Can noise be greater than 100% in Designer?

[Matt James]

I'm not sure if I'm asking this using the right terminology, but can noise in Designer be greater than 100%?

As an example:

I create a simple blue rectangle to use as a background on a website and change the noise to 100%. However, I want it to look more 'grainy' than this, so when setting it as the website background I have to 'zoom in' on the image. This does make it much more grainy, but the image also becomes very blurred as I'm now so zoomed in.

So is there a way to keep increasing the noise beyond 100%?

[Old Bruce]

3 minutes ago, Matt James said:

So is there a way to keep increasing the noise beyond 100%?

No.

4 minutes ago, Matt James said:

I want it to look more 'grainy'

One thing I will do on occasion is use the Perlin Noise filter on a pixel layer and choose a darken blend mode.

[Matt James]

6 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

No.

One thing I will do on occasion is use the Perlin Noise filter on a pixel layer and choose a darken blend mode.

Ah OK. So do you have any idea how people create images like this that are so heavily grained?

[Old Bruce]

I would start with the Perlin noise set to something like this

Then maybe add a levels Adjustment layer to bring up the contrast. I might also use a Blur Filter before or after (or both) after the Adjustment.

[BlueLiner]

Another trick might be to draw a rectangle at least as large as the object you want to pump up the noise on. Make it 50% Gray and max the noise on the fill. Change the layer to say Linear Light (try others as well -  used ) and make it a child of the object you want noisier so it is clipped. To make even heavier, rasterize the 50%gray rectangle and size up. Again try setting to OVERLAY, VIVID, LINEAR, etc.) As you resize the rectangle you will see the noise get chunkier. Keep in mind this noise is rasterized so it is best to do once the target object if sized properly. Consider just a small increase in size but duplicate, still clipped by the original object and reposition.

 

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

One thing I will do on occasion is use the Perlin Noise filter on a pixel layer and choose a darken blend mode.

How can you do that in AD?

[Matt James]

Thank you for the replies. Unfortunately I can't work out how to do a lot of what's described there!! 🤦🏻‍♂️ I'm pretty inexperienced with AD. I'll try Googling to see if I can follow the steps. Thanks.

[firstdefence]

There is a old trick I used in Photoshop when applying filters. So, instead of applying a single filter at 100% try creating several smaller percentage live noise filters (accessed via the layers panel see image below)

I find the Average blend mode seems to give a better rendition of noise, bear in mind noise, is not film grain, there is a difference. I suspect you are trying to emulate film grain using the noise filter and is very difficult to do to any reasonable standard. You also have all of the dynamics of each film type and the differences can be quite dramatic. The best plugin I know of for attaining a fair real grain look is imagenomics real grain plugin, which does work well with Affinity Photo.

Here is a sample file of an original image (Left), Imagenomics RealGrain filter (Fuji Superia 1600 applied) (Middle) and a Live Noise Filter applied @ 25% (right)

Noise and grain sample file.afphoto

[thomaso]

19 hours ago, Matt James said:

noise in Designer (…) more 'grainy'

Workaround: In AD / with Colour Panel noise only you could downscale + rasterize + upscale your noise layer to achieve larger noise in a separate noise layer.
If you need the noise for you plain "blue background" only you can do this workaround to the background object directly.

[David in Яuislip]

If it's for a website consider using an svg rectangle with a filter using <feTurbulence - Perlin noise, AD can't do it but Inkscape can
Here's a quick example with big lumps and smaller ones
The png which shows here is 22.5KB, the svg is 1.33

BlueNoise.svg

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, Matt James said:

Unfortunately I can't work out how to do a lot of what's described there!! 🤦🏻‍♂️ I'm pretty inexperienced with AD.

That's because some of what's been suggested like Perlin Noise & Live Filters requires features available in Affinity Photo but not in Affinity Designer.

[Matt James]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

That's because some of what's been suggested like Perlin Noise & Live Filters requires features available in Affinity Photo but not in Affinity Designer.

Ah! Makes sense thanks. 

[thomaso]

On 8/10/2023 at 5:57 PM, Matt James said:

any idea how people create images like this that are so heavily grained?

In ADesigner only like so for instance:

[R C-R]

FWIW, Perlin noise uses a procedural algorithm noted for its ability to generate realistic, natural looking noise patterns, but as already mentioned, creating Perlin noise patterns (using a Perlin noise filter or the more powerful procedural texture generator) is available only in Affinity Photo, not in Affinity Designer.