Easy way to replace checkered background with white in Apub

[chasm]

I have scanned a free image and save is as a jpg (only option).

How can I replace the replace checkered background with white?

Can you share the text of the step by steps?

Thank you.

 

 

[v_kyr]

Do you have just APub or also one of the other Affinity apps? - Further does that image you've downloaded has as default a visable checkered background, or is it instead transparent and just shown that way in APub?

[walt.farrell]

It would help if you gave us a pointer to the free image you're working with.

[Old Bruce]

The checkered background indicates transparency. PNGs and TIFFs can have transparency but JPEGs cannot. So I don't know what you mean by 

1 hour ago, chasm said:

have scanned a free image and save is as a jpg (only option).

How can I replace the replace checkered background with white?

You can change the background of the Affinity document (Which one are you using? Photo, Publisher or Designer?) by going to the Document setup... and use the colour tab to uncheck the Transparent background.

[firstdefence]

I suspect they have screenshotted an image that is displayed with a transparent background, see example below... as such selecting the object and inverting the selection to delete the background would probably be the easiest option.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

uncheck the Transparent background.

Its a jpg, not a.png. Thus the checkerboard is pixels.

[chasm]

We have all 3 Affinity products.

I suspect it's one of those "fake jpgs" when ti's not really a jpg (as I'm told).

Old Bruce - thank you ever so very much for the stepped detailed graphics!

 

 

 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, chasm said:

I suspect it's one of those "fake jpgs" when ti's not really a jpg (as I'm told).

I have no idea what you mean by "fake jpgs" but if you have saved it as a JPEG file then it cannot have any transparency (because the JPEG format does not support transparency); therefore, if there is a checkerboard pattern in it it is not indicating transparency. Instead, the pattern is just part of the image itself.

[NotMyFault]

We have one exception of jpeg with transparency by  clipping path (a closed curve nested to the bitmap layer) but this is probably unrelated to the OP question.

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

We have one exception of jpeg with transparency by  clipping path (a closed curve nested to the bitmap layer) but this is probably unrelated to the OP question.

But does a clipping path actually create any visible transparency in the image in the JPEG? I thought it was just a way to enable users to isolate some part of the image so they could (for example) extract it to use in a new file or erase whatever is inside or outside that part without having ti create a new clipping path.

[thomaso]

31 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

We have one exception of jpeg with transparency by  clipping path (a closed curve nested to the bitmap layer) but this is probably unrelated to the OP question.

As far I experienced such a clipping path gets ignored if it got saved in a jpg.

 

[NotMyFault]

According to Affinity it should work in Designer / Photo (Desktop only). In the context of the OP question: APub should be able to open existing jpg with clipping path. Cannot check as on iPad only currently.

 

 

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[thomaso]

4 minutes ago, lacerto said:

I think the feature has basically been created specifically for use with these apps.

It seems so, since Affinity apps lack in the UI to select & activate such a path even if created by an Affinity app.

Also to me such embedded clipping paths do nothing if placed in APub. Instead I need to click "Edit Image" to see the clipping mask layer in a different document window and  the clipping mask working without the need for any action. – Which makes it quite strangely confusing / buggy that it is not displayed accordingly in its placed instance in APub, in particular if it is an Affinity clipping path.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[MEB]

On 6/12/2022 at 1:01 PM, thomaso said:

It seems so, since Affinity apps lack in the UI to select & activate such a path even if created by an Affinity app.

Hi thomaso,
Publisher and the other Affinity apps can open/support JPG's with clipping paths, they only miss a way to access these clipping paths when placed in an Affinity document as you noticed. This is logged/with development.
 

On 6/12/2022 at 1:01 PM, thomaso said:

Also to me such embedded clipping paths do nothing if placed in APub. Instead I need to click "Edit Image" to see the clipping mask layer in a different document window and  the clipping mask working without the need for any action. – Which makes it quite strangely confusing / buggy that it is not displayed accordingly in its placed instance in APub, in particular if it is an Affinity clipping path.

This does work because when you click the "Edit Image" button you are actually opening the JPG file directly for editing (with access to all its content), whereas when simply placed in a Publisher's document it remains as a container (Image Layer). As said above this is logged/with development as an eventual improvement (still to be decided).

 

On 6/12/2022 at 1:21 PM, lacerto said:

... Clipping is not automatic in context of InDesign, either, so by default the whole background shows, which is just fine (as this is how these kinds of images would show when placed in any app not supporting the feature).

Having support for the feature would be welcome in Affinity apps, since I suppose it would also mean that JPGs that have native Photoshop paths embedded would be supported...

This depends on how the JPG file is setup. If set with an active clipping path, InDesign will honour the setting and will display the image clipped as soon as you place it in a InDesign document.

Clipping paths are currently supported when opened directly in Affinity apps no matter if the JPG was created in Photoshop or Affinity. You cannot access them only when the JPG is placed in the document.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[MEB]

18 hours ago, lacerto said:

I am probably still doing something wrong, or the way APhoto makes the path active is not supported in InDesign CS6, since I don't seem to be able to have a clipping path initially active at the time a JPG with a clipping path is placed, so this is what I experience...

No, you aren't doing something wrong. Affinity apps are not able to set an active clipping path. They only export the paths with the JPG and you can choose whatever you want to use in the receiving application as long as it supports them.

 

18 hours ago, lacerto said:

The video shows a more complex situation with multiple paths but I cannot get an Aphoto created JPG with a clipping path placed InDesign so that the clipping path is active already when initially placing the image, even if there is only one path -- no matter how the mask is selected (e.g., solo selected by Alt clicking, or just selected and visibility being checked).

See my reply above.
 

18 hours ago, lacerto said:

In addition, when I tried to figure out how to do this, I noticed that contrary to what was mentioned in your instructions, the clipping path does work fine for me (tested with Windows version 1.10.5) whether the masking object is filled or even visible (the masking object can be a closed curve created with a pen or a "smart" shape without converting it to curves), or not. It just needs to be named as otherwise it does not have any effect in InDesign, even if the path shows as nameless empty spot in the list of available clipping paths. The only way for me to have the shape in masked position within a JPG visible at the time the image is placed is to make a regular masked export without clipping, but then of course there is also no clipping path (and "transparency"), unless manually created in InDesign by tracing.

When providing instructions to help someone understand a process I try to be as much concise and direct to the point as i can to ensure the user can reproduce the steps easily and get the result he's aiming  for. Generalizing or presenting a bunch of options/nuances at once increases the chance of something go wrong or misunderstood, extends the explanations a lot unnecessarily and it's out of the scope of a direct reply on a forum's post (there's manuals/books and tutorials to cover features in depth). I never said the path wouldn't work if it wasn't filled, nor I said he can't use a shape or whatever vector object he wishes. Those are details that the user can figure out for himself as soon as the workflow was understood. I mentioned the fill specifically (between parenthesis as an addendum) because if you drag an empty filled path (and no stroke) over the thumbnail (as a vector mask) the whole image disappears from screen - there's no filled areas to show the image through -, and that could confuse the user. Seeing the image clipped after dragging the vector mask (filled) over the thumbnail is what we usually expect and what I intended the user go through thus the simplification.
The rest of the quote refers to the current lack of ability to set an active clipping path in Affinity as stated previously.

 

18 hours ago, lacerto said:

Now contrast this to way the same feature works in JPG files created in Photoshop (this is from PS 2022 latest version)
You can have any number of shapes, layers (with effects like transparency) below or above the image layer to be clipped, visible or non-visible, without them breaking the clipping functionality (these features are naturally not exported but just rendered flattened along with the paths). The shapes also cannot be used as "Adobe paths" even if they show in the Paths panel in italics, when visible and selected so they are basically comparable to off-mask shape layers in APhoto. But it is possible to use a shape selection and save a path and then have it listed amongst available paths in InDesign. But none of the saved paths (names of which are shown in straight font) are actually clipping paths so if the image with such paths were saved to JPG, none of the paths would be active at the time the image is imported in InDesign unless manually made active. Only one path at a time can be assigned as a clipping path, and it must be done by using a menu command, as shown in the video. The clipping path is marked in bold type in the Paths panel. Maybe there is something similar in APhoto that is required to make a clipping path truly "active", but I have missed the feature, or then it is a thing related to version of InDesign (and possibly to OS, as I can test only the Windows version). Anyway, as mentioned, not having an initial selection of a clipping path is a minor problem, but if the feature is available, it is nice to know how it works.

I'm aware how Photoshop and Indesign work - that's why i mentioned that you can set a path as an active clipping path which can then be used/displayed directly in InDesign so you don't have to choose/set it manually. As long as the JPG already has an active clipping path set you don't even have to go through any dialog or options as in the clip you posted, simply drag it to the canvas and drag/scale the image as you need. It will be placed already clipped. As said previously Affinity does not let you set an active path. This is logged with dev though (despite being a relatively small improvement).

Regarding breaking the clipping functionality (even in edges cases like invisible layers below the layer with the nested paths) its something that shouldn't happen but doesn't prevent you from exporting the file correctly for its main purposes if you really want to/be a bit careful. There's certainly room for improvement in particular now that Publisher is becoming more and more competent but at the time of its implementation in v1.6 the requirements were a bit different (Publisher was in its infancy or maybe not released yet, not sure)
 

18 hours ago, lacerto said:

It may be unfair to compare the implementations of this feature in APhoto and PS (even if it is a question of an attempt to directly copy a feature of another app) but as can be seen, while all properties of this "hack" are not perhaps intuitively accessible or thoroughly documented even in PS, there are also no such prerequisites as in APhoto (like not being able to have off-mask hidden objects beneath the image to be masked) that make the feature really behave like a "hack".

Indeed. But isn't the whole (or at least the major) point of creating clipping paths within JPGs that they are available (and individually selectable) in context of placed images? Is there any use-case now besides having them placed in InDesign (and other apps possibly supporting Adobe paths)? The feature would certainly be useful also in Publisher.

That "prerequisite" is actually a bug so i wouldn't count it as such. The hackish was in reference of the way it's implemented in the JPG format which doesn't support them natively. Photoshop does deal with this better but it also has been developed for a lot more time. Even so, it has its quirks too - you have to save the paths (work paths are ignored), give them a name and save the file as a copy, otherwise they aren't included as well.

Yes, in Publisher in particular, not so much in Photo where you typically open the file, but as I explained, at the time of implementation Publisher wasn't what it is today and there was other priorities/goals to accomplish first. The need to access clipping paths in placed JPG files is logged with development as are other issues/bugs we have found out up to this point. Hopefully they will be addressed as we move forward.

Thanks for your feedback.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[thomaso]

40 minutes ago, lacerto said:

My point was to show how exactly the paths are included in JPG files when using Affinity Photo, and also show why the feature might break.

In Affinity the problem with such clipping paths is not necessarily related to the .jpg file format. Even a path saved (exported) by PS (as .ai), doesn't make it in Affinity. It opens with a certain page size, document resolution and with grayscale colour space – but displays an empty layer of type "(Layer)". This seems to confirm the previous mentioned hint or impression that this clipping path feature in Affinity isn't mainly meant to read these paths but rather to write them for other apps.

clipping path.ai

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, lacerto said:

I am not sure though if the problems with the file you attached are related to the file format?

(...) but I suppose that Affinity apps basically only support "Photoshop paths" in opened JPG files

Probably, – but this also is what feels strange to me. Because:

A)  Affinity can read .AI files (selectively)
B)  Affinity can read Photoshop paths (in a JPG)
C)  Affinity can write Affinity paths readable by Adobe apps.

D) –> Affinity can not read Photoshop paths (B) saved in .AI files (A) but can open this .AI files.

With the successful conditions A+B+C  i would expect it not be a large step to D.
(a path is 'just' a path, a lot less complex than many other things in an .AI file)