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Posted

Hi Guys,

I would like to know what is the Flood Select Tool used for ? For what Use Case Scenarios ?

Also of all the 3-4 selection tools available in Affinity Photo if My Objective is to select the Person in a Photo and change the background, only Selection Brush Tool is the way to go is it ? Rest all are for different Use Case Scenarios ?

Posted

From the Affinity Photo Help page for the Flood Select Tool:

Quote

The Flood Select Tool enables you to select pixels of a similar colour.

Pixels added to a selection are determined by the colour of the pixel or adjacent pixels under the tool when you click or drag across the page, respectively. The dragging operation controls the selection tolerance, i.e. how much the selection will grow to encompass pixels of similar colour values under the cursor.

It follows that the Flood Select Tool works best when the background in your photo is almost all the same colour and contrasts well with the main subject.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
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Posted
52 minutes ago, augustya said:

My Objective is to select the Person in a Photo and change the background, only Selection Brush Tool is the way to go is it ?

Yes, the Selection Brush Tool is the one most widely used for that objective but other methods are available (such as the Pen Tool) when the Selection Brush Tool is having trouble distinguishing the person from the background

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.

Posted
53 minutes ago, Alfred said:

From the Affinity Photo Help page for the Flood Select Tool:

It follows that the Flood Select Tool works best when the background in your photo is almost all the same colour and contrasts well with the main subject.

Can you give me an use case scenario an example whether this would be perfectly suited to be used ?

Posted
7 minutes ago, augustya said:

Can you give me an use case scenario an example whether this would be perfectly suited to be used ?

It depends on your view of what constitutes perfection! I’m sure you can think of many possible scenarios.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

Posted
9 minutes ago, Alfred said:

It depends on your view of what constitutes perfection! I’m sure you can think of many possible scenarios.

What kind of an answer is this ? I clearly said I don't know. 

Posted
On 11/12/2021 at 1:51 PM, augustya said:

Can you give me an use case scenario an example whether this would be perfectly suited to be used ?

Green screen portraits.

»There are three responses to a piece of design: yes, no, and wow. Wow is the one to aim for.«
Milton Glaser (1929 - 2020)

Posted

Green Screen or Blue Screen, are the commonly known for removing and replacing backgrounds, especially in video. Think the weatherman on TV. However it was very common for portrait photographers to use dark backdrops in studio settings. It seems since the environmental shoots have almost became the norm, you don't see many studio portraits. School portraits, class, senior pictures were shot against a backdrop provided by the photographer.

All that said, those types of photos provide a better opportunity to use the Flood Selection Tool. 

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Posted

There is no one best selection tool for changing the background in a photo of a person. Selection methods will depend on the nature of the background and the nature of the person or group of persons. Sometimes the Selection Brush will work, other times the Flood Select Tool, and other times you will want to use the Pen Tool.

I have made several relatively large prints (18x12, 19x13) of individuals and groups of people from snapshot photos grabbed under trying conditions with complex backgrounds. They are at least as good if not better than some of the studio portraits we've paid for over the years. It just takes some practice and patience.

For links to helpful tutorials on selection and on removing backgrounds, see my posts at

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/143743-remove-background/&do=findComment&comment=798313

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/143743-remove-background/&do=findComment&comment=798819

I often make a backdrop for portraits using a technique such as that described for Photoshop at

https://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/studio-background/

In APhoto you use the Perlin Filter as the substitute for Photoshop's Clouds filter. Note that the Perlin Noise Filter in APhoto generates only a single pattern that is the same every time it is used. People have requested for years that APhoto would use a random seed to generate different patterns. Perhaps someday. To avoid having all your backgrounds looking almost identical, you can place the photo on a large canvas background and move the photo around to get different parts of the Perlin Noise pattern and then crop to taste. 

 

 

Affinity Photo 2.5.5 (MSI) and 1.10.6; Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 (MSI) and 1.10.6. Windows 10 Home x64 version 22H2.
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Posted
20 minutes ago, Granddaddy said:

There is no one best selection tool for changing the background in a photo of a person. Selection methods will depend on the nature of the background and the nature of the person or group of persons. Sometimes the Selection Brush will work, other times the Flood Select Tool, and other times you will want to use the Pen Tool.

I have made several relatively large prints (18x12, 19x13) of individuals and groups of people from snapshot photos grabbed under trying conditions with complex backgrounds. They are at least as good if not better than some of the studio portraits we've paid for over the years. It just takes some practice and patience.

For links to helpful tutorials on selection and on removing backgrounds, see my posts at

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/143743-remove-background/&do=findComment&comment=798313

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/143743-remove-background/&do=findComment&comment=798819

I often make a backdrop for portraits using a technique such as that described for Photoshop at

https://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/studio-background/

In APhoto you use the Perlin Filter as the substitute for Photoshop's Clouds filter. Note that the Perlin Noise Filter in APhoto generates only a single pattern that is the same every time it is used. People have requested for years that APhoto would use a random seed to generate different patterns. Perhaps someday. To avoid having all your backgrounds looking almost identical, you can place the photo on a large canvas background and move the photo around to get different parts of the Perlin Noise pattern and then crop to taste. 

 

 

Hey Thanks for the input. I will surely go through all your posts you have posted here. By the way to create this typical portrait studio style portrait background using the Perlin filter, are the steps the same as you mentioned in the Photoshop link that you have posted ?

Posted
23 minutes ago, augustya said:

are the steps the same as you mentioned in the Photoshop link that you have posted ?

You'll have to adapt it as you go along.

Try to think in terms of principles/concepts rather than step-wise details. I learned decades ago that the ability to do that varies greatly among people. Those employees who wrote down every single step of a process often got stuck and frustrated when they encountered something unexpected. They really didn't understand what they were doing. Similarly, engineering students who just memorized formulas were often helpless when compared to physics students who could work from first principles. 

As for the background building technique I linked to above, I long ago learned a similar background technique from Matt Kloskowski's "The Photoshop Elements 5 Restoration & Retouching Book" (page 278 - 287) He didn't use the trick of starting with a low-resolution Clouds layer. It's something I'll have to try. He added a slanted motion blur and gaussian blur to the background, as well as lighting effects to illuminate the background. On my larger group photos I've used three or more separate APhoto Live Lighting filters to good effect. It's a matter of playing around once you understand the principles. I had been using the Clouds filter frequently in Photoshop Elements 10. Then I "upgraded" to PSE 14 and discovered to my chagrin that Clouds had been removed. That's what ultimately led me to investigate APhoto, where I learned that the Clouds filter is just Perlin noise. And that's how software publishers lose customers. Publish an "upgrade" that removes features the users had come to depend on. That's a compelling reason to switch to different software.

There are other methods for creating studio style backgrounds. Just search 
create a portrait studio background in [your preferred software]

For example
https://www.daryllmorgan.com/single-post/2017/01/30/Create-a-Great-Studio-Backdrop-in-Photoshop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce51MktaLSU
https://www.essential-photoshop-elements.com/make-a-new-background.html

Studying Photoshop tutorials is useful given that so many more tutorials and books have accumulated for that much older software. Again, it is the principles not the steps that are valuable.

 

Affinity Photo 2.5.5 (MSI) and 1.10.6; Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 (MSI) and 1.10.6. Windows 10 Home x64 version 22H2.
Dell XPS 8940, 64 GB Ram, Intel Core i7-11700K @ 3.60 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

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