Affinity Photo, how can I thicken some thin line-like features in an insect photo?

[frank26080115]

I have this photo of a dragonfly (uploaded), it's kinda up close and decent resolution. The wings are not totally in focus but good enough.

The problem is that the wings are basically invisible when the image is shrunk down to a thumbnail size or viewed on a small screen.

What are some ways of making the wings more pronounced? I'd like to thicken the outline of the wings, and the veins inside the wings.

As far as I can tell, clarity and unsharp mask only really changes local contrast and doesn't make the lines thicker.

Thanks

[carl123]

33 minutes ago, frank26080115 said:

the wings are basically invisible when the image is shrunk down to a thumbnail size

What size thumbnail are you wanting/using?

[iconoclast]

You can thicken dark lines with the Live Filter "Maximum Blur" and light lines with "Maximum Lights" (??? - don't know the english names). The problem might be that you have both, side by side, in your image. I'm not sure if this will work and look good. At least you will have to select the wings.

I think, I would try to darken and lighten the dark and white lines by hand with the tools "Dodge" and "Burn". But this will not make the line thicker. It will only give it more contrast.

[RichardMH]

Not sure if it will give you enough, but create a B&W layer with Overlay blend mode and mask so its just covers the wings. Play with the Yellow and Green sliders in B&W to help contrast. But may not be enough.

[firstdefence]

12 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

You can thicken dark lines with the Live Filter "Maximum Blur" and light lines with "Maximum Lights" (??? - don't know the english names). The problem might be that you have both, side by side, in your image. I'm not sure if this will work and look good. At least you will have to select the wings.

I think, I would try to darken and lighten the dark and white lines by hand with the tools "Dodge" and "Burn". But this will not make the line thicker. It will only give it more contrast.

English: Minimum Blur affects the darks Maximum Blur affects the Lights.

Made a selection of the wings using the pen tool and then used selection from layer, changed to the image and selected Minimum Blur 1px

You might want to consider JixiPix filters

[frank26080115]

40 minutes ago, carl123 said:

What size thumbnail are you wanting/using?

360x200 is what my own website uses for thumbnails, but I also want it to look good on a 3" wide phone screen

 

25 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

You can thicken dark lines with the Live Filter "Maximum Blur" and light lines with "Maximum Lights" (??? - don't know the english names). The problem might be that you have both, side by side, in your image. I'm not sure if this will work and look good. At least you will have to select the wings.

I think, I would try to darken and lighten the dark and white lines by hand with the tools "Dodge" and "Burn". But this will not make the line thicker. It will only give it more contrast.

Maximum Blur did the exact opposite of what I want, Minimum Blur did exactly what I want. Thank you! The filter is very extreme though, so I have to keep the radius low and use opacity to control the amount. And, I probably have to export different versions of the photo just for the thumbnail.