Changing/replacing colors in a black/white sketch in Aff. Photo

[northcoast brine]

I may be missing an easy action, but Ive scanned through the forums and still cant figure out how to do what I am trying to.

 

Please if you respond- I am a novice, just bought Affinity, have used PhotoShop in the past but just a little- please DUMB down any responses.

 

I edit my drawings in Affinity to later produce screenprints and stickers. I have black and white images, but would like to select all the black or all the white and change the color. For example in the attached image- how can I change the black fish/white back ground into a red fish/ white background?

Or, slightly different but related question- how could I keep the fish black and change the white background to blue?

 

I suppose I might be better off working in Affinity Designer (working with drawings and logos) but I could only afford one editing program and figured I would be able to understand Affin Photo better because of a little familiarity with photoshop, also I do a bit of photo editing.

 

thanks so muchFishart5-2.afphoto

[A_B_C]

Hi northcoast brine,

 

and welcome here …  :)

 

To render the fish red, just create a pixel layer underneath the layer containing your “fish” laser, fill this pixel layer with the desired colour and set the Blend mode of the “fish” layer to “Lighten” or “Screen” … just play around with the blend modes to get a feeling for what they do … (first screen shot).

 

To render the background blue, you can take a similar approach. Simply fill your pixel layer with a blue colour, and set the “fish” layer to “Multiply” (second screen shot).

 

And here’s the icing on the cake: What about a blue fish on a black background? Select Layer > Invert Adjustment to create an adjustment layer and drag this layer in the layers list onto the icon of your “fish” layer, thereby nesting it to this very layer … done (see third screen shot).

 

Hope that helps …  :)

Cheers, Alex

[northcoast brine]

Wow, That was excactly what I was trying to do. Thanks so much Alex!

 

To follow up on changing color around, one more trickier question: Say I went ahead with the above and made the fish red, then wanted to make the tail and fins another color?

[A_B_C]

Just paint these parts of the underlying pixel layer, that is used for coloring, with a brush that has the desired colour … you can also use the Selection Brush to select, for example, the area beneath the fin and apply a gradient to the selected area … see my example below.

 

The possibilities are endless …  :)

[johnnyy71]

does this only work with certain types of files? 

i have a png and it doesn't seem to want to do anything. and my pixel layer stays black...

[A_B_C]

No, this is basically independent of file type … but I strongly suspect, that you are using the wrong colour format for your document. Go to Document > Colour Format, and change it from Greyscale to RGB (or CMYK). That should help …

 

Kind regards, Alex  :)