How would I remove the gray area around the snow globe?

[filoplume]

Hi,

The image I sketched of a snow globe will end up on white paper or a different colored paper than toned gray.  My printer suggested I remove the "background".

-paulw

[Pšenda]

Try Flood Select Tool (adjust tolerance), and clean up with the Erase Brush Tool. 

Edited December 9, 2021 by Pšenda

[NotMyFault]

How many pencil colors did you use?
Do you have a clean sheet of the background paper?
 

Ideally, scan both your image and a clean background paper in exact same size.

Then you could subtract the backround and get clean pencil strokes without background.

[NotMyFault]

I copied the image, and isolated the lighter areas and the darker areas by blend ranges, to make the middle bright background transparent.

added a green fill layer to allow seeing what got transparent. Remove fill layer before exporting in a format that supports transparency (png)

 

xmas 2 color.afphoto

[Pšenda]

10 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

Then you could subtract the backround and get clean pencil strokes without background.

In my opinion, the texture of the paper will not be identical, so it will not be subtracted correctly (the paper would have to be scanned before and after the drawing). The texture of the paper will also be subtracted at the point where the drawing is made, so it will be slightly damaged.

[Pšenda]

6 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

isolated the lighter areas and the darker areas by blend ranges, to make the middle bright background transparent.

If I understand question correctly (the gray area around the snow globe), then globe area must be masked. 

[filoplume]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

Try Flood Select Tool (adjust tolerance), and clean up with the Erase Brush Tool. 

That is working good so far, but I need to somehow refine it because it is missing parts around the bottom stand.  And I don't know how to turn it off!

I watched a couple youtube videos but neither say how to do either.

Thanks!  Easier than using the pen tool (for me).

-paulw

[filoplume]

49 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

How many pencil colors did you use?
Do you have a clean sheet of the background paper?
 

Ideally, scan both your image and a clean background paper in exact same size.

Then you could subtract the backround and get clean pencil strokes without background.

Just a HB4 and a white acrylic stick, except for the colored pencil lights.

But, I do not have a color scanner.  I took it to my local printer and she scanned it for me.  They are closed until next Tuesday so I had better finish my Christmas card before then!

[Pšenda]

14 minutes ago, filoplume said:

but I need to somehow refine

Try click to Refine button (in Context toolbar).
https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/pages/Selections/selections_refine.html

 

[filoplume]

57 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

I copied the image, and isolated the lighter areas and the darker areas by blend ranges, to make the middle bright background transparent.

added a green fill layer to allow seeing what got transparent. Remove fill layer before exporting in a format that supports transparency (png)

 

 

xmas 2 color.afphoto 1.88 MB · 0 downloads

That is all over my head.  Thanks for doing this but al ot of detail was lost.

[filoplume]

50 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

If I understand question correctly (the gray area around the snow globe), then globe area must be masked. 

Correct.  I will look into masking.  I guess I need to get good with the pen tool sooner or later 🙂

[Pšenda]

4 minutes ago, filoplume said:

That is all over my head.  Thanks for doing this but al ot of detail was lost.

[filoplume]

7 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Try click to Refine button (in Context toolbar).
https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/pages/Selections/selections_refine.html

 

Which option(s) would I use?  I assume you mean the Refine button.

 

-paulw

[Pšenda]

3 minutes ago, filoplume said:

Which option(s) would I use?  I assume you mean the Refine button.

Yes.

11 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Try click to Refine button (in Context toolbar).

 

[filoplume]

3 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Yes.

 

Okay, I will mess around with the refine choices.  How do I apply what I did? I clicked the subtract icon and the dancing ants are still around the globe.  I also assume I could use another tool to remove what the Flood Selection Tool "missed".

One of these days I will draw or use AD to come up with a filoplume/aftershaft feather for my icon 🙂  

-paulw

[R C-R]

55 minutes ago, filoplume said:

How do I apply what I did?

Click the Apply button at the bottom of the Refine Selection window.

[filoplume]

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Click the Apply button at the bottom of the Refine Selection window.

But the " dancing ants" are still alive, even if I click on another tool or press enter.

[filoplume]

14 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Click the Apply button at the bottom of the Refine Selection window.

I found out how.  No need to use the Refine button to apply  Press Delete to get rid of the selected area (which makes the background transparent), then Ctrl-D to get rid of the Dancing Ants.

-paulw

[filoplume]

2 minutes ago, filoplume said:

I found out how.  No need to use the Refine button to apply  Press Delete to get rid of the selected area (which makes the background transparent), then Ctrl-D to get rid of the Dancing Ants.

-paulw

But I still have some touching up to do.  Maybe I should have tried to refine it first as some got missed.

 

snowglobeafterfloodselectiontool1.afphoto

[filoplume]

So I used the select brush tool and now I have just the globe outlined and selected.  How do I copy just the globe to another document or another layer so that the area around it doesn't come along with it?  I copied the layer and deselected the area but the background still appears.

What I would really like to do now is just copy the globe to a transparent document.

-paulw

snowglobeafterfloodselectiontool4.afphoto

[carl123]

Edit > Copy

File > New From Clipboard

[filoplume]

4 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Edit > Copy

File > New From Clipboard

Gosh, I should have known that being a Windows user for years.  I have done that many times!

There I go again.  Trying to make something more difficult than something should be!!!

Thanks!  That worked great.

-paulw

[filoplume]

On 12/9/2021 at 10:02 PM, filoplume said:

So I used the select brush tool and now I have just the globe outlined and selected.  How do I copy just the globe to another document or another layer so that the area around it doesn't come along with it?  I copied the layer and deselected the area but the background still appears.

What I would really like to do now is just copy the globe to a transparent document.

-paulw

snowglobeafterfloodselectiontool4.afphoto 1.82 MB · 1 download

Well, that was a good exercise for me using the selection brush tool to cut out an image from the background.  I did that so I could paste it into another file with a transparent background.  But as usual during the night, I miss a lot of sleep because I am always thinking and remembering 🙂  I just remembered a free on-line app to make backgrounds transparent.  onlimeimagetools.com  Just drag and drop an image, click a button and voila!  Much easier than Gimp, LunaPic, Affinity Designer or Photo!

[firstdefence]

Ok lets throw another way to transparency the reindeer fertiliser out of this image.

1. Open the image
2. Duplicate the image layer
3. With the duplicate layer selected, go to Filters > Blur > Average
4. Change the duplicate layers blend mode to divide
5. Right click on the duplicate layer and select Merge Down
6. With the resultant layer selected, go to Filters > Colours > Erase White Paper.

Congratulations you now have an Affinity Photo created transparent image and you can do it in one click with the Macro...

Background to transparency.afmacro

I can't guarantee this will work on all backgrounds and in some instances you will have to invert the image first to get a positive response to background removal but look over the steps and have some fun modifying it to your needs.

[prophet]

My take involves preserving the white pencil and the black pencil as separate layers. Achieved using separate White fill layer with the original image used as mask, and Black fill layer with an inverted copy of the original as a mask. Each Mask has a Levels Adjustment applied to the alpha to help tweak the BW balance. Then all placed over a colored background. (The colored lights would need to be redrawn or painted perhaps)