How to Bitmap Photos

[g0liver]

I am trying to bitmap a photo but I cannot find the option to do so. Is this a feature afinity photo or afinity designer offers?

[Paul Bravery]

I am trying to bitmap a photo but I cannot find the option to do so. Is this a feature afinity photo or afinity designer offers?

Hi g0liver, 

 

Welcome to the forum.  :)

This is not a feature yet. 

You can check here to see if it's included in this link: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/10410-common-feature-requests-index/ 

 

You can request it here, if it hasn't already been requested: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/6-feature-requests/

 

Hope this helps. 

P. 

[MEB]

Hi g0liver,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

I believe you are referring to tracing a photo? That is, turn a photo into vector objects?

If so this was already requested several times and is being considered for inclusion in Designer later in a future version.

As Paul Bravery pointed out it's already in the common feature requests list.

[Alfred]

I believe you are referring to tracing a photo? That is, turn a photo into vector objects?

 

I would call that "unbitmapping"! :P

[Fixx]

If OP asks about 1-bit bitmap art (line art) there is no such mode in AP (yet). I might form a request about it as there are really not many tools for 1-bit work out there (except PS).

[MEB]

Well spotted Fixx. That's probably what's the OP was referring to.

You're right, there's no bitmap mode in Affinity Designer/Photo. Feel free to post a request for this (with a clearer title).

[g0liver]

Thanks guys! I may have stated the question incorrectly. What I am trying to do is individualize the pixels by color so I can prepare the image for screen printing.

[Fixx]

If you have to have 1-bit bitmaps AP cannot make them I believe. As far as I know currently PS is only (!) app to handle 1-bit (you even can read comments that no one needs 1-bit anymore! :-D - which is false of course)

 

Of course you can make greyscale appear almost like line art, but when printed it is always halftoned which is especially unwanted.

 

One workaround is to convert to vector art where halftoning is not a problem (when sticking to B&W) but Affinity has no automatic tools for that.

[Alfred]

On 11/07/2016 at 10:12 AM, g0liver said:

Thanks guys! I may have stated the question incorrectly. What I am trying to do is individualize the pixels by color so I can prepare the image for screen printing.

 

It sounds as though you may be asking about producing colour separations. 

[Fixx]

If it is silk screen printing it is indeed about colour separations but NOT like ordinary CMYK.

[BobM10]

If it is possible to pick this thread up again (now that I have become interested in screen printing!), about the only reason to use PS is its very effective ability to split an image into channels and then to apply a half tone screen to each one separately at different angles.  The separations are true bitmap and only consist of black or white (no shades of grey) which is highly desirable/essential in preparing a screen stencil.  I guess demand is insufficient for this to be put into AP but there is a significant commercial market still for pure half tone screen separations. There is a very tedious and inferior workaround in AP which is to use the halftone filter on each of the separations and then apply threshold to get pure black and white but far from ideal.

[toltec]

Channels is exactly how I used to produce silk screen separations (decades ago) with sometimes up to ten colours . Although they tended to be spot colours, not screened. This was long before any specialised software was available.

 

Moved over to a specialised plug-in (at a price!) when available.

 

like these 

http://www.quikseps.com

http://www.ultraseps.com

 

I think the above are all plug ins for Photoshop, but this is separate. I believe.

https://softwareforscreenprinters.com/products/separation-studio/

 

I am interested in how you use the half tone filter.

 

As a thought, rather than using the half tone filter, could you not just turn each separation to grey, and let the normal halftone screening process work ?  50% grey equals a 50% dot, etc. Easy to adjust that by changing the grey level. I used to be able to override the screen angles on the imagesetter. Can your printer not do that ?

 

On imagesetter film it is all black or white. No matter what the colour was.

 

I am pretty sure you could use layers to do what you want. Post an example if you can.