APv2 How to remove white background from clip art.

[Vero Beach Florida]

Switching from MS Publisher to APv2. In MS Publisher it was quick and easy to convert the white background of clip art I used. I cannot figure out how to do so in APv2. I use PNG and JPEG most often.

Thank You

David Bottomley

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Vero Beach Florida

The best procedure(s) will be dependent upon what the images look like.
If you can give us some idea of what you are working with then we can give you some suggestions.
If you can share one or two of the images in public, in these forums, then we can experiment for ourselves first.

Note: The term “Clip Art” can be confusing as there are many types. Even saying something like “vector art” or “bitmap image” isn’t specific enough to tell us what you are working with. Better to just give the file type(s) – e.g. PNG, SVG, JPG, EPS, etc. – so that we know for sure. This could help you to get answers more quickly.

[Vero Beach Florida]

On 2/8/2023 at 5:45 PM, Vero Beach Florida said:

Switching from MS Publisher to APv2. In MS Publisher it was quick and easy to convert the white background of clip art I used. I cannot figure out how to do so in APv2. I use PNG and JPEG most often.

Thank You

David Bottomley

 

[Vero Beach Florida]

[walt.farrell]

On 2/8/2023 at 5:45 PM, Vero Beach Florida said:

to convert the white background

Convert it to what?

[DM1]

On 2/9/2023 at 9:45 AM, Vero Beach Florida said:

I cannot figure out how to do so in APv2. I use PNG and JPEG most often

Filter Erase white paper. Quick and easy. It effects whole pic so not good for those with white in picture.🙂

[firstdefence]

Because this is a simple colour set a vector trace works well, you can turn off the background colour and export to whichever file format you like, bear in mind that jpeg in general doesn't support transparency. 

Red Dress.pdf

[Vero Beach Florida]

Thanks for taking the time to help. Unfortunately, when I move the image into Aff Photo and use Filter-Remove White Matte and then copy the image and paste it onto my Aff Publisher page the white background is still there. I'm new to the Affinity package so I apologize for my newbie skill level. I'll keep working at it. Thanks again for your time.

David

[firstdefence]

7 minutes ago, Vero Beach Florida said:

Thanks for taking the time to help. Unfortunately, when I move the image into Aff Photo and use Filter-Remove White Matte and then copy the image and paste it onto my Aff Publisher page the white background is still there. I'm new to the Affinity package so I apologize for my newbie skill level. I'll keep working at it. Thanks again for your time.

David

What file format are you saving as, PNG will keep the transparency, jpeg will maintain a white background

[debraspicher]

18 minutes ago, Vero Beach Florida said:

Thanks for taking the time to help. Unfortunately, when I move the image into Aff Photo and use Filter-Remove White Matte and then copy the image and paste it onto my Aff Publisher page the white background is still there. I'm new to the Affinity package so I apologize for my newbie skill level. I'll keep working at it. Thanks again for your time.

David

Export as Png with transparency and then File>Place in document. Unfortunately Affinity doesn't deal very well with transparent graphics from the clipboard. SVGs yes, but not bitmaps.

Edit: You can also save as an .afphoto and then have the ability to edit/update from publisher if needed. Same operation, File>Place

[v_kyr]

• Red Dress Girl.afphoto
• Red Dress Girl.pdf
• Red Dress Girl.svg
• 

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, debraspicher said:

Unfortunately Affinity doesn't deal very well with transparent graphics from the clipboard.

Seems to be working fine for me in V1 on my Mac.

[GarryP]

9 hours ago, Vero Beach Florida said:

Unfortunately, when I move the image into Aff Photo and use Filter-Remove White Matte and then copy the image and paste it onto my Aff Publisher page the white background is still there.

It was suggested that you use the Erase White Paper function.
If you used the Remove White Matte function then you used the wrong function.
Try using Erase White Paper instead.

[debraspicher]

9 hours ago, R C-R said:

Seems to be working fine for me in V1 on my Mac.

It was a Windows thing for a while. Supposedly it was fixed in 2.0.3. (Very nice, Serif!)

[Pšenda]

14 hours ago, GarryP said:

If you used the Remove White Matte function then you used the wrong function.

This may be a function name translation problem.

 

 

[Eddy-2]

If it's not a silly question, why not use the selection brush? Not perfect but depends on the quality of the original image.

Ensure to rasterise the image into a pixel picture.

[v_kyr]

30 minutes ago, Eddy-2 said:

If it's not a silly question, why not use the selection brush? Not perfect but depends on the quality of the original image.

Ensure to rasterise the image into a pixel picture.

It's another possibility, but then you loose the vector handling advantages of arbitrary scaling up/down such clip arts as vectors if needed, since then you are finally dealing with an into bitmap/pixel format converted image.

The whole depends on what the OP finally want's and needs here from his individual side (usage point). Everything else so far already said here in this thread are therefor just suggestions and advices how one can deal overall with that. - So the OP only knows and has finally to decide which route he want's to go, or which one might be the best one for him.

 

[Eddy-2]

Thanks v_kyr, although I understood he mainly needed the feature for jpeg and png.

As for programmes which remove the 'white background', I should imagine they have a similar 'pixel-edge' problem that using the selection brush has.

[v_kyr]

18 minutes ago, Eddy-2 said:

although I understood he mainly needed the feature for jpeg and png.

There's still a difference if you afterwards possibly would have to up-/down scale a bitmap drawing, or if you just export a right sized vector drawing to JPG/PNG. - So it depends here.

24 minutes ago, Eddy-2 said:

As for programmes which remove the 'white background', I should imagine they have a similar 'pixel-edge' problem that using the selection brush has.

Either that, or they may/will also remove any white pixels which are part of the drawing itself then. Meaning here, if that red dressed lady clip art would also contain any white pixels inside the drawing, those would also get removed/transparent. Since those background remove operations mostly deal on the whole image, unless restricted to operate only on some selected portion.