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I have a collection of stills that look like the attachment, many of them, that have to be altered.  Ideally I want to simply get rid of the white backgrounds.  Cropping only allows me to use specific square or rectangular shapes.  Is there a way I can draw a line around these two (or more) stacked photos, and delete or crop-out the white background?  Having the odd shape end result is not an issue.  I realise I could make a series of masks, but that seems like it will be a lot of work given I have to do this to scores of photos.

 

post-34634-0-83105900-1469672693_thumb.jpg

 

All the best,

 

Ben

 

 

(I've used this forum before numerous times, but had to resign up.  I recently had to move, canceled my local internet provider, lost my long-time email address, misplaced my old password, and the new link from Affinity was being sent to a defunct email address.  Thus re-signing up.)

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I can't see an option to perform an irregular crop without creating a mask. I'd be interested to know if it can be done.

 

(I've used this forum before numerous times, but had to resign up.  I recently had to move, canceled my local internet provider, lost my long-time email address, misplaced my old password, and the new link from Affinity was being sent to a defunct email address.  Thus re-signing up.)

 

You obviously can't reuse your original username, but you might want to change your new one to something which is less likely to attract spam.

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I am an Windows user so there is no APhoto for Windows yet. But, I suppose there should be a modifier key (CTRL, SHIFT, ALT) to add one selection to another like in Photoshop. So, if there is you should do this:

 

1. Select first picture starting from top left;

2. Press the modifier key and make another selection from down right to select the other picture.

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HI guys, I'm not sure I explained myself correctly.  There is only ONE piece of graphic, no layers.  And I'm looking for two things ... the proper tool to be able to select the two photos (though there is only one flat image, not two photos in layers) - separate from the white background (which is not actually another layer) - and then be able to delete the white 'background' that is only actually a faux background as we're only talking about one flat layer.  That's probably over-stating it.

 

I notice, looking at my attachment, that you can only see the two seemingly layered photos.  There is actually a white background to them I'm trying to get rid of (which doesn't show on the white background of the forum setup).

 

JimmyJack, I'm going to take a crack at what you've suggested... after I watch the tutorials on the 'selection tool', which I haven't quite figured out yet.  And will report back to you.

 

Petar ... I suspect you are right, but haven't figured out the modifier keys with Affinity yet.

 

Thank you guys...

 

Ben

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Like Petar, I'm on Windows and I don't have Affinity Photo yet, but the usual way to remove a solid background in an image editor is to select it with the Magic Wand Tool and then either simply delete it or invert the selection so that you can copy the rest of the image for pasting elsewhere.

 

If you want to make overlapping rectangular selections, try the Shift key as an 'add to selection' modifier and the Alt/Option key for 'subtract from selection'.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4 (iPad 7th gen)

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Ahhhhh. Okay.

 

At this point people may chime in with .... Use Erase White Paper!

Be very very careful. It is not one button magic, and could really screw you up. 

 

Doing a rectangular selection and then adding to it to separate the art and then recreating the drop shadow is the only full proof method I can think of. But still thinking.....

 

Actually you can avoid having to recreate the drop shadow by using Erase White Paper ONLY on the invert of the art selection.

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Like Petar, I'm on Windows and I don't have Affinity Photo yet, but the usual way to remove a solid background in an image editor is to select it with the Magic Wand Tool and then either simply delete it or invert the selection so that you can copy the rest of the image for pasting elsewhere.

 

If you want to make overlapping rectangular selections, try the Shift key as an 'add to selection' modifier and the Alt/Option key for 'subtract from selection'.

 

Magic Wand can be precize only if there is big difference between neighboor colors. Otherwise, you will have to make additional refinements to get what you want.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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Ben,

 

It should be fairly easy to use the Selection Brush tool to create a selection that is only the white area surrounding the overlapping photos plus the drop shadow behind them (if the screenshot is accurate & there really is one & you want to remove that too). Just make sure you use a small enough radius to make it easy to avoid selecting any part of the photos, make sure "Snap to edges" is selected, & make sure you drag the tool slightly into the drop shadow area to include that. If you accidentally select part of the photos, use the alt/option key to subtract that from the selection.

 

Once the white & (if present) drop shadow is selected, just tap the delete key. As long as "Transparent background" is selected in the Document menu, that will remove it.

 

Then, if you want, you can crop the document to remove any excess transparent area.

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Hi Ben,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

You can use the Rectangle tool (vector) to draw two rectangles (with no Fill) over the photos with precision. Then select both rectangles and go to menu Layer ▸ Geometry ▸ Add, to join them (you can customise the toolbar to include the Geometry Operations icons to speed this step up). You can copy this vector Layer to other documents and adjust the shapes with the Node Tool to adapt it to your other images/files. From here you have a few options:

 

- you can select the Pen Tool and click the Selection button on the context toolbar to convert the vector shape to a selection which you can then copy/paste on another doc (menu File ▸ New From Clipboard) with just the size of the selection and a transparent background.

 

- you can select the Pen Tool, click the Selection button on the context toolbar to convert the vector shape to a selection then invert it pressing ⇧ (shift) + ⌘ (cmd) + I, to delete the rest of the content pressing Delete/Backspace on your keyboard keeping the same document size.

 

- or you can select the Pen Tool and click the Mask button on the context toolbar to simply  convert the (vector) shape into a mask, automatically hiding all the rest of the content (non-destructive approach).

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