Generating a simple binary image

[klancaster]

I have tried any number of ways to generate a simple black-and-white image using Affinity Designer and I'm not having any luck. It seems that no matter what settings I use, I get interpolated values between the white foreground box in my image and the black background. At present, I'm having to open the image in Gimp and do a threshold operation just to get the output that I want. What am I missing? This seems like it would be a reasonably simple thing to do.

[R C-R]

The lowest color format Affinity supports is 8 bit gray ("Gray/8" on AD's Document Setup > Color tab). So any raster image or rasterized shape will have anti-aliased edges at transitions that are not exactly horizontal or vertical and pixel aligned.

 

As far as I know, the best you are going to be able to do is either use the Pixel persona Pixel tool for drawing or the paint bucket tool to fill in marquee selections, and/or confine yourself to unrotated rectilinear shapes. Make sure "Force pixel alignment" is enabled.

[Alfred]

When I apply a Threshold adjustment to an image placed in an Affinity Designer document, I get the expected black and white result without any interpolated values.

[R C-R]

Thanks Alfred!

 

I never thought about using the Threshold adjustment for this. It works very well.

[Alfred]

Thanks Alfred!

 

I never thought about using the Threshold adjustment for this. It works very well.

 

It seemed the obvious thing to do, given that the OP says: "I'm having to open the image in Gimp and do a threshold operation". ;)

[klancaster]

Thanks Alfred and R-C-R! Applying the threshold worked perfectly. Obviously, I am new at working with Affinity Designer and Photo, and I'm still exploring the features. I had seen the threshold command previously, but was a little unsure as to how to use it. I do find that while the applications are good, there really could be better documentation of some features. In any case, thanks again. The thresholding does exactly what I needed.

[Alfred]

Thanks for the feedback, klancaster! When I first read your original post, I thought you were saying that you had actually tried the Threshold adjustment in AD but it hadn't produced the expected result, so you had to do it in Gimp instead.