Composite Workflow

[mur_phy]

A bit of background related to the topic. As a custom knife collector for 36+ years, upon the arrival of the digital photography age, I began photographing my own collection. Since about 2001 I have used DIP Pro and DIP 2006 by MS which has since been discontinued. A couple years ago, I began using ON 1 and then when RAW came out decided I would continue but then learned of Affinity and am now immersed in the Help & Videos.

 

To shorten the story, I am trying to develop my own workflow and will have it put into a .rtf file of my creation because I may not be doing the numbers of images that I have done in the past and will likely forget.

 

Now, I am going to attach a file to show part one which happens to have the signature attached as I asked about that in another topic.

 

In this image, I made a very basic highlight/contrast adjustment to a duplicate background as an added layer. Next as I often do, I added a new layer which is a lens blur. Here is when I ran into some difficulty.

 

In ON 1 I can add top and bottom and rotate so most of the image except the subject itself is blurred and then I can paint-in areas that are not already covered and if I make a bit of a mistake in coverage, by using X to change to paint-out it is relatively easy to adjust the final image.

 

When I began to do something similar in Affinity, after adding the lens blur, I used the Erase Brush Tool but there does not seem to be any means by which I can correct an area where I erased and should not have. (Easy to make a mistake when working around sharp edges.)

 

When doing this I did put snapping on but not sure if that is the correct thing to do. The area in question is just below the edge near the tip of the knife.

 

So, is there any way to paint back in when using Erase Brush or did I use the wrong tool or method to accomplish the task? If I did use the incorrect method, what is a better method?

 

Also, normally the next thing I would also want to do would be to deepen down the background although this could be done prior to the blur.

 

Because two things are being applied to the same area, I am now thinking that I might be better to select the subject and then Invert and use an exposure adjustment to reduce the background exposure and then do the blur.

 

The main thing here that I must consider is to select the subject including the shadow as while I don't mind if it were to have some blur, I don't necessarily wish to have it become darker like the background as that would not be natural.

 

While I mentioned that this topic is a composite, I just wanted to begin with working on my base image first and then I will try to add some other views of the knife -- in this case one that is closed and maybe one or two showing the spine of the back spring.

 

After that I will get into another image that has more diverse things done which I had to use two programs to accomplish the task which I hope can be done in Affinity on its own. Maybe I will do it as an new topic but that is for later once I have this portion tackled effectively. TIA

 

So far I have not seen any response but the topic has garnered some views. I did come across this tutorial

 

 

which is doing something similar to what I want to accomplish so I will review it and make notes but I still did not see any way to reverse what the eraser tool may have removed too much of. Perhaps the best bet is to work with the Selection Brush.

 

Any thoughts by others will be appreciated.

[Callum]

Hi Murphy,

 

The only way to reverse the Erase Brush Tool is to go to Edit > Undo whenever you make a mistake you can also use CMD + Z for this or CTRL + Z on Windows :)

[anon1]

Hi Murphy,

 

The only way to reverse the Erase Brush Tool is to go to Edit > Undo whenever you make a mistake you can also use CMD + Z for this or CTRL + Z on Windows :)

well actually no, if you use the eraser on a mask or on an embedded mask of a filter like the blur filter it behaves just like black paint

 

so to paint the effect back, just paint white

 

the correct approach is to not use the erase brush

just use black an white brushes on masks and you can also do greyscale for shadings 

 

of course you can use the same mask for a blur and for an exposure adjustment 

 

 

let me know if you have further questions or if you need more detailed explanations 

 

cheers