Searching for a filter w/ similar effect to it’s photoshop counterpart “Glowing Edges”

[Affinity iPad Student]

Specs:

• Affinity Photo 1.10.1
• iPad Pro 2020 model, 12.9”
• iiPad OS 15 update & over 300gigs of HDD

 

 I’m following the tutorial linked below. Timestamped link, starts off exactly where he chooses the filter and proceeds to tweak its parameters. The filter is called Glowing Edges:

 

The only filter I was able to find that produces a similar effect is Detect Edges

Unfortunately, there are no sliders, for detect edges allowing me to decrease the dark look of detect edges and tweak it to be more in line like the image below, where hand looks as if wrapped in plastic translucent glove.

 

I’m trying to achieve this look: (see red arrow below)

 

 

Although, Affinity Photo iPad Detect Edges gives me all the hand details which is noticeable if you zoom in… however it’s also very dark:

 

 

If you noticed, in the Nemanja Sekulic youtube video I linked above, Nemanja was able to tweak the parameters of the filter to get the effect to his liking. Unfortunately, affinity photo on ipad offers no way of doing this. 

 

This guy pretty much echoes my sentiment:

 

My goal is to exaggerate the lines & veins of the hands, make them stand out, as if some sort ambient occlusion.

What I truly get out of this study: I have been working a lot on hero like characters, which are usually muscular showing lots of veins. Nemanja‘s technique… has shown me there is a way to exaggerate all of the veins virtually instantly… when compared to me manually painting over with a brush to achieve the same look at sluggish pace.

 

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[Dan C]

Hi @Affinity iPad Student 

I have watched the provided tutorial and unfortunately as you've found, Affinity doesn't have a direct replica for the 'Glowing edges' filter, my apologies!

Using the 'detect edges' option can however provide similar results, albeit without the 'sliders' you've mentioned.

Please use the detect edges filter, then set this layer to the Screen blend mode. You can then control the intensity of the effect using the opacity option for this layer. If you need a more pronounced effect, you can duplicate the detect edges layer and change the opacity to suit.

Is this closer to the effect you're hoping to achieve? For example, I did the following in a quick test document in the desktop version -

(Stock image provided from Spencer Selover via Pexels)

[Affinity iPad Student]

@Dan C Thank you 😊 

 

I appreciate the in-depth.

I ran some tests… doesn’t allow me the exact ambient occlusion levels I’m aiming for, most likely iPad limitations.

 However.., yes this kind of gets me there and your guidance provided me a wider aspect, so I’m now experimenting with other avenues due to your insight.

 Thank you!

[Affinity iPad Student]

@Dan C Unfortunately… the advice you suggested and the stuff I experimented with, does not work, but before I get into that. I thought put out an in-depth on how I went about it another way and some stuff I came across, maybe this data will help the devs down the road or…

 

maybe it’s nothing and it’s just my amateur card getting proud because I’ve been doing some stuff I deem cool with AP so now amateur section thinks he knows something! 😭

 

So… to semi achieve the goal…  I had to go about producing the result in a different way. I set the detect edge layer to an add blend mode. and I then popped an HSL adjustment in there to punctuate the veins via giving it its own color (pretty much what Nemanja did in his video)  but by me going with add blend mode, the following effect was produced:

As you can see in the gif above, I’m grateful i’m closer to the objective, but this produces way too much visual disturbance - look at that mess up top 👀  Maybe because I had to choose add blend mode to show the veins.

 

Photoshop seems to have a powerful pipeline, the way it goes about reading the pixels and determining which to include and which not to include once results of it’s blend mode has been executed, thus…. looking way more clean, then again, Nemanja did NOT choose add blend mode, he got away with screen blend mode, so could be the reason for my visual disturbance and not the same beautiful results I see below:

 

 

WHY DIDN’T - SET DETECT EDGE LAYER TO SCREEN BLEND MODE WORK?  

I wish I knew! Then I wouldn’t have to go about dealing with all that visual disturbance I showed in the beginning of this post. 

I did follow through with the initial game plan:

I duplicated the detect edge layer several times while it was set to screen mode while messing around with the opacity slider’s… did not produce the translucent gloss:

Maybe because it’s iPad version of Affinity Photo and not desktop version iPad is inferior version of Affinity Photo?

 

The results I kept getting with the afore mentioned tests:

• the veins & hand lines, were not getting the translucent gloss when I chose screen blend - instead … the entire hand was catching the effect
• I also experimented with other blend modes, to no avail (except for add blend mode) which I detailed in the opening of this post

 

If I cannot get detect edges, to apply a translucent gloss over the veins & hand lines only, I won’t be able to directly affect those veins & hand lines later when I apply HSL adjustment to give them their own color like in the image below:

Instead… I have a bad combo with detect edge + screen blend mode = entire hand gets affected. Which is what we don’t want. If this was street fighter, that combo would had cost me the match 🤯

 

The image below is what we don’t want, when applying HSL in this case. We only want to affect veins & hand lines

Hopefully, what I expressed above makes sense to you or anybody else reading this post, when it comes to punctuating / exaggerating things in a group like veins, roots, ropes… etc. (stringy things)

 

 

POSSIBLE SOLUTION - IF AFFINITY PHOTO FOR IPAD HAS IT (DESATURATE LAYER)

When I watched the video again, I noticed Nemanja did three things which contributed to applying the translucent gloss:

1. He desaturated the layer with the Glow Edge (in our case Detect Edge)
2. The desaturated layer then turned black & white
3. Nemanja then set that same layer on Screen Blend mode and this produced the translucent gloss effect covering the veins & hand lines 

 

I tried mimicking, but I’m stuck at step 2 - desaturate. 

I’ve searched for desaturate layer option but I’m failing to find it. I even looked into this thread and still cannot find it in the iPad:

 

 

I saw the video in the thread linked above, where they went to the color tab and moved around the desaturate slider. I checked on ipad, I cannot find a slider in the color options for desaturate.

Instead, I found a desaturate in the layer options, but nothing happens when I interact. I’m assuming dest means - desaturate: (see gif below) 

 

 

All that to say: would you happen to know, where I can go about finding the desaturating a layer button?

I tried to desaturate via HSL adjustment - which has a saturate/desaturate, this doesn’t work

 

Thank You!

[Alfred]

6 minutes ago, Affinity iPad Student said:

I’m assuming dest means - desaturate: (see gif below)

No, it means ‘Destination’, being the counterpart to the ‘Source’ graph on the left.

11 minutes ago, Affinity iPad Student said:

I tried to desaturate via HSL adjustment - which has a saturate/desaturate, this doesn’t work

That sounds as though it should have worked. I wonder why it didn’t!

[Affinity iPad Student]

@Alfred Thanks for chiming in Alfred, your knowledge is always valued over here.

I’m going to test again later - determined to figure this one out!

[NotMyFault]

There are countless ways to desaturate.

• HSL, saturation slider to the left
• black and white adjustment 
• adding curves adjustment, set color mode to Grey
• add fill layer with grey, set blend mode to saturation
• Use procedural texture filter, RGB=rgbtoi (R,G,B)
• …

[Affinity iPad Student]

@NotMyFault Thanks! I did try the black & white adjustment and HSL adjustment. Did not work in this case.

 

I was definitely not aware of the others, will check those out. Particularly appreciate the curves adjustment nugget. I’m rolling with that one first.