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Migrating in Affinity Photo an Adobe Photoshop procedure


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Hello there,

I am using Affinity Photo for several years now, in a professional context. I decided to move my team from Adobe to Affinity 2 months ago.

I am now struggling with a specific Coloring Procedure based on Photoshop that I have to migrate into Affinity Photo.

Does anyone have experience with such a thing?

Thierry

PS. I can provide the PS procedure

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Hi @Thierry Lay Welcome to the forums.

It would probably help if you could tell us a bit more about this "specific Coloring Procedure". Otherwise it's quite difficult to know exactly what you are trying to do!

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"Beware of false knowledge, it is more dangerous than ignorance." (GBS)

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The Coloring Procedure is a series of actions to take in PS, pretty straightforward:

  • Opening the image,
  • Turning into Grayscale,
  • Applying a dual-tone coloring based on 2 different blue colors
  • Applying LAB color setting
  • and finally, setting opacity values on both color layers.

If I have been able to more or less get to the Grayscale stage at Affinity, I can't figure out how to get to the following stages.

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Example images? (source and after coloring in PS).

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I tried using Recolour twice (it could certainly be fine-tuned according to specific needs and based on 2 different unknown blue colors).

image.png.58f3efd3b38c6c1da4fde9c8721106e8.png

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.5.5.2636 (Retail)
Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.4317.
Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.4317.
Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.

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For best control over the final image, rather than converting the picture to greyscale, it's probably better to add a Black and White Adjustment, then add a Gradient Map. This way you can tweak the settings to adjust both colour and contrast quite easily.

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

"Beware of false knowledge, it is more dangerous than ignorance." (GBS)

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1 minute ago, iconoclast said:

As far as I see, you can't work with Hex-codes for this, but you could create palettes with swatches for it. Or copy the RGB-values.

Sorry these were the values provided by our client. 

Here are RBG values:

  • Dark Blue = R:32 G:52 B: 189
  • Vivid Blue = R: 99 G:250 B:255
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Is this something you do a lot? If so it might be worth looking around to see if you can find a CS6 perpetual license version of Adobe... or maybe you have it if you have been in business for a while? Creating a duotone in photoshop is super easy and this is literally a 2 min job of setting up. Not something I use often but it is needed every now and then for specific print jobs. 

duo.psd

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2 hours ago, wonderings said:

Is this something you do a lot? If so it might be worth looking around to see if you can find a CS6 perpetual license version of Adobe... or maybe you have it if you have been in business for a while? Creating a duotone in photoshop is super easy and this is literally a 2 min job of setting up. Not something I use often but it is needed every now and then for specific print jobs. 

duo.psd 1.35 MB · 2 downloads

If fact I have myself a CS6 but this challenge is at my agency. So it concerns several users.

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3 minutes ago, Thierry Lay said:

If fact I have myself a CS6 but this challenge is at my agency. So it concerns several users.

It might be worth keeping an Adobe CC license, this would allow 2 users to use it (technically the license is only for one person, but 2 different people can use it at once). This gives you the ability to get your work done as you always have till you figure out alternative ways of doing it Affinity. I would say long term plan would be to get rid of Adobe once you are 100% happy with Affinity and can do everything you need to do with the Affinity software. 

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13 minutes ago, Lisbon said:

Hi @Thierry Lay

I tried to match the two images using curves.
To desaturate, i used a B&W adjustment set to colour.
If you want to compare your result with mine, turn on/off the visibility of the layer "Thierry Lay".

Match_PS.afphoto 4.31 MB · 0 downloads

Hi @Lisbon, your approach is quite impressive and smart. I guess there are many ways to come to the result but I like the simplicity.

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Try this. @Thierry Lay - it's an .afmacro file, so you should import it into the Macro panel of Affinity Photo (desktop version). Do not try to import it into the Library, although you can save it to the Library if you like it. I believe it will do what you are looking for:

1118297303_BlueColorizeExample.jpg.dc617b972402ed612bd2cb67586f1af7.jpg

Blue Colorizing.afmacro

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1 hour ago, smadell said:

Try this. @Thierry Lay - it's an .afmacro file, so you should import it into the Macro panel of Affinity Photo (desktop version). Do not try to import it into the Library, although you can save it to the Library if you like it. I believe it will do what you are looking for:

1118297303_BlueColorizeExample.jpg.dc617b972402ed612bd2cb67586f1af7.jpg

Blue Colorizing.afmacro 1.38 kB · 3 downloads

comparing your file to a duo tone made in Photoshop with the OP's RGB values does look significantly different. While yours on sight looks better to me, who knows what the client is after in terms of look and feel. Attached is a screen shot comparing the 2. 

Screen Shot 2022-07-20 at 1.00.10 PM.png

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23 minutes ago, wonderings said:

comparing your file to a duo tone made in Photoshop with the OP's RGB values does look significantly different. While yours on sight looks better to me, who knows what the client is after in terms of look and feel. Attached is a screen shot comparing the 2. 

Unfortunately here the client has the last word. In fact, this colorized image is used as a background, so we don't have much latitude for changes. But thank you for your suggestions. 

 

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7 minutes ago, Thierry Lay said:

Unfortunately here the client has the last word. In fact, this colorized image is used as a background, so we don't have much latitude for changes. But thank you for your suggestions. 

 

Then I would agree with the client, the duo tone done in Photoshop is nicer. I made the duo tone in photoshop in my above post and took the file made in Affinity Photos from Smadells post to compare. I would say with the client being picky your best option is to get a license for Photoshop, or at least do a demo of Photoshop to make the file you need. Also if you wanted to send the full file I could make the duotone for you with your RGB values and send back a PSD file

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@wonderings - I, too, noticed the difference. I tried adding a conversion to Lab color, but it made very little change. When I changed the method of conversion to "Absolute Colorimetric" it softened the result a little bit, but not to the extent where it matched the Photoshop output.

I'm not sure how Photoshop constructs its duotones, but I suspect that's where the difference lies. There is no true "Duotone Mode" in Affinity Photo, and emulating such an effect will not produce identical results (as we seem to have demonstrated!)

As for further advice, @Thierry Lay, assuming this is for a client and assuming that client has a very specific result he/she is looking for, I think you're probably stuck in Photoshop for the time being!

Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2 (latest retail versions) - desktop & iPad
Culling - FastRawViewer; Raw Developer - Capture One Pro; Asset Management - Photo Supreme
Mac Studio with M2 Max (2023); 64 GB RAM; macOS 13 (Ventura); Mac Studio Display - iPad Air 4th Gen; iPadOS 18

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4 minutes ago, wonderings said:

... your best option is to get a license for Photoshop, or at least do a demo of Photoshop to make the file you need.

Did you read the opening post?

 

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With BW+LUT (Infer LUT = your BW image + your bluish image).

image.png.87b0cc1bc17feac2027101d6b85d8cd9.png

 

Edit: It would still be worth investing the time to edit the BW to make it look the same as from PS. Then a reusable LUT will be created, which will correct images in the same way as duotone from PS.

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.5.5.2636 (Retail)
Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.4317.
Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.4317.
Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.

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4 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

With BW+LUT (Infer LUT = your BW image + your bluish image).

image.png.87b0cc1bc17feac2027101d6b85d8cd9.png

Hi @Pšenda, this looks very close to the expected result. I guess only in the high lights there should be less contrast.

I am not familiar with LUT. Would you mind sharing the file?

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