WHITE BACKGROUND AND DODGE TOOL.

[Carlos A. Flores]

Hello. 

I appreciate your help on this matter:

The purpose is to achieve a pure white background using the Dodge brush tool. 

The method I use is to set the tool to highlights, then apply it to the desired areas. 

The problem is that when it passes over an area of medium or dark tones, it invades them lightening them.

In my experience with another photo editing program, the dodge tool only lightened areas that tended towards light tones, without affecting mid-tones or darks.

Is it possible with Affinity Photo to do it, making adjustments in the tool so that only the desired tonal range is modified, without affecting the others?

Thanks a lot.

[Komatös]

Hi, @Carlos A. Flores

Use the selection brush  and mark the dog with it.

Then set the brush selection  to subtract and select the light areas between the legs.

Now invert the pixel selection with shift + ctrl + i. With the remove key you can now cut out the object.

 

[Carlos A. Flores]

Thanks for your guide, Komatös.

I appreciate your help. I already tried this method, but the finishing of the edges is not satisfactory to me, 
and fine-tuning this takes longer than the Dodge Brush method.

That is why I need to find out if it is possible to do it with the Dodge tool that Affinity Photo has, as I could do with the program I used previously. I did it faster and more satisfactorily.

Thank you for your time and kindness, Komatös. 🙏

 

 

"In my experience with another photo editing program, the dodge tool only lightened areas that tended towards light tones, without affecting mid-tones or darks.

Is it possible with Affinity Photo to do it, making adjustments in the tool so that only the desired tonal range is modified, without affecting the others?"

 

 

[thomaso]

6 hours ago, Carlos A. Flores said:

The purpose is to achieve a pure white background using the Dodge brush tool. 

The method I use is to set the tool to highlights, then apply it to the desired areas. 

The problem is that when it passes over an area of medium or dark tones, it invades them lightening them.

The Dodge Tool appears to work different than expected: Both modes, Highlights / Shadows, seem to affect the same tonal range (e.g. below 10 – 90 %) but just with different intensity.

While the Help implies that certain tones would be excluded from being affected:

[Carlos A. Flores]

 

Thanks for your contribution, thomaso.

That is precisely what happens, affect the same tonal range. What I need is to work as implied by the Tonal Range function. Is that possible? Do I need to make a special adjustment in the tool to reach the proper result?

Have a nice day. 🙏

[thomaso]

Unfortunately it is a known issue since several years / app versions. – Maybe @stokerg has an info update?

[carl123]

7 hours ago, Carlos A. Flores said:

I appreciate your help. I already tried this method, but the finishing of the edges is not satisfactory to me, and fine-tuning this takes longer than the Dodge Brush method.

Not sure why you are having a problem using the Selection Brush Tool?

It seems to do a very good job on the first pass without any fine-tuning

 

[Dan C]

8 hours ago, thomaso said:

Unfortunately it is a known issue since several years / app versions. – Maybe @stokerg has an info update?

I can confirm this is still logged with our developers - though I'm 'bumping' the report now to bring it to their attention once again.

As Carl has mentioned, I've also been able to use the Select and Delete process with this background without issue and I would suspect this is the easiest method for clean results.

If you're still having trouble @Carlos A. Flores then please let us know and we can walk you through the best settings/workflow for this image

[Carlos A. Flores]

Hello Carl123.

Indeed, this method is working properly. 

I had not achieved the desired result because the soft edges checkbox was not selected.

This way of work is very useful for this type of images.

Thank you both Carl123 and Komatös for your gentle help.

 

[Carlos A. Flores]

Hello Dan C. 

I appreciate your attention.

 

Indeed, this method is working properly. 

I had not achieved the desired result because the soft edges checkbox was not selected.

This way of work is very useful for this type of images.

But, I still need to have the Dodge Brush working properly for images like this portrait:

When applying the Dodge Brush tool in the areas close to the hair, the affectation is evident: detail is lost.

Thank you for your help with this, Dan C.  🙏

 

 

[thomaso]

19 hours ago, Carlos A. Flores said:

When applying the Dodge Brush tool in the areas close to the hair, the affectation is evident: detail is lost.

To isolate objects, a selection can often enable a better, more precise result, aside the complex "Refine" options, also for instance when using the flood selection tool with its "Contiguous" function selected.

Note that in your example there is grey hair around the edge, which is very slightly different from the background. Especially in the case of hairs, some people do not even try to isolate them perfectly, but prefer to (re)paint such individual hairs afterwards with an appropriate brush.

Even if the Tonal Ranges of Dodge would get fixed, I would not expect the Dodge Tool with its only 3 modes to be able to detect these subtle differences. And as I understand this tool, it is not meant to keep such a clear separation between similar tones as one might want with a selection.

[Carlos A. Flores]

Thank you, thomaso.