Best way to change black background to white in Affinity Photo 2?

[yanksno1]

Hi, I was wondering what the best way to change black background to white in Affinity Photo 2? The image itself I'm working with is pretty busy, but the background is solid black if that helps. My google searching failed me here haha. Any help would be appreciated. 

[Komatös]

Hi @yanksno1 and welcome to the forums.

Fastes way is in APhoto Filters -> Color -> Remove Black Matte

[yanksno1]

Hmm, trying that and nothing seems to be happening. It's in a pixel layer (I think). 

[NotMyFault]

It depends on the actual image, how the transition from black background to the subject is defined. 
Can you upload it?

 

[yanksno1]

Yup, here it is. The second time I tried it did seem to be doing something, but not what I wanted. 

[walt.farrell]

8 minutes ago, yanksno1 said:

It's in a pixel layer (I think). 

It's important to know. The Layers panel will tell you.

[NotMyFault]

not so easy.

1. flood selection tool
2. set tolerance to low value, 5% 
3. set „continuous“
4. set „anti-alias“
5. click on black background
6. set mode to add
7. click on smaller background areas
8. Invert selection
9. create mask
10. select brush in white, 8px, 80% hardness
11. paint in missing areas

 

[yanksno1]

5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It's important to know. The Layers panel will tell you.

Where does show you? Not seeing anything obvious. Sorry for the dumb questions, still learning Affinity Photo coming from Photoshop. 

[yanksno1]

16 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

not so easy.

1. flood selection tool
2. set tolerance to low value, 0-5% 
3. set „continuous“
4. set „anti-alias“
5. click on black background
6. Invert selection
7. create mask

 

Almost there. I'm at No. 6 and can't find where to Invert selection. The rest is looking good so far.

[NotMyFault]

CMD-shift-I or context menu

[Old Bruce]

25 minutes ago, yanksno1 said:

Where does show you? Not seeing anything obvious. Sorry for the dumb questions, still learning Affinity Photo coming from Photoshop.

No 'dumb questions'. It is the little icon next to the thumbnail of the layer. The checkerboard pattern means Pixel. Spend some time making different layer types and try to figure out what the little icons mean. Takes for ever.

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, Old Bruce said:

Spend some time making different layer types and try to figure out what the little icons mean. Takes for ever.

While learning, the Tooltip you get when hovering over the icon should help.

[yanksno1]

Thanks guys. Think I got to your suggestions, just didn't turn out the way I wanted. Thought it might have been easier since it was a full black background but guess not. At least I learned a few things today. Appreciate your help!

[Komatös]

What bothers me visually are the missing legs and feet, which are covered by the fillings in the font. The little monk in me wants to build the missing limbs as soon as possible. 

[yanksno1]

Yeah, I didn't care for that either. Decided to make my own. Simple, but I like it.

[Corgi]

I know you've already worked around the problem, but you can kinda achieve the desired effect quickly by adding the Invert adjustment and then setting the blend range so that only the pure black is affected. It's not perfect, although you could make the "Police Academy" text smoother by making a copy of the layer with the blend range a little less sharp, and masking everything except the text.

[yanksno1]

15 hours ago, Corgi said:

I know you've already worked around the problem, but you can kinda achieve the desired effect quickly by adding the Invert adjustment and then setting the blend range so that only the pure black is affected. It's not perfect, although you could make the "Police Academy" text smoother by making a copy of the layer with the blend range a little less sharp, and masking everything except the text.

Did you do the edit there? The other things I tired I just didn't like looked the same as your screenshot there. Around the gang, the sharpness around the edges still had some black to it and was kinda rough. Once I found the white background poster, that was obviously the way to go there. I'm def gonna have to go into a more deeper dive with the mask features. Thanks for the suggestion!