r_b Posted January 29 Posted January 29 After I develop a photo, I want to remove the white background. I am using the latest version of Affinity Photo 2.5 1c794 on Mac. I have found that if I use the flood tool fill immediately after developing the photo (a raw file from a fujifilm camera), the tool does not work. I found another topic where it was suggested to rasterize the image first. All other operations however seem to work without going through this extra step. I have found that if I first use the Background Erase Brush first and make a mark I can then switch back to the flood erase tool and it will begin to work. I would expect these tools to work consistently. The related issue is that because I have a white background I cannot see if I missed spots with the checkered background. A gray background instead of a checkered background would be much more useful. So I have to open the exported photo in Preview. If I have to reopen the image, I have to repeat the same steps above. This is cumbersome. Additionally the flood erase tool doesn't seem to retain the tolerance level, so every time I open it it defaults to 20% which is too high for my photos. I would like it to retain or a way to set a default tolerance level. I cannot find any info in the help related to this rasterizing step and I don't really understand what it would do. The steps I follow before developing the photo are simply setting the white point and cropping. I am trying to limit the amount of steps taken. My ultimate format is a png, and occassionaly I have had issues where the export step shows either no settings or a blue image. At this point I believe my .afphoto file is corrupted and I have to recreate it from the source raw file. Ideally my worflow is the following steps: Open raw file Set white point based on background Crop to size Develop Erase background using flood erase tool as the default selected erase tool (with a default or retained setting of say 7%) and have it show everything that is transparent as gray Touch up as needed by erasing non-contiguous spots or spots that were above the tolerance Save file Export as png (and not have the export screen without options, sometimes setting to jpg and then back to png fixes this) (and not have a blue export, this seems to mean there is some unknown unrecoverable corruption) The current workflow is something more like: Open raw file Set white point based on background Crop to size Develop Set tool to Background Erase Brush Make an erased mark somewhere in the image on the white background Switch to use the Flood Erase Tool Set the tolerance level to 7% Erase seen areas of white Save file Export as png (try switching to jpg if I don't see the export options) If I see the blue screen on the left instead of my image, I have to start over. Open the png in Preview on Mac Move Preview to different screen and eyeball the spots where more erasing needs to be done. Switch back to Affinity Photo 2 and select Background Erase Brush and blindly try and erase the missed spots Export and repeat Realize that the tolerance isn't working, adjust to 100% for Background Erase Brush and hope I get all the spots Export and repeat until I got most of the missed spots. Save file I have occasionally seen an Assistant pop-up saying it did something, but I don't know where to find a log of what it did. Some times when I apply the Flood Erase Tool it completely removes everything, and I have to start again. It is inconsistent and this seems irregular. Given I am trying to have a limited number of steps I don't want to add anything I don't understand, have good documentation on and that is inconsistent or unreliable. If after reading all this you can help guide me through the problems outlined to come up with a reliable and well-documented/understood workflow I would greatly appreciate it. Quote
Staff NathanC Posted January 30 Staff Posted January 30 Welcome to the forums @r_b, It sounds like you're outputting from the develop persona to a non-destructive RAW layer. RAW layers can't have their pixel content manipulated (such as deleting a background using flood erase) without rasterising the layer first. You can do this in the pre-develop by changing the Output to 'Pixel layer' along the context toolbar prior to pressing develop or when in the Photo persona by right click > rasterising the layer first. When you select the background erase tool and use it on the canvas the Assistant will automatically be taking an action first which is to rasterise the layer first, after which point the flood erase tool will function. Initially rasterising the layer or doing so in the develop persona will eliminate the need to do this. --- You may want to consider using an alternative tool to improve your workflow, such as using the Flood selection tool set to Contiguous to select your background (or select your subject and invert the selection) and delete or mask it out, as this can give you more control over what specific area is selected dependant on the tolerance setting pre-deletion. More info below. https://affinity.help/photo2/English.lproj/pages/Selections/selections_flood.html https://affinity.help/photo2/English.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_floodSelect.html Additionally, the 2.6 beta update has introduced the ML (Machine Learning) Object and Subject selection tools to automatically select the subject of your image to improve the efficiency of a targeted edit workflow, such as removing the background or subject isolation. If you use either of these tools -> select your subject you can then use the Select -> Invert Pixel selection command to inverse the selection from the subject to the background and then delete or mask as required. I've linked the Beta threads below which explain these in more detail as well as the 2.6 beta signup page if you'd like to give them a try. Beta signup: https://affinity.serif.com/affinity-beta-program/ Quote
r_b Posted Wednesday at 09:04 PM Author Posted Wednesday at 09:04 PM Great, thank you for the references. I will look at the flood selection tool as an alternative. Not sure that I am competent enough to beta test anything with this yet. The other issue I mentioned is the gray and white checkered transparency in the images, after say removing some background. 1. Is there a way to set the transparency to a gray solid color so that I can see white pixels? I need more contrast than white on white or a checkered gray and white when looking for the elusive white pixels. Some say more difficult to find than a Yeti in a snowstorm. 2. Is there a way to set tolerances as a default level or have them be retained after setting them the first time during an editing session? This would make it easier to do multiple images in a row without revisiting "good" tolerance levels. I also appreciate you coming up with more advanced tools. I am at a point where I want to make basic changes reliably and have more ideas of what I am actually doing and the criticisms have that in mind. Thank you for explaining the rasterization steps, as I really didn't see any good guide or info in the help. If there were more brains than I have (which admittedly is not much) to make the end goal easier and more reliable I am all for it. Thanks for offering great support. Quote
r_b Posted Wednesday at 09:57 PM Author Posted Wednesday at 09:57 PM I tried the flood select tool and was able to fine tune the selection, but then the delete didn't seem to work. I could still 'see' the background with an overlayed checkerboard. I went to use the flood erase and got rid of what I wanted to, then went to export and got that blue screen. See attached. Not sure what I did wrong. Quote
r_b Posted Thursday at 03:42 PM Author Posted Thursday at 03:42 PM After some testing, it seems that the blue export occurs inconsistently in that it will happen with one file, but not another. If I unselected the palettized option or choose something other than automatic for the color pallete then I see colors. However the other palettes don't seem to retain the transparency like the automatic does. I wonder if something gets corrupted in the .afphoto file that leads to the export issues. I can save say a "mac" color export, open up the png and then remove the black background and then resave the file with the automatic palette and I don't get the blue show up. I also have seen that attempting to switch between the palettes seems to some how hang the rendering indefinitely on occasion. I didn't see any documentation on the ( or the different palettes or what is happening exactly. I did see that when I don't use this feature the file is about 10x as big. Quote
Staff NathanC Posted 21 hours ago Staff Posted 21 hours ago Hi @r_b, On 2/5/2025 at 9:04 PM, r_b said: 1. Is there a way to set the transparency to a gray solid color so that I can see white pixels? I need more contrast than white on white or a checkered gray and white when looking for the elusive white pixels. Some say more difficult to find than a Yeti in a snowstorm. 2. Is there a way to set tolerances as a default level or have them be retained after setting them the first time during an editing session? This would make it easier to do multiple images in a row without revisiting "good" tolerance levels. The Transparency Grid colour can't be changed, but you could insert a temporary fill layer (Layer > New Fill Layer) set the fill colour to Grey and then position it to the very bottom of the layer stack. Prior to export you could then delete the fill layer. With no layer and the Flood fill tool selected, set your custom tolerance value and then go to Edit > Default > Save, this should hopefully retain it as the new default for documents. On 2/5/2025 at 9:57 PM, r_b said: I tried the flood select tool and was able to fine tune the selection, but then the delete didn't seem to work. I could still 'see' the background with an overlayed checkerboard. I went to use the flood erase and got rid of what I wanted to, then went to export and got that blue screen. See attached. Not sure what I did wrong. As far as I can from the screenshot of the canvas area behind the export window shows a fully transparent background, but it's difficult to say for certain without seeing the full .afphoto document. You can use the 'Info' panel to check the Alpha channel, if it's fully transparent the sampled area will be A= 0. I'd recommend just keeping 'Palletised' unchecked in the PNG export settings (Use the standard PNG Export preset). Quote
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