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Posted

Hey Guys,

Ever since I have started using Affinity Photo on my Desktop and iPad I have never really delved or looked into this. I am talking about the options that you get when you click on refine things like Border Width, Smooth, Ramp, Feather and even yet know what are these and how does it help ? And they can be used ? If anyone kind soul can help me understand this. Guidance would be highly appreciated ?

 

 

Refine.jpg

Posted

From Affinity Photo Help for Refine Selections:

Quote

Settings

The following settings can be adjusted from the dialog:

  • Preview—sets the way your selection and page display. Select from the pop-up menu.
  • Matte Edges—when selected (default), the selection area closely follows image edges. If this option is off, selection doesn't follow image edges which is useful for more accurately refining straight selection edges.
  • Border width—expands the selection by adjusting the width of its border. Drag the slider to set the value.
  • Smooth—determines the curvature of the selection's edge. Drag the slider to set the value.
  • Feather—determines the softness (opacity) of the transition at the edge of the selection. Drag the slider to set the value.
  • Ramp—In areas where there is a gradual transition from opaque to transparent pixels it makes the transition sharper and moves the selection in or out, depending on which direction you drag the slider. Fully opaque and fully transparent pixels are unaffected.

https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/pages/Selections/selections_refine.html

This is one of the few explanations in the help file that does explain what's going on. Not really another way to say it. The best way to understand it, create a selection, go into the refine, and start playing with the various adjustments. In the Preview drop-down, change it to one of the other previews, like Black and White. It really allows you to see what each one does.

A search of YouTube videos on Refine Selection

Affinity Photo Refine Selection Tutorials

A tip that I learned for when you are wanting the cleanest possible selection, is to select New Layer or New Layer with Mask from the Output. It does Color Decontamination, where the others do not.

Affinity Photo 2.5..; Affinity Designer 2.5..; Affinity Publisher 2.5..; Affinity2 Beta versions. Affinity Photo,Designer 1.10.6.1605 Win10 Home Version:21H2, Build: 19044.1766: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s);32GB Ram, Nvidia GTX 3070, 3-Internal HDD (1 Crucial MX5000 1TB, 1-Crucial MX5000 500GB, 1-WD 1 TB), 4 External HDD

Posted

All options explained here..

 

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

Here are some more free tutorials that explain the refine selection process

Affinity official tutorial about selection refinement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M32ieZPHoo

______________
Olivio Sarikas
As referenced in the post above, Olivio Sarikas explains the details at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djED0ni_THg

__________
Lenscraft
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnxSityDyw
with a PDF version of the tutorial at
https://lenscraft.co.uk/photo-editing-tutorials/affinity-photo-refine-selection/

_________
InAffinity
Refining a selection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPirXgYqqs8

Fixing the Refine Problem (extra white stuff)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-fOz3DzKY0

Improving a refined selection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtQI2D4PhOo

_______
Kris LK
Cutting out hair with refine edges
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U05y4Hr7LFk

______________________
Bethany Acorn (iPad)
Since you also use an iPad, see Bethany Acorn's "Refine Selection Tool"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xeE87UKG-M

___________________
Affinity Revolution
If you really get involved with selecting and extracting, Affinity Revolution has a comprehensive course on making "pixel perfect selections." As they say, making selections is the most difficult thing you can do in photo editing. 
https://courses.affinityrevolution.com/p/pixel-perfect-selections

The course may sound a bit pricey at $40, but it includes some 85 video tutorials. Over the years I've spent that much on several different books about photo editing using a competing product. In that context, the price for the AR course seemed quite reasonable, so I bought it. I downloaded all the videos so I'll have them available, just like the $40 photo-editing books I bought 10 to 20 years ago are still available on my bookshelves, and I still consult them (as when I answered your question about backgrounds yesterday).

 

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

Posted
On 11/15/2021 at 4:40 PM, carl123 said:

All options explained here..

 

@carl123 @Ron P.

Hey Guys ! I went through this above Video and it does give an idea on what the Particular Functionality does. But he does not give examples which I would have liked to listen to, in order to understand more correctly. So what he is saying is,

Border Width : It basically sets the Border on the Image from where which Affinity Photo will consider it as a Border to make a selection so the key is to keep it as low as possible, so best is to leave it at default which is 10

Smooth : This gives rounded Edges/smooth edges but loses some details. A lot of times I have noticed because of the Small Ears that I have and they are curving inside, I have noticed a lot of time when I make my own selection, I generally face a problem when making selection around the edges, either it, the selection eats in my ear edges or it keeps too much background area in the picture.It often makes it difficult to have a clean selection there in that area, maybe this would help ot there incase if I miss some selection increasing this may give it a kind of rounding effect and hence may not look too obvious.

Feather :  If it is a Pixelated image where the edges of the image have blocks, steps kind of pixels which have fragmented pixels this can come handy in lower resolution images if Border looks fragmented

Ramp :  is basically if you have bright borders it can reduce that bright border and help you make the selection of that image ? But I still do not understand when to use it ?

This is all my Understanding but I am still looking forward for some examples, if anyone can give me examples that will help me understand better.

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