Beginner question - selections, masks and adjustments

[Lumogas]

Hello,

This is a very basic and bread and butter thing I need to regularly do and which I have put into a macro in Photoshop:

- Select a square area of a picture with the text I want to change inside (usually with black lettering, usually a white background, but not always)

- Change the text colour to bright red

...that's it. I see macros can be defined in Affinity, which is great, but I am finding it maddeningly difficult to perform this

operation.

I realize I still don't understand basic aspects of the workflow and interface, but I haven't found anything helpful

in the existing tutorials, or in this forum. Meaning, I haven't managed to pick up even on what aspects of Affinity's

'philosophy' I need to understand to perform this.

Any help, even "look into subjects X, Y and Z" will be appreciated.

I enclose a before/after of what I usually do with Photoshop.

Thanks.

[Old Bruce]

Welcome to the Forums @Lumogas

I would just use the Lasso Selection tool to make a selection of the word APENS and then use a Recolour Adjustment layer on it. 

[Lumogas]

Thanks for that quick response, @Old Bruce!

That works, selection and recolour is nice and quick.

However, the background will not always be white.

Wouldn't recolour also change the colour of the background, in that case?

What my macro does is it picks up the text only, and then recolours that. This makes it work

in backgrounds of different colours.

What approach would be best in Affinity to recolour only the text area in a background of any coulour (within reason)?

That is what is baffling me, I can do a lasso on the area containing the text, but can't figure out how to further

narrow down the selection to the text contained in that lasso, as it were.

Again, I'm thinking in Photoshop terms here, which is obviously the wrong way of thinking, but I have not yet figured

out the Affinity mindset, so to speak.

Thanks again.

[AffinityJules]

If the background is white and you wish to retain it then try using a selective colour adjustment and target the blacks only - providing the text is also black.

[Lumogas]

Thanks for the replies. Two different approaches for different background colours,

I can live with that.

Very impressed and grateful for the videos, @Hens.