affinity photo Teaching Myself Affinity Photo-Steel Mill In A Thunderstorm

[2112st]

Man. Working on those chimney stacks was NOT easy. Affinity Photo isn't a very intuitive program, and I made A LOT of mistakes. I took on a project that was a lot tougher than I bargained for-but that's mainly due to my ignorance with the program. Using the Lasso Select Tool, I was trying to select areas in the chimney photo so when I copied that layer, I could paste it seamlessly onto the lightning layer. As you can see, I missed some spots. I might try cleaning them up later. Sure, I downloaded over a dozen tutorial videos and watched them, but you have to get in there with the program and get your hands dirty. And you have to figure out solutions yourself, because they’re not always going to be available in the tutorials. It’s trial and error. But that’s how you learn. There’s no easy way.

 

[prophet]

I'm always an advocate for "self masking" if the image has the right properties: good contrast, simple background.

Duplicate the image, make as many adjustments as needed to get it pure black and white, invert and mask. Then touch up as needed.

[2112st]

1 minute ago, prophet said:

I'm always an advocate for "self masking" if the image has the right properties: good contrast, simple background.

Duplicate the image, make as many adjustments as possible to get it pure black and white, invert and mask. Then touch up as needed.

I'm still learning about masking and layering, which is why I picked such a difficult subject. Trial and error. 

[prophet]

Just now, 2112st said:

I'm still learning

As are we all. Keep up the good work.

[2112st]

2 minutes ago, prophet said:

As are we all. Keep up the good work.

I really need to clean up those remaining blue areas. I have to figure out how to do that properly...

[Komatös]

9 minutes ago, 2112st said:

Affinity Photo isn't a very intuitive program, and I made A LOT of mistakes. I took on a project that was a lot tougher than I bargained for-but that's mainly due to my ignorance with the program.

In a way, every new program you learn is unintuitive. However, once you have familiarized yourself with the program, many of the operations are almost automatic.

And I think the end result is a success. It could come from a cyberpunk universe.  

[prophet]

If you post the original image, there are likely few here that would be happy to take a crack at it and show you their techniques.

[2112st]

5 minutes ago, Komatös said:

In a way, every new program you learn is unintuitive. However, once you have familiarized yourself with the program, many of the operations are almost automatic.

And I think the end result is a success. It could come from a cyberpunk universe.  

Thanks. I still want to get in there further and get rid of the remaining blue areas. It could be better.

[2112st]

1 minute ago, prophet said:

If you post the original image, there are likely few here that would be happy to take a crack at it and show you their techniques.

Okay-the original images...

[prophet]

My workflow. Would obviously take some more time to clean up the mask and maybe use the Refine Mask to tighten up the edges a little.

 

[2112st]

16 minutes ago, prophet said:

My workflow. Would obviously take some more time to clean up the mask and maybe use the Refine Mask to tighten up the edges a little.

 

Screen Recording 2024-08-08 at 1.35.10 PM.mov 203.34 MB · 0 downloads  

Wow. THANKS! I'm going to study the hell out of this video. 😀

[prophet]

Happy to help.

[Ldina]

@prophet's approach is one very good way to build a mask.

Another possible approach: With skies, the Blue Channel provides good separation between the steel mill and the bright blue sky:

Create a Grayscale Layer (from Channels panel) using the blue channel as your source.

Apply an aggressive, steep curve to the blue channel grayscale layer to force all the sky white and all (or about 98%) of the mill to black.

Duplicate this layer and Rasterize to Mask. (Hide the original layer you duplicated as a backup, in case you want to go back and tweak it)

You will still have some minor mask cleanup to do around the tall smokestack and the tower to the left. You can do that with many different tools (pen, selection marque, brush, etc).

Here is a screen shot, and I als uploaded an afphoto file so you can (hopefully) see what I did. This is just one of many ways to approach it.

BTW, is that the Sloss Furnace in Birmingham, Alabama?

Mill and Sky.afphoto

[2112st]

2 minutes ago, Ldina said:

@prophet's approach is one very good way to build a mask.

Another possible approach: With skies, the Blue Channel provides good separation between the steel mill and the bright blue sky:

Create a Grayscale Layer (from Channels panel) using the blue channel as your source.

Apply an aggressive, steep curve to the blue channel grayscale layer to force all the sky white and all (or about 98%) of the mill to black.

Duplicate this layer and Rasterize to Mask. (Hide the original layer you duplicated as a backup, in case you want to go back and tweak it)

You will still have some minor mask cleanup to do around the tall smokestack and the tower to the left. You can do that with many different tools (pen, selection marque, brush, etc).

Here is a screen shot, and I als uploaded an afphoto file so you can (hopefully) see what I did. This is just one of many ways to approach it.

BTW, is that the Sloss Furnace in Birmingham, Alabama?

Mill and Sky.afphoto

No; these are the Steel Stacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I had taken a number of photos there with my Canon EOS 80D-and I plan to do more photography. Using what you folks have shown me here, i want to try even more complex compositions.

A question-if you wanted to change the hues  in the smokestack layer, how would you go about it?

[Ldina]

8 minutes ago, 2112st said:

No; these are the Steel Stacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Ah...thanks. Looks a lot like Sloss Furnace in Birmingham, AL!! I've taken lots of photos there over the years.

8 minutes ago, 2112st said:

A question-if you wanted to change the hues  in the smokestack layer, how would you go about it?

You already have a mask for the sky. So you can use that mask (inverted if necessary) and use HSL, Selective Color, Curves or other adjustment layers to effect only the steel mill layer. If the stormy sky layer and mask are ABOVE your still mill (as in my version), you don't even need a separate mask. Just use your HSL, selective color or other adjustment layer and place it in the Layer stack directly above the steell mill. Since this adjustment layer is below the sky, it won't affect it. I hope that made sense. 

[prophet]

5 minutes ago, Ldina said:

as in my version

In my version, the new sky is on the bottom layer, so you would nest Adjustments into the Mill image or group adjustments and image layer together.

[Ldina]

Here's a revised afphoto file. I added a Selective Color Adjustment Layer above the background image. I overdid the adjustment a LOT so the effect was obvious. 

Since the selective color adjustment is below the sky layer, and above the background, it only impacts the background. No mask required for the Selective Color adjustment because of the way the layer stack is set up.

EDIT: BTW, mastering the Layers Panel, masking, nesting layers, layer order, etc, is extremely important in learning Affinity Photo (Designer and Publisher too). Check out the many excellent Tutorials portion of this forum (Browse > Forums > Tutorials > Affinity Photo). Some subjects are covered only in the legacy Version 1 tutorials, but are mostly still valid, with some changes here and there. You can also find loads of great tutorials on YouTube. 

Mill and Sky.afphoto

[2112st]

Thanks everyone for all your help! It's GREATLY appreciated!! 😃

[Komatös]

14 hours ago, 2112st said:

Thanks everyone for all your help! It's GREATLY appreciated!! 

You are welcome!

I took the liberty of creating an apocalyptic version from the images you provided.

 

[2112st]

3 hours ago, Komatös said:

You are welcome!

I took the liberty of creating an apocalyptic version from the images you provided.

 

Sweet! I need to take a deep dive into masking. I've downloaded a number of videos to study.

[Murfee]

Hi @2112st

An alternative method with no masks

Masks are great and I use them a lot, but if the new background that you are using is darker than the original, the mask can leave white edges, this is not an Affinity issue, Photoshop did the same last time I used it.

I used the selection brush to select the sky, in this image it was easier than selecting the foreground. Invert the Pixel Selection (this is only needed if the foreground is not selected) then go into refine, make sure you have a good selection. In the output box select new layer and apply... the result is a nice clean foreground with no white edges.

Put this layer above the sky layer.

To change the hues of the mill I added a gradient map, selected the colours from the sky and changed the blend mode, in this case I used reflect.

The attached took about 5 minutes from start to finish.

Mill & Lightning test.afphoto

 

[2112st]

On 8/8/2024 at 1:41 PM, prophet said:

My workflow. Would obviously take some more time to clean up the mask and maybe use the Refine Mask to tighten up the edges a little.

 

Screen Recording 2024-08-08 at 1.35.10 PM.mov 203.34 MB · 4 downloads  

Hi prophet,

I'm confused about something at the 0:42 mark. Note the screen grabs below. How did you invert the chimney section so you could do the clean-up via the eraser? I didn't see how you did that in the video.

[Komatös]

3 hours ago, 2112st said:

How did you invert the chimney section so you could do the clean-up via the eraser?

The inverted display occurs automatically when a masking layer is dragged onto another layer. Only black or white brush color is used on the masking layer, but not the eraser. Black covers, white reveals.
You can select large areas on the masking layer with the freehand selection tool and then fill this selection with white.

[2112st]

19 minutes ago, Komatös said:

The inverted display occurs automatically when a masking layer is dragged onto another layer. Only black or white brush color is used on the masking layer, but not the eraser. Black covers, white reveals.
You can select large areas on the masking layer with the freehand selection tool and then fill this selection with white.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, it didn't happen for me. See attached video. I want to clean up the sky.

[carl123]

6 minutes ago, 2112st said:

I want to clean up the sky.

Right-click the layer and select Edit Mask