Luke St. Everything Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 I'm a casual user of Affinity and there's a lot I don't understand (or need to). But I'm trying to convert a colour image to grey scale but without numerous levels of grey. Ideally I would like the image to covert to 6 shades of grey that are clearly outlined from each other. Is this possible and if so can anyone help me to achieve it. Many thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Optische Ausrichtung Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 Add a layer "Soft proof Adjustment". Choose a Generic Grey Profile as Proof Profile. Add a layer "Posterize Adjustment". Choose 6 Posterize Levels. Export as Greyscale Image Luke St. Everything 1 Quote Ich hoffe, ich erlebe es noch, dass die deutschen Anführungszeichen in Affinity Publisher korrekt funktionieren. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarryP Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 I think a good answer would depend on which six levels of grey and which colours/tints relate to which of those levels. In the meantime, you could add a Posterise Adjustment (with 6 levels) and a Black & White Adjustment to the image/layer – see attached image. Optische Ausrichtung, RichardMH and Luke St. Everything 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke St. Everything Posted April 24 Author Share Posted April 24 Thank you so much for taking the time to help me. I'll certainly try this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke St. Everything Posted April 24 Author Share Posted April 24 26 minutes ago, Optische Ausrichtung said: Add a layer "Soft proof Adjustment". Choose a Generic Grey Profile as Proof Profile. Add a layer "Posterize Adjustment". Choose 6 Posterize Levels. Export as Greyscale Image Thank you so much for taking the time to help me. I'll certainly try this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David in Яuislip Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 Try a gradient map, a little fussy to create but you get to choose where the tone splits are rather than rely on posterise which I've never had much luck with. The gradient map is in the psd as they can't be exported, at least I don't know how to GradMap.psd Luke St. Everything, Ldina and walt.farrell 3 Quote Microsoft Windows 11 Home, Intel i7-1360P 2.20 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Iris Xe Affinity Photo - 24/05/20, Affinity Publisher - 06/12/20, KTM Superduke - 27/09/10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 7 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said: The gradient map is in the psd as they can't be exported, at least I don't know how to. I'm curious why you're sharing it as a .psd rather than an Affinity format such as .afphoto. But for an exported format, "TIFF with Affinity Layers" or PSD may be the only choices. Luke St. Everything 1 Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.5, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David in Яuislip Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said: I'm curious why you're sharing it as a .psd rather than an Affinity format such as .afphoto. Gotta think of the forum server space 8,533 GradMap.afphoto 4,618 GradMap.psd walt.farrell 1 Quote Microsoft Windows 11 Home, Intel i7-1360P 2.20 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Iris Xe Affinity Photo - 24/05/20, Affinity Publisher - 06/12/20, KTM Superduke - 27/09/10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 1 hour ago, David in Яuislip said: Gotta think of the forum server space 8,533 GradMap.afphoto 4,618 GradMap.psd A little smaller for me (using 2.5 beta), but interesting. Thanks. David in Яuislip 1 Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.5, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 18 hours ago, Luke St. Everything said: Ideally I would like the image to covert to 6 shades of grey that are clearly outlined from each other. If you want to have exactly 6 levels then you need to combine the Posterize adjustment with Gradient and Black & White adjustments (the last one being useful when working with a color image). The exact number of levels will then be determined by the Posterize adjustment while the Gradient adjustment determines the color scale. With Black & White adjustment you can determine the brightness level of primaries and how they interact with the defined gradient: exactnumberofshades.mp4 You can use the Histogram to check the number of levels in the image, or create a document palette (note that only max 64 tones/colors will be created). Often it is also necessary to add a solid layer at the bottom of the design (I suppose in situations an image has partial transparencies). If exact number of levels is not required, then the shown methods will produce appearance of decreased levels and are adequate. Luke St. Everything and Ldina 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke St. Everything Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 A big thank you to everyone who helped me. I've now achieved exactly what I wanted thanks to you. I really do appreciate your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarryP Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 You’re welcome. Just out of interest, and for anyone else wanting to do the same sort of thing, which approach did you find most useful? Luke St. Everything 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke St. Everything Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 There was one a found too technical for me but I did experiment with a few. I settled on your response and to some extent I was influenced by the pic. you included that demonstrated exactly what I wanted to achieve. I did raise the contrast a little before proceeding but I don't know if it was relevant to the outcome. The point is that I got what I was looking for. Thank you again for the really useful help. GarryP 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 3 hours ago, lacerto said: If you want to have exactly 6 levels then you need to combine the Posterize adjustment with Gradient and Black & White adjustments Why doesn't the Gradient Map with just 6 levels (suggested above by David) do it? Luke St. Everything 1 Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.5, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 17 hours ago, walt.farrell said: Why doesn't the Gradient Map with just 6 levels (suggested above by David) do it? My experience is that there will always be intermediate tones besides those specified in the Gradient Map adjustment. The stray tones can especially be seen when using color images. In context of black and white images this does not normally show, so if exact number of levels is not important (and it often is not, as images are normally not viewed at pixel level), the shown methods would be fine (though setting up a kind of accurate stepwise gradient is rather tedious). In low-resolution images, sporadic intermediate tones, even grayscale, are of course more easily discernible. intermediatetones.mp4 David in Яuislip, Luke St. Everything, walt.farrell and 1 other 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David in Яuislip Posted April 26 Share Posted April 26 My previous gradient map was sloppy as the stop points between the regions didn't coincide so I fixed that Now this below shows both of them over a sort of spectrum gradient. Exporting the exact gradient I got 8 colors rather than 6 so at great risk to my sanity I scanned across the bands and the figures show the results. The bands with 2 numbers have 1px wide strips spoiling the effect, only forensic scientists and nutters will notice, normal people are immune. As lacerto notes, a posterise layer is needed and it is all very tedious Colours counted thus: magick Greys-6exact.png -format '%k' info: '8' magick Greys-6exactPosterised.png -format '%k' info: '6' Happy friday! lacerto and Luke St. Everything 2 Quote Microsoft Windows 11 Home, Intel i7-1360P 2.20 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Iris Xe Affinity Photo - 24/05/20, Affinity Publisher - 06/12/20, KTM Superduke - 27/09/10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke St. Everything Posted April 27 Author Share Posted April 27 Crikey, what have I started. All really interesting and helpful so thank you all. lacerto and David in Яuislip 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.