Control Your Selections with the Refine Tool : Affinity Photo Tutorial

[TrentL]

The Selection Brush tool is a powerful way to isolate objects in Affinity Photo. But you can get even better results with the Refine feature. We’ll look at both tools in this video, and also explore some extra tips for error-checking our masks. 

 

 

[PaulWall]

I think i have identified the issue. I watched the above video which confirmed i was taking the right steps, but still seeing the same problem. However whilst watching the video it dawned on me that i was working on a photo which i had cropped in the Develop Persona (to  isolate the person in the portrait more) prior to 'developing' it to the Photo Persona. I wondered if this was causing problems.  So i started afresh from the RAW file and without cropping, developed it to the Photo Persona. This time the selection process worked exactly as it should.

So it looks like cropping somehow is interfering with the resultant selection process. There may be a known reason for this and a sequence you should not take, but in all the tutorials i have watched on the Selection process, i have never heard this mentioned.

Regardless, thanks for your reply to my question. It indirectly helped my work our where the problem lay.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, PaulWall said:

So it looks like cropping somehow is interfering with the resultant selection process. There may be a known reason for this and a sequence you should not take, but in all the tutorials i have watched on the Selection process, i have never heard this mentioned.

Cropping in Photo is non-destructive, and the cropped portion of the image can always be restored. This will cause issues, sometimes, and for those times, Layer > Rasterize & Trim  (or right-clicking the layer in the Layers panel and choosing that action) will make the crop a destructive one. You might try that to see if it resolves your problem, too.

[PaulWall]

Thanks for the comments. I have tried cropping in Photo rather than Develop and indeed the Selection tool then works as expected on the cropped photo. A lesson learnt!

[drkanukie]

Thanks Trent this really upped my understanding in this area. Hopefully we get AI based background removal soon as this process is so common and time consuming. Your tutorial style is excellent. I'm going through your Youtube channel now lots of great stuff.