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How to get a full black and white picture?


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Dear Support members,

I have made a geometric abstract painting containing all kinds of color. I want to remove all the colors so that at the end there will be only the back line left and the rest being fully white. This would allow me to then print it and do colouring.

I have tried using filter 'Black and White' but It is not exactly what I am looking for as I then get all kinds of 'colors' going from dark grey, light grey, dark white...I want everywhere the same full white while keeping the back lines.

Could you, please, explain me how to easily and rapidly get what I need?

Thanks in advance for your support.

Greg.

Original image.jpg

Test2.jpg

Original image.jpg

Test2.jpg

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Try a Threshold Adjustment layer

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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HI Carl,

 

I have used threshold and in a way it worked and I have only full white now :) But, unfortunately, as you can see from the picture, my black lines are not fully black anymore as having lot of white dots inside which doesn't make the end result good. So, is there a way to get full white but being able to keep the full black?

 

Regards,

Greg.

Screenshot 2021-04-19 at 18.40.55.png

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How about a Posterize adjustment with ‘Levels’ set to 2, as shown in the top half of the attached screenshot?

334E871C-F495-4CD1-B690-2EB0318B25A0.jpeg

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Try...

1) Document menu - Convert Format/ICC Profile. Set the Colour format to Grey/8 and the Profile to Greyscale D50:

407716136_Screenshot2021-04-19at17_55_43.png.8d60064867f06a0358c9f1da199b7261.png

2) Apply a Brightness and Contrast adjustment. Set the Brightness to 100%, the Contrast to -100%, the blend mode to Reflect:

1791804139_Screenshot2021-04-19at17_57_59.png.72ef8fa171cf25465ba09b810fa8c9ad.png

I'm only using your uploaded .jpg so the quality may not be the same as yours, but I get this:

222935230_Screenshot2021-04-19at18_01_09.png.a1656d005f9652675da6415a2b777554.png

 

Affinity Photo 2.0.3,  Affinity Designer 2.0.3, Affinity Publisher 2.0.3, Mac OSX 13, 2018 MacBook Pro 15" Intel.

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If you need only the lines, put a white rectangle below the image and apply Blend Options like mine to your image  layer (just a rough example here):

 

blacklines.png

You might have to tweak it a bit and also work on multiple copies with Gaussian Blur and re-sharpening for smoothing out the lines.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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18 minutes ago, MEB said:

@h_d,
You've also resampled the image to smooth out the edges, probably with bilinear resampling...

Not me honest guv - I just saved down the image and applied the effects I described.

Affinity Photo 2.0.3,  Affinity Designer 2.0.3, Affinity Publisher 2.0.3, Mac OSX 13, 2018 MacBook Pro 15" Intel.

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13 minutes ago, h_d said:

Not me honest guv - I just saved down the image and applied the effects I described.

The black filled parts might be a problem though. I'm not sure if the OP want those without fill, too.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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  • Staff

Sorry h_d. I didn't meant to imply you have been dishonest. My apologies if my post come across that way. The lines look quite smooth for a brightness contrast adjustment applied over a (pixelated) image. If anything it should exacerbate the alias/pixelation. I find your approach interesting but I'm not getting the same output.

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29 minutes ago, MEB said:

My apologies if my post come across that way.

Absolutely not @MEB. My comment was just a rather feeble attempt at humour, which I should have remembered tends not to translate well over the internet.

I've attached an .afphoto document with the history saved. The original isn't heavily pixelated and at anything up to 100% magnification the lines are quite smooth. I also reduced the size of the screen shot in the forum software which may have contributed to the smoothing.

Anyway, it's not the effect @Gregory Dubus wanted in any case 😃

Best,

H

1359488935_Originalimage.jpg.f3f9ab3af19520abf80bff7bd315f217.afphoto

Affinity Photo 2.0.3,  Affinity Designer 2.0.3, Affinity Publisher 2.0.3, Mac OSX 13, 2018 MacBook Pro 15" Intel.

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Start with a grayscale version that has the highest contrast between the lines and the rest of the colors - the red channel is a natural candidate here because most of the colors are red or reddish, so they will be lighter in the red channel than the darker outlines.  I used the Apply Image dialog to pull the red channel out of the image and put it on its own layer.

You can separate the black outline from the rest of the image using a couple of Levels adjustment layers and placing the black and white points strategically.  The first adjustment will eliminate most of the areas that had color and drive them all to white, with the lines moving to black.  The second adjustment will remove the darkest colors from the black outlines.

The higher the resolution of the source image, the better the lines will look and the larger you can print the result.  As you apply the adjustment layers, note that the preview (the on=the=fly rendering of the effect) will cause the lines to look jagged - stamp the layer stack (merge visible) and the result will be smoother.

 

Kirk

blackwhite.jpg

blackandwhite.afphoto

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  • Staff

@h_d Thanks for the file. It does display a bit more pixelated for me. This is how it appears on my screen on canvas (more or less at the same size as your screenshot seen in full screen in the browser):

h_d_file_in_affinity.png

 


Maybe I've messed some setting on my system. Have to take a deeper look. The image you posted is a screen capture of the file in-app as well?
Thanks for your support. Much appreciated.

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2 hours ago, MEB said:

lines_meb.afphoto
[EDITED] Here's a way to do it with a single adjustment over the image. This removes the color of the shapes leaving the black lines intact without messing with their width. Double-click the adjustment's thumbnail in the Layers panel to inspect its settings.

Hm…

aph_lines_meb.png.636a1ff21ec6c287876dc2123ca2f6e1.png

Am I missing something here…?

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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21 minutes ago, loukash said:

Am I missing something here…?

I am ... because when I hover my pointer over the lines_meb.afphoto link, I get a popup that says "Unavailable." Clicking on it opens a "We could not locate the item you are trying to view" page.

I do not know if this is a glitch in the new forum software upgrade or what.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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1 minute ago, R C-R said:

a glitch in the new forum software upgrade

What I meant is that all I see is in @MEB's file is a white canvas…

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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5 minutes ago, loukash said:

What I meant is that all I see is in @MEB's file is a white canvas…

I could not see anything because I could not access MEB's file ... which as he just explained is because it has been temporarily removed.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Just now, MEB said:

Are you using OpenGL (Affinity Photo Preferences, Performance)?

v1.9.4.239 on El Capitan, MBP 15" mid-2012
aph_performance_prefs_194beta.png.21261b91ad4461ba2997868d0a69af89.png

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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The original image is there, of course. I can see it if I disable the Levels, or if I move the Gamma slider or change the blend mode.
It's just that Gamma 0 displays plain white. That's consistent with any other document. And I'd dare to guess: "by design" ;)

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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Alright, back on topic:

9 hours ago, Gregory Dubus said:

I want to remove all the colors so that at the end there will be only the back line left and the rest being fully white.

4 hours ago, MEB said:

a single adjustment over the image

And the winner in the Single Adjustment discipline is:

Gradient Map @ Hard Mix

aph_gradient_map_bw_separation.png.8439df7de2846532555c506bb2845349.png

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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