Newbie Question: Why won't my fill fill as well as negate filter??

[creativevision]

I'm trying (and failing!) to achieve something but that brought up a new more general question.

In the attached image, I am trying to fill the middle white section with a colour of my choosing. When I fill with the paint bucket I get a pretty basic poor resolution fill. However if I apply a Lens Filter and choose a negate blend mode, the centre is filled with black in a much smoother (acceptable fashion) ... why the difference?

Is there a way I can achieve a similar resolution fill in the middle without negate blend filter? I've tried applying the paint bucket fill with various Tolerances to no luck!

Unfortunately I cannot use the filter negate option as I neither want to the centre to be black nor all the other colours to change!

Many thanks for any pointers!

 

 

 

[NotMyFault]

Different approach:

• add polygon shape
• set 8 nodes
• size 230px
• set curve to -12% to get round edge, visually matching the composition
• rotate by 22.5 degree
• fill in you chosen colour (not black as I misread your question initially)

[NotMyFault]

On 2/4/2023 at 5:32 PM, creativevision said:

When I fill with the paint bucket I get a pretty basic poor resolution fill.

However if I apply a Lens Filter and choose a negate blend mode, the centre is filled with black in a much smoother (acceptable fashion) ... why the difference?

really depends on how you created the selection of the white area.

The centre area is not filled with one solid colour. Especially at the edges, you have lots of jpeg compression artefacts and colour spill.

 

So a bit of smoothing and feathering will help to blend this in better.

 

PS: The effect is probably mostly that small differences in dark colours are less noticeable than light colours. Could totally depend on the quality, brightness and calibration of your monitor. This of course can depend on the age of the observer, too.

 

 

 

[NotMyFault]

27 minutes ago, creativevision said:

When I fill with the paint bucket I get a pretty basic poor resolution fill.

However if I apply a Lens Filter and choose a negate blend mode, the centre is filled with black in a much smoother (acceptable fashion) ... why the difference?

really depends on how you created the selection of the white area.

The centre area is not filled with one solid colour. Especially at the edges, you have lots of jpeg compression artefacts and colour spill.

 

So a bit of shooting and feathering will help to blend this in better.

 

Below a screenshot with a simple invert adjustment and a mask to restrict it to the right side.

The image has the same roughness / noise on both sides, but the light part is far more prominent.

 

 

 

[creativevision]

2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Different approach:

• add polygon shape
• set 8 nodes
• size 230px
• set curve to -12% to get round edge, visually matching the composition
• rotate by 22.5 degree
• fill in you chosen colour (not black as I misread your question initially)

Such a simple yet elegant solution - thank you!