affinity designer Basic AD photo/bitmap masking

[gdenby]

User Sharkey wrote on 2/22/17:

 

"I would like to take one of my photographs and combine it with some of my words but not in regular boxes or lines.

 

An irregular very soft-edged area sufficiently transparent to allow the photograph to come through without any edges visible...

 

Can I do this in AP or do I need AD also?"

 

I responded w. a quick, make shift example of what could be done using only AD, Draw persona tools. There was little depth in the presentation. I am showing here what should be a easier to understand. This deals w. making an image fade away irregularly, not adding artistic text

 

I'm including a few samples of what might be done using the Pixel personna, but I am really not skilled enough with that mode to offer much.

 

The image below shows variations on a photo I took w. a cheap digital camera several years ago.

 

 

The caption 1 area shows the image and vector ellipses drawn on it, mostly over the central clump of trees. The ellipses have no fill, and red strokes for illustration purposes. As mask items the will be white filled and un-stroked.

 

Capt. 2 shows what happens when the circular ellipses are added together, and placed as a mask in the image layer. They have had a 7 pt. Gausian blur fx added to soften the border transition. Many of the later exaples will have the same blur.

 

NOTE: the areas within the vectors, no matter what tone, define what portions of the image will show. If the vector mask is made less opaque, the image will fade away proportionally. The terminology may be missleading. Translate "100 percent opacity" as "100 percent of masked image shows within the vector shapes."

 

I wanted to be able to retain some more of the underlying image. I made a reverse mask. I drew a rectangle the same size as the image, and then subtracted the added ellipse shape from it.

 

Area 3a shows the outer portion of the image w. a gradient transparency, and a HSL adjust ment layer.

 

Area 4 is the same, but using a Vibrance adjustment.

 

Another way to use vector shapes as a mask is to use the Layer menu item "Rasterize to mask." In sect. 5, the vectors have been added, and filled w. a radial gradient. After rasterization, this is then added to the image as a mask, producing panel 6.

 

The ellipses can also be made various grey tones, so that when grouped and rasterized to mask, each circle gives a slightly different effect. Thus, panel 7

 

Number 8 is all Pixel personna work. I made a selection of the central tree clump, and refined the selected area. The selection was inverted. Added an oval mask, and various adjustments to dimish the central area.

 

9 was made by placing erase blend mode ellipses over the image, and modifying those with elliptical transparency gradients. Those were then placed over a vector rectangle filled w. a radial gradient based on colors sampled from the image.

 

Artistic text letters, converted to curves, can as easily be placed on the image, or even used as the mask elements defining the image.

 

Adding: