Creating A Manual Color Matching Bleed Around An Object That Has Multi Colored Edges - ie: Mimic What Cricut Design Space Does With Their Bleed

[swvinageon1]

Hello.  I am trying to mimic the built in "Bleed" function that you can select in "Cricut Design Space" when you print your design prior to cutting it out on the Cricut machine.  The Cricut software actually extends the edges of your object about 1/16 on an inch, all around, so that when the blade cuts out the object there is NO white color showing after the cut.  The "Bleed" that Cricut applies in NOT a solid color border, it actually has every color present at the edge of your object. 

I know how to do an offset and add a solid border but this NOT what I want to do.  I found a video where a person actually mimics the "Cricut Bleed" function by manually adding a color matching "Bleed" to the object but they use "Photoshop" and it worked well when my friend tried it on their PC (ie: with PS).  I have a link to the video on "Youtube" that shows the person adding the manual "Bleed" in preparation for cutting a larger than normal object on a Cricut machine.  I tried the process in Affinity Photo 2, but the portion requiring the use of "Content Aware Fill" does NOT work when I use the "In Painting Brush".  Would any of you like to review video and shed some light on how to possibly accomplish the same thing using Affinity Photo 2?  

 

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Which Affinity application (and version) are you using?

[swvinageon1]

Affinty Photo 2, version 2.4.0

[Callum]

HiSwvinageon1,

Welcome to the forums

I'm not sure if I have fully understood what you are looking for but I believe the attached screen recording should explain how to do this in Affinity. If you have any trouble following it or have any questions feel free to post them here and I'll get back to you asap.

Thanks
C

 

[thomaso]

@Callum, the workflow with an upsized layer copy works fine for rectangular images and certain shapes only. It appears to fail if the shape changes its angle or with details in an aspect ration other than square/circle … see what happened to the feet/toes …

… or the stem of this pear:

(the required solution would rather work like AD's Contour Tool with vector + combined with APh's Inpainting Brush or Fill.)

[Alfred]

12 hours ago, thomaso said:

see what happened to the feet/toes …

A tardigrade or water bear (Bärtierchen oder Wasserbär) generally has claws, but I don’t think it has feet or toes as such.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

has claws, but I don’t think it has feet or toes as such.

Ah, good point (stroke?) well clawed, therefore they aren't bleeding   😉
[… but might be haemolymphing as such: "The closest recent relatives of the tardigrades are probably arthropods (Arthropoda) and stubby-footed animals (Onychophora)"]

[NotMyFault]

I would suggest this simple approach 

1. duplicate layer
2. Add Gaussian blur between
3. add levels adjustment
4. choose alpha
5. set white level to zero

this gives a nice bleed around the main object.

[NotMyFault]

The zoom blur gives an even better effect, unfortunately only available as destructive filter.

The center is fixed to center of canvas, so arrange layer to be centered within canvas.

 

[Alfred]

6 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

The zoom blur gives an even better effect, unfortunately only available as [a] destructible filter.

*destructive

[NotMyFault]

@Alfred My guardian angel of orthography and grammar

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, NotMyFault said:

• add levels adjustment
• choose alpha
• set white level to zero

Clever! – Do you know why the alpha adjustment has no effect when it's nested inside the blurred layer, but only outside/above it?

[David in Яuislip]

What I did:
Select base layer
<ctrl>J and do +2 on the transform panel width with center point selected and aspect ratio locked
<ctrl>J 20 times
Select all the layers above the base layer and <ctrl>G
Select all the layers within the group
Arrange/Move outside - this reverses the order, well it does on V1
<ctrl>G

Now we have an effect similar to what NotMyFault achieved in far fewer clicks but I prefer the owl who's called Daisy

[NotMyFault]

59 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Clever! – Do you know why the alpha adjustment has no effect when it's nested inside the blurred layer, but only outside/above it?

Thanks.

did not try, but at least it must be nested to masking position (not child) allowing to impact alpha channel, and this specific combination was broken in V1.

[thomaso]

19 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

Now we have an effect similar to what NotMyFault achieved in far fewer clicks but I prefer the owl who's called Daisy

No. As noted for @Callum's example, simply scaling doesn't solve the problem, unless for pure squared or convex image content. This is one reason why AD requires the "Contour Tool" or "Expand Stroke" instead of simple scaling a shape vs. increasing its stroke. For a scaled result the object's aspect ratio + its various angles may matter a lot.

This is why blurring helps as workaround for a missing inpainting feature to fill empty areas correctly: Blur increases to all sides/directions whereas scale works in one direction only. The level/alpha adjustment is used to convert the transparency caused by the blur back to full opacity in the bleed area.