areas enclosed by the paths (ie the interior of a doughnut type scenario)  so that it could in one step be cut out, masked, color filled, or have something like a levels or curves adjustment type effect applied to that area.

Thank you again in advance for all the help so far....still looking for the answer.

cayenne

[cayenne]

Ok had to update.

VERY interesting, perhaps this is a NEW addition to Affinity Photo?

 

When using the pen tool and looking for a suggestion I'd seen elsewhere to find a "subtract" button after drawing first path/curve....I found a button that when you over over it says: "Add New Curve To Selected Curves Object".

I thought this might be something I could use and sure enough it allows you do "select the doughnut" like I was wanting to do.

Here is a screen shot of just a quick test of two paths/curves, one within the other and selecting it and using a Curves adjustment layer to darken the area between the two curves.

I've highlighted the button in red and you can see the hover hint.

There is another button next to it, that appears to do a similar thing, but allow you to draw a path inside one that has already been turned into a selection.

I would think maybe somewhere this should be documented, does Affinity have an up to date online user manual that describes every control?  I'd think my searches would have picked this up if they did.

ANYWAY....wanted to post this update here for reference in case someone else is looking how to do composite curves/paths with pen tool.

 

[Xzenor]

On 2/21/2021 at 7:46 PM, cayenne said:

That link was apparently a video to download, but QuickTime player wouldn't play it.  Could you embed it on this thread like Garry P did here?

Thank you,

C

Sorry.. I had reply notifications disabled.

I threw it on YouTube. I hope it helps

 

[cayenne]

21 hours ago, Xzenor said:

Sorry.. I had reply notifications disabled.

I threw it on YouTube. I hope it helps

 

 

 

Thank you for the reply!!

Very informative.

 

As I'd mentioned above, I found a solution for this that works exactly as I'd wanted.  Maybe this is a brand new oplion, as that no one had really mentioned it before in tutorials I"d seen but I stumbled across that button for the pen too:  "Add New Curve To Selected Curves Object"

Selecting that let me draw as many paths/curves as I desired on a single layer and let me select them all.  With this I was able to select the outside band of the sign and each individual letter, and turn that all into a selection which I used on a Curves adjustment layer to darken it all.

I found a video that also showed a way to actually save your paths/curves:

 

YouTube Video work around for saving paths (curves).

Its a bit of a kludge and a lot of hoops to jump through, but you use Assets as a way to save your paths.  This can come in handy if you have spent a LOT of time creating a pretty intricate and accurate path with the pen tool....hoping Affinity implements a bit simpler way to save the paths.

Anyway, thank you and EVERYONE for the help and response on this....I love AP, it just takes a bit of doing some times to figure how to do some things that you have done one way for ages with PS, but need to see how AP does it.  I love learning, I just wish it was documented a bit better.

 

Thank you everyone, hope this helps someone else out in the future!!

 

cayenne