Illustrator/Painter Help: Need To Know If a Photoshop Method Works In Affinity Photo

[Cammi]

Hello all,

I am pretty new to Affinity Photo and don't really know much about how it works in comparison to Photoshop. I dislike subscriptions and am wanting to make the switch. The main reason that I use Photoshop is to paint in color an already traditionally inked out comic page or study that I then scan in. I use a method where I adjust the levels in order to make the drawing more crisp, select all of the channels, invert the selection so that the entire ink drawing is selected, add a new layer, and use the paint bucket tool to create a replica of the inked drawing onto a higher layer, doing this allows me to paint underneath the drawing. Is there a method I can use in Affinity that would accomplish similar results? This is the deciding factor for determining if Affinity is the right tool for me.

Please let me know and thank you in advance.

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Cammi

I’m not entirely sure what you are working with, or what your current process is, or why you perform the steps you do, but I’ve put a quick video together which shows one way to do what I think you are trying to do. (In the video, saving the selection is just a way to be able to get it back more quickly later, if necessary. You can also move the ‘fill layers’ below the ‘ink layer’ if necessary – not shown in the video, because I forgot and didn't want to record it again.)

If you can give us an example of what you start off with before you start the ‘filling process’ then we will have a better idea of how to help.

Note: I make no apologies for the blatant, and quite possibly humbling, demonstration of my amazing cartoon drawing ‘mad skillz’ in the video. (Wink wink.)

[Cammi]

Hello Garry and thank you for the help.

I tried this method and it doesn't seem to select all of the drawing - I have included some images on my process in Photoshop:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2023 by Cammi

[GarryP]

I don’t know what you mean by “select all of the drawing”.
Would you be able to show us some kind of mock-up, or the real thing if it’s available, where we can see the result of what you get in Photoshop.
It’s difficult to give a workflow for a technique when we can’t see what sort of result you want to get.
The more details you can give, the better we can help.

(I don’t use Photoshop so the images of your use of that don’t give me any useful information.)

[Cammi]

Here is the example file - I was able to open it on Affinity no problem with everything intact. From this file, you can see that there is a picture of an ink drawing as the base and then, using levels and another layer, I can paint underneath it:

Example.tif

[Oufti]

On 6/27/2023 at 2:10 AM, Cammi said:

I use a method where I adjust the levels in order to make the drawing more crisp, select all of the channels, invert the selection so that the entire ink drawing is selected, add a new layer, and use the paint bucket tool to create a replica of the inked drawing onto a higher layer, doing this allows me to paint underneath the drawing. Is there a method I can use in Affinity that would accomplish similar results?

I think you just have to process the same way…
(Finding where the equivalent functions are nested!)

Roughly done, and with a manual selection, could it be something like this ?

(Look at the History panel.  )

[henryanthony]

How about this: Transparent background, color layer, black layer on top.

Example01.tiff

 

[Cammi]

I will try these out. Thank you for the help!

[Bryan Rieger]

Hi @Cammi,

There's a few ways you could tackle this in Affinity Photo. I've attached an example of one way.

Open your scan in Affinity Photo. If you look at the example it's the 'Ink' layer (not my artwork, just grabbed off the internet for illustration purposes, ideally you'd start with a higher contrast scan). If you expand that layer you'll notice it contains two adjustment layers. One to adjust the Brightness/Contrast, and the other to make the image Black and White. If you turn off those adjustment layers (the circle at the right of each layer name) you can see the rough quality of the image/scan I started with.

From here you can then set the 'Ink' layer to multiply which will drop out the white and make the black mix with whatever colours are underneath. Then add whatever number of 'Colour' layers below which you can paint directly on. In this case I've crudely coloured the sweater.

Another option that can be very helpful, especially with high contrast scans is the Filter > Colours > Erase White Paper filter which does exactly what it says on the tin. If the scan needs clean up, it may not work as well, but I've found it to be pretty reliable. You can see the results on the same rough test image (without any adjustments) in the 'erase_white_paper.afphoto' file attached.

 

example.afphoto

erase_white_paper.afphoto

Edited June 29, 2023 by bug reports only
Added additional example.

[Cammi]

Excellent! This worked perfectly.