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I have created an image with the selection brush tool to cut out the background.

 

The image I am left with is heavily pixelated on the edges.

 

How do I eliminate pixelation and sharpen the image so I can make further use of it.

 

 

Looking forward to your suggestions.

 

 

 

 

post-17338-0-08299000-1452584202_thumb.png

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I have the same question regarding an image that I cut out.

 

The image is sharp, but the edges are just pixels.  Is the an edge smoother or some sort?

 

I tried to cover it up with inline and online, but it doesn't look professional.

 

 

 

 

post-25530-0-79620500-1452592000_thumb.png

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  • Staff

Hi bram,

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

To smooth the edges when cutting out select the area to remove and then click the refine button and set a very low feather setting of around 0.2 to 0.4 and then using a small brush and go around the edges of the photo and when you remove the selection you will have a smoother edge.

 

This link is to the refinement tutorial for Affinity Photo and the tool works the same in Designer.

 

I noticed that you are using an older build of Designer I recommend updating to the latest 1.4 build.

 

Regards,

Darren

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Thank you guys  for the suggestions.

 

- I am using Photo 1.4

 

- the image was taken from a .pdf file

 

- as for sending a copy of the file, will saving the attached thumbnail to Downloads not be sufficient? (I am new to this)

 

- I did export the .pdf to .png and then did the selection - is this maybe incorrect to do?

 

Regards

Henri

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HAL2001,

 

Welcome to the forums. You say that you are new to this, I am assuming to graphic design work or did you mean new to Affinity products? I would recommend that you study a little more about the differences between raster and vector graphics as well as how dpi (or better yet p.p.i.) factors in to how a raster image looks. Here is a good place to start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics. I am curious as to why you created this as a raster image when it would have been easier to create it as a vector graphic? If you are going to be doing much work like the image above, I would recommend buying Affinity Designer (if you haven't already) and learning a bit about vector graphics. You should also be familiar with which formats work best for vector graphics and raster graphics as well. I have attached a PDF file with your baby drawing as a vector to show you what I'm talking about. Compare it to your original file to see the difference.

 

Best of luck,

Hokusai

Example_baby.pdf

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Hi Hokusai,

 

I am new to Affinity Photo and haven't bought Affinity Designer as I didn't think I would need it.

Along came a family member who wants images separated from the background which I managed to do but with the resulting pixelation. The image you attached however looks just perfect.

I did some reading-up on the related issues but must admit that I still have a lot to learn and I am now reading the suggested wikipedia article.

Your hints and pointers are just what I needed.

 

Thanks for your help so far.

 

Kind regards

Henri

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Hokusai,

 

I have read a few articles about vector graphics and I am getting a better view of it.

 

Begs the question of how you did convert my image to vector and what can/should I do to achieve the same result.

 

I installed Image2Vector on my MacBook Pro but not sure yet how to use it.

 

Regards

Henri 

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Begs the question of how you did convert my image to vector and what can/should I do to achieve the same result.

 

I installed Image2Vector on my MacBook Pro but not sure yet how to use it.

 

As we mentioned before, you need a professional tracing app. Image2Vector does not really help you in this case. But you can get firm with the Pen tool. Have a look into the Affinity Photo Help, please. You did not tell us the details of your template PDF we asked for, perhaps there was an error converting it: The better the template, the better the result.

 

HTH

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Begs the question of how you did convert my image to vector and what can/should I do to achieve the same result.

 

HAL2001,

 

You could, as Oval suggested, use an application that converts raster images into vectors. I didn't do that though, I simply redrew the picture that you posted. The image that you posted was simple and using the pen tool it only took me a few minutes to redraw it completely as vectors. For more complex images, it takes much longer and depending on the image, it can also require a lot of skill at using the pen tool. 

 

Hokusai

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Hi HAL2001,

 

I have been playing around with this and if your image in the PDF is on a white background you could try the following.

 

1) Open the PDF file with the DPI of 300

 

2) Crop the opened file to the image you want

 

3) Export as a 300 DPI SVG file

 

I have found that as well as removing the white background it also has a smooth edge and if you have AD you can convert the image into curves and adjust the node points.

 

I have attached the files that I have been working with

 

Regards,

Darren

test.svg

test.pdf

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O.K. This is what I did to get the end result of the image in question.

 

1) File Test01.pdf – Open with Affinity Photo

 

2) Export Test01 to Test01.png

 

3) Crop Selected Image and Save as Test01.png

 

4) Apply Selection Brush Tool to the image

 

5) Create New Document

 

6) Copy Image to New Document

 

7) Export Image in New Document to Test01-02.png

 

I hope you will be able to show me how to do this better and faster and thanks for spending time to help me.

 

Regards

Henri

 

 

Test01.pdf

post-17338-0-54965500-1452840890_thumb.png

post-17338-0-65939700-1452840910_thumb.png

post-17338-0-03737500-1452840951_thumb.png

post-17338-0-23836100-1452840955_thumb.png

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Thanks again guys.

 

So the only option looks like getting a professional tracing app. but that won't make it easy as I am not that good at drawing or tracing images.

 

If there are any applications that convert raster images into vectors that would be a great help but do you know of any that could do what I want?

 

Regards and see you around

Henri

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Hi HAL2001. My two cents.

 

Tracing images, i believe, is going to be included in a future version of Affinity Designer. So that's one more reason to spend you money on AD, rather than a separate tracing app.

 

When i started making my own vector drawings, i was really afraid that i was never going to be able to familiarise myself with it. I was wrong. As Hokusai says, creating the example image only has to take a few minutes (i now have the confidence to claim that i could have done it in, let's say, 20 minutes, and my working methods is not the most efficient one, i know for sure).

 

Therefore, i recommend to purchase the AD license, if you can afford it. It's a good investment, even for a beginner in vector drawing. And with all those Affinity tutorials available from this website...

Affinity Photo - Affinity Designer - Affinity Publisher | macOS Sonoma (14.2) on 16GB MBP14 2021 with 2.4 versions

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I took your original image, as is, to http://www.autotracer.org

(It's a very simple free online conversion site. No preview and only basic options.)

 

Saved it as a 2 color, "smoother", eps (svg works also).

 

Opened in AP and saved as png (attached)

 

You could, of course, do some modifications in AP first.... i.e. levels, brightness/contrast, posterize (oops... I meanThreshold. sorry, old habits) etc. to alter your vectorization results.

 

Edit: For right now, while we wait for this function to be folded into Designer....There are plenty of options... From free apps in apps store (as you mentioned...image2vector....which I can't seem to figure out either. Or it just stinks) to $5 apps (Image Vectorizer. Haven't tried it.) to more robust $50 apps and online services like Super Vectorizer and Vector Magic

post-12544-0-86681800-1453058536_thumb.png

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