Colorizing a black & white TIF

[Hoey Moey]

I'm an avid user of InDesign, but looking to Affinity as a viable option. One major drawback I have found with Affinity Designer compared to InDesign is - I can import a b&w TIF into ID with no white background and simply double click and change the black to any color I choose. I cannot seem to find out how to do this in AF Designer. Is there a simple workaround?

Edited January 23, 2023 by Hoey Moey

[firstdefence]

Welcome to the forum @Hoey Moey

Using a Recolour Adjustment layer filter will do what you want, move the lightness slider to 50% and use the Saturation and Hue sliders to adjust the colour.

You can similarly use the Gradient Map Adjustment filter, the left start node will change the black to whatever colour you choose, you can delete the middle node and change the right node to white, this also has the added benefit of being able to choose different methods of colour input.

Note: if you want the filter to only affect the B&W layer, nest the filter under it by dragging the filter onto the name of the layer, the layer in the layer stack will turn blueish.

[thomaso]

As long as Affinity does not properly understand 1-bit images but converts them to RGB, another workaround to achieve white as transparent would require the image to be saved with transparency. In CMYK documents it needs the option "K Only" activated when a fill colour is applied.

[Hoey Moey]

Thank you for your replies. After rereading my question, I incorrectly said "Designer". My question actually relates to PUBLISHER. Sorry for the confusion.

Will these workarounds be performed in the same manner?

[thomaso]

Yes, they work the same for these workflows. (my example is from APub v1)