Making a background image more web contrast friendly!

[creativevision]

Dear Affinity Experts

 

We have used this forum before and have been blown away by the kindness and expertise of the people on here! So thought we might ask for help on what might be something that is too difficult to achieve!

 

We have found a background image we like the design of and would like to use as the background for the homepage of a website ... however the current colours are not quite right for us.

 

What we would like to do - and have no idea if possible on Affinity Photo which is what we use - is change the overall colours so that:

 

1. The colours of the current image are too 'bright and loud' for our purpose. We want to somehow keep the nice transitions between the various segments but make the overall feel more soothing and calm. So take the overall hues to a more 'pastel' like shade.

 

2. Change the image so the various transitions only go from oranges to greens (rather than the purple / red / orange / green range currently used)

 

3. Ensure the whole background is an appropriate level/hue for having white text over it (so the contrast between bold white text over the final image should be easily readable).

 

It feels like what we want to do should be something that software can generate automatically ... ie changing the total range of hues to our range of oranges to greens and then automatically creating the transitions (so we have all the nice intersections and mixes of colours as seen in current)?

 

Is this something that might be possible in Affinity Photo and if so, what would be the best way?

 

Any help very much appreciated!

[GarryP]

Unless I have misunderstood your requirements...

For item 1, the Vibrance Adjustment should get you close what you need. Try different settings.

For item 2, you could try adding both a Black & White Adjustment and a Gradient Map Adjustment. Play with the settings of both for different ‘looks’.

For item 3, I don’t know how you want lighter shades but also better contrast with white at the same time. Can you give a visual example of what you want?

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, GarryP said:

For item 3, I don’t know how you want lighter shades but also better contrast with white at the same time. Can you give a visual example of what you want?

Assuming easy readability is the primary goal, maybe adding a thin dark stroke to outline the text would work?

[GarryP]

That’s one possibility.
Another would be to add a subtle Outer Glow Effect as can be seen in my second attached image.
I think we need to OP to get back to us with more details before we speculate further.

 

[creativevision]

On 2/14/2023 at 12:30 PM, GarryP said:

Unless I have misunderstood your requirements...

For item 1, the Vibrance Adjustment should get you close what you need. Try different settings.

For item 2, you could try adding both a Black & White Adjustment and a Gradient Map Adjustment. Play with the settings of both for different ‘looks’.

For item 3, I don’t know how you want lighter shades but also better contrast with white at the same time. Can you give a visual example of what you want?

Thanks @GarryP ... re item 3 I see what you mean and perhaps I was not clear enough, sorry.

In my eyes (and perhaps that's partly the issue, each of us sees things differently!) ... the current image is too bright, almost gloss like. What we are trying to get is a more 'matt' version (perhaps 'matt' is better term than 'lighter' to describe what we are trying to achieve) on which white text would be easier to read. Overall we want to get to a more 60s pastel vibe rather than the 'in your face' vibe that the current colours create?

[creativevision]

23 hours ago, GarryP said:

That’s one possibility.
Another would be to add a subtle Outer Glow Effect as can be seen in my second attached image.
I think we need to OP to get back to us with more details before we speculate further.

 

Ah, I see you already started to pick up on what I meant! Yes, these are much closer to what we want, albeit the colours are a little too light, and therefore the contrast has reduced - as per your earlier comment. 

I hope my other comment re 'matt-ing' the original image made sense?

[creativevision]

Using @GarryP's suggestions of Vibrance, B&W and Gradient Map adjustments, we came up with the attached in a few minutes ... it is much better in terms of softness etc (many thanks Garry) but I wonder if it now looks a little 'dull' ... I'm starting to feel like there's no pleasing us LOL

[GarryP]

If further experimentation doesn’t get you what you want then you might be better-off re-creating the background from scratch with vector shapes and blend modes.
That way you will have much more control over the colours.
Using blend modes will force rasterisation upon export but you can probably use the Shape Builder Tool to split the shapes and colour the parts independently if you want a vector result which can be resized nicely.

[creativevision]

4 hours ago, GarryP said:

If further experimentation doesn’t get you what you want then you might be better-off re-creating the background from scratch with vector shapes and blend modes.
That way you will have much more control over the colours.
Using blend modes will force rasterisation upon export but you can probably use the Shape Builder Tool to split the shapes and colour the parts independently if you want a vector result which can be resized nicely.

Yes we were just noticing that ...we can now see lots of light curves in the image that I assume are rasterisation 😞

But unfortunately we do not know how to re-create the image or to set up so the overlapped areas are a natural combination of the colours of each 'petal'!

[creativevision]

This is actually the original image ... and actually the underlying shape seems to be quite a simple 'bell' that has been replicated and placed around the canvas like flower petals. I've managed to select it with Affinity Photo but not sure how to create a blank one that I can colour as I wish and move around ... and also overlap and get natural colour overlap

 

 

[GarryP]

I’ve attached a quick video showing one simple way to get the shapes.
You might need to change the Blend Mode and/or colours as appropriate.
After the first duplication I use Power Duplicate to create the other copies.
There may be other – more subtle – things going on in the original so more tweaking might be necessary – e.g. probably colour gradients (lighter at the inside) instead of solid fills.

[creativevision]

6 hours ago, GarryP said:

I’ve attached a quick video showing one simple way to get the shapes.
You might need to change the Blend Mode and/or colours as appropriate.
After the first duplication I use Power Duplicate to create the other copies.
There may be other – more subtle – things going on in the original so more tweaking might be necessary – e.g. probably colour gradients (lighter at the inside) instead of solid fills.

 

Amazing!!! Thank you so much ... I cannot believe how well you explained it, managed to recreate exactly as per your video in 2 minutes. You really are a star!!

[GarryP]

You're welcome. Glad to help.