New and having issues refining design

[Anthony R]

Good evening.  

I have been trying to cut an AI generated design and have not been successful.  I need to remove the main design from its black background, and no  matter what Youtube tutorial I watch for which tool, I can not seperate the main object from its background.  I have only been using Affinity for a few days, so I am sure I am missing something.  Any help and direction would be greatly appreciated.  

Also, I am running the free trial for now and not sure if that may have something to do with it.

 

Thank you.

 

Anthony Riccardella

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Anthony R

The trial versions are the same as the ‘normal’ software except for the time limit.

There are lots of ways to do background removal and the ‘best’ way(s) will depend on what the image looks like, what you want to remove, and what you want to keep.

If you can share/upload an image, and give us details about what should be removed/kept, then we should be able to advise you further.

(If you can also tell us which Affinity application you are using then that would help as they have different capabilities.)

[Anthony R]

Good morning and thanks for gettring back to me.  I have attached the image below for greater clarity.  

methods I tried :

- the pen tool to outline the skull, refined it with the node tool, then cut and paste.  That just moved the entire image, not the outlined area.

- the selection brush in the Pixel Persona to highlight the area I wanted to keep, refined it,  then cut and paste.  That just resulted in copying the entire image and when the original was moved, the outline was still active in the original location, and unable to remove from the artboard.

- I used the elipse tool to create a circle around the skull, modified it with the contour tool to give it some width becasue I want the final design to be circular rather than square, and continued to try the above mentioned tools with the same results.

 

I appreciate your help with what is probably a blatently easy solution.

AnthonyR

Skull with pins for eyes and TFP logo.afdesign

[GarryP]

Thanks for the document.

The design you are working on contains an Image Layer which is part of an embedded document so you will need to edit that.

Here’s one possible workflow:

1. Double-click on the design in your original document to start editing the Embedded document.
2. Using the Layers Panel scroll down to the “laughing skull b.png” layer and select it.
3. Right-click on that layer in the Layers Panel and choose “Rasterise” (an image must be a Pixel Layer before you can successfully select from it).
4. Go to the Pixel Persona.
5. Select the Flood Select Tool and set a low (30-ish) Tolerance with Continuous set to ON.
6. Click anywhere on the black background.
7. Press the Del key.
8. Close the Embedded document to go back to the original.

[Anthony R]

That worked perfectly. Thank you.  See first attachment below. 

I have another one for you if you don't mind.

The other attachment (skull biting pin).  I seem to have made the skull and black square the background. As a result, I can not click on it to adjust it.  When I do, the outlined pin on the other artboard is highlited. I do not need that highlited figure but cannot get rid of it.  How can i make the skull accessable to manupilate? Once I do,  will i need to make it its own layer to create the logo, or can I just elimiate the black outside the cirlce lie we had before?

Thank you again.

 

AnthonyRskull with TFP and pins logo.afdesignskull biting pin with pins for eyes and TFP.afdesign

 

[Dan C]

Thanks for the file provided @Anthony R!

The 'skull biting pin' file has an active Pixel Selection over Artboard 2:

You can remove this 'marching ants' selection using Select > Deselect.

On 7/31/2024 at 12:13 AM, Anthony R said:

I seem to have made the skull and black square the background. As a result, I can not click on it to adjust it.  (...)  How can i make the skull accessable to manupilate?

The reason you cannot select this layer directly on your Artboards is due to the layer being Locked in the Layers Studio. Select this layer and click the padlock icon to unlock the layer - you'll now be able to select and move this layer as required:

Finally, I can see your design actually has 3 Artboards present, with Artboard 1 duplicated and moved over Artboard 2 on the left. 'Stacking' Artboard like this is not recommended as it can cause issues when moving objects etc. I'd recommend condensing the objects from the duplicated Artboard 1 to Artboard 2.

I've attached a copy of your file below where I've followed these 3 steps for you, meaning you should be able to continue editing as expected.

skull biting pin with pins for eyes and TFP_E.afdesign

I hope this helps

[Anthony R]

Thank you.  Both for the info and the correction.

I am still learning the program and find myself getting lost in the "clicks" sometimes.

 

Anthony