Best way to use this program to edit simple pre-existing writing & imagery...?

[iamlaurynnnicole]

Hi there, n00b warning here!

Firstly, I tried hunting around but I'm finding myself a bit cross-eyed trying to figure this out.  Admittedly, I am not used to editing programs like this and perhaps naively thought this would be a super simple thing - a little overwhelmed as I'm on a deadline!  Asking for your grace & to help a super noob out!!!

Just downloaded the program to beautify some bookmarks & art I've made, but no real idea what I'm doing. I'm largely just looking to clean up the writing and background that got screwed up, see photo (just cus people love to comment: please ignore the nature of the image if you don't like Jesus lol just focus on the aesthetics pls & ty!😅).  

Can anyone walk me through this or point me to some sweet pre-existing beginner resources that would likely deal with this siiimply? Appreciate it!!

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @iamlaurynnnicole

On 8/7/2024 at 6:40 PM, iamlaurynnnicole said:

Just downloaded the program

Which application(s) did you download? There are three Affinity applications, Photo (generally pixel-based work), Designer (generally vector-based work) and Publisher (generally desktop publishing).

Each application has functionalities which doesn’t exist in the others and, because of this, we need to know what functionalities you have available to you before giving you advice.

On 8/7/2024 at 6:40 PM, iamlaurynnnicole said:

I'm largely just looking to clean up the writing and background

What do you mean by “clean up”? We don’t know how to differentiate what we can see from what you don’t think should be there, so we can’t know what you want to get rid of, or what you want to keep, or how it’s not “clean” enough.

On 8/7/2024 at 6:40 PM, iamlaurynnnicole said:

a little overwhelmed as I'm on a deadline!

I’m also curious as to why are you “on a deadline” with something you have never done before? Jumping into a swimming pool at the deep end in the hope that you will quickly learn how to swim isn’t always a good idea.

[Dan C]

Welcome to the Affinity Forums @iamlaurynnnicole!

Using your image, I did the following in Affinity Photo 2:

• Duplicate layer
• Filters > Frequency Separation (35px)
• Duplicate 'High Frequency' layer
• Filters > Diffuse Glow (0.1px, 100%, 40%, 100%
• Set blend mode to Darken
• Alt-Click on layer (this allows you to view and edit this layer separately)
• Use the Inpainting Tool / Clone Tool to remove the outer edge and other imperfections
• Add a Levels Adjustment (15%, 100%, 2, 0%, 90%)
• Select the 'Low Frequency' layer
• Filters > Noise > Dust and Scratches (100%, 0)
• Right click top-most layer and select Merge Visible
• Hide all other layers
• Add a HSL Adjustment
  Set the Red Channel to -26, -10%, 0
  Set the Yellow Channel to 0, 3%, 5%
• Add a Levels Adjustment (10%, 90%, 1, 0%, 100%)
• Add a Brightness and Contrast Adjustment (20%, 50%)
• Crop and Rotate to suit
• Export to the format required

This resulted in the following:

You can find a copy of the .afphoto file below, which I have saved with 'History' enabled - meaning you can use the slider in the History Studio to scroll back and preview each of these steps in your file:

biblebookmark.afphoto

There are likely other methods to achieve this which other forum members may provide, but the above should hopefully be relatively 'beginner friendly'.

I hope this helps

[thomaso]

Many roads lead to Rome, Amsterdam, Beijing, Delhi, Gaza, Jericho, Mecca, Nazareth, New York, … Here is one that also changes colour.

• Black & White Adjustment to reduce yellow and red.
• Levels Adjustment to darken the black result.
• Colour Overlay Effect to colourize the text.
• Blend Mode Multiply to let a background shine through.

bookmark.afpub