CharlesG Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 Good day fine people of Affinity forum. As always, thank you for your help over the past year, I think you have solved every problem I have posed here thus far. My question today is about turning black to white. I am often doing still life photography against a black backdrop. I would also like to be able to turn all the black in the image to white because I am trying to turn these into line drawings. I am sure there must be a simple way to do this but can't quite figure it out. Selecting the subject isn't doing what I want because I am happy for all of the black in the subject to go white in this scenario as well. Please see my example of a cob of corn. The ultimate goal here is to turn this into a black and white line drawing. Perhaps this isn't the best way to go about this, any help with the question at hand or alternate strategies greatly appreciated. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 One of several different possible ways would be via "Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Selective Color...", aka ... Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomaso Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 13 minutes ago, CharlesG said: Selecting the subject isn't doing what I want because I am happy for all of the black in the subject to go white in this scenario as well. You can define or refine the background pixel selection and thus include or exclude the blacks in the object when selecting the black of the background. Nevertheless, here an option without any a pixel selection but two adjustments only, one to reduce the background, the other to reduce the colours/hue. I am not sure what you mean by "all of the black in the subject to go white", but you have control over the shades of grey within in the Black & White adjustment and also by switching the order of the two adjustments. Quote macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 For a selection way, you can sample the black background color in the image and then use "Select -> Select Sampled Color..." at around 12-15% which should give you a fine selection of all blacks. Refine/smooth that if needed, then delete all blacks and place a white fill layer or white rect behind (on bottom of the layers panel), or just fill the selection with white instead ... etc. Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharlesG Posted January 12, 2023 Author Share Posted January 12, 2023 Thank you, these suggestions are doing exactly as I hoped. But I am having trouble taking the next step into turning it into a nice, simple line drawing. Does anyone have an idea as to how this might be achieved? The attached photo was done by duplicating the image layer and changing the blend mode to colour dodge, and then adding a gaussian blur to that. I came upon this method from our good friends Affinity Revolution. But this is not quite there for me, I'm hoping for mostly outline and less of the shading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 Try out this macro too ... Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 If you mean with outline like that here ... ... or variations of that, then go to ... https://elektrobild.org/photo-filter/outline Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 A simple Live Filter Gradient Map gives a nice fine art pencil sketch, complete with pencil shading. The centre node can be more or less grey and moved up or down to affect the shading of the corn, all of this is subjective interpretation. Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.4.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulEC Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 For a stronger pencil drawing effect you could try using FotoSketcher (free) https://fotosketcher.com/ after making the B&W image, as above. (You could also add a texture, if you like.) Quote 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharlesG Posted January 12, 2023 Author Share Posted January 12, 2023 I think the gradient map it what will be best for me, it's getting closer, just need to play with the proper adjustments I think. Thanks everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomaso Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 In case you want to achieve 1 color only (e.g. black or 1 gray) the filter "Detect Edges" + an adjustment to influence the grays may be worth a trial. Below two examples without any pixel selection. Especially in the dark version the leave edges demonstrate by the squared artefacts that a better result may require to remove the black background (via a pixel selection) before this destructive filter gets applied. Quote macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bruce Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 I have always been a fan of Highpass then Threshold. Quote Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 Affinity Designer 2.4.1 | Affinity Photo 2.4.1 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.1 | Beta versions as they appear. I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharlesG Posted January 12, 2023 Author Share Posted January 12, 2023 Hi Old Bruce, this is very cool and something I haven't tried. Would you mind spelling out the steps for me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bruce Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 Mess about with the blend mode (soft light, Overlay) for more fun with the Copy of the original just below. Quote Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 Affinity Designer 2.4.1 | Affinity Photo 2.4.1 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.1 | Beta versions as they appear. I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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