Distressed look on a vector image

[Chris M..]

Hello all,

 

Im trying to achieve a distressed look on an American flag for a client, which is proving to be troublesome for me.

 

I have an SVG file of the American flag, redid the color scheme per client request, and 

I am having trouble editing/erasing/distressing the texture on the flag. 

 

The WIP is attached, but is ultimately unable to achieve what is needed. 

The second attachment is what the client is specifically looking for.

 

So basically, I need a vector flag with distress on the image (to simulate wear & tear), 

and retain a transparent background in between the lines, if that makes any sense.

 

Any pointers or advice would be greatly appreciated, 

 

Thanks

American Flag Distressed.pdf

[DWright]

Hi Cjmahlstede,

 

Welcome to the forum

 

Can you please let me know which Affinity app your are using

[Chris M..]

Yes! So sorry about that DWright.

 

I'm currently operating on Affinity Designer 1.5.5 on Mac.

 

Ultimately I'm unsure on whether the draw, or pixel persona is what I need..

 

Thanks again.

[dutchshader]

i came up with this.

afdesign file is attached, hope this will help

 

 

 

American Flag Distressed.afdesign

[Chris M..]

Wow. This is awesome.

 

Would you mind sharing a brief explanation on how you achieved this?

[carl123]

Here's one with a transparent background

Instructions:

Start with transparent document

Draw your shapes and group them

Then download a distressed texture pattern from the Internet (texture1)

Resize to cover your document

CTRL click your group (the icon in layers panel)

Select texture1 layer and Edit > Copy

Edit > paste to create texture2 layer

Switch off texture1 layer

(design file attached)

 

flag2.afdesign

[iforgotmyname]

American flag has 13 stripes.

[Rick G]

On 10/7/2017 at 1:05 AM, carl123 said:

texture1 layer and Edit > Copy

Edit > paste to create texture2 layer

Switch off texture1 layer

I may be missing something obvious but if you copy texture1 to texture2 ... how did you get it to apply only to the non transparent areas?

Thanks

[lepr]

.

 

[Alfred]

On 07/10/2017 at 7:05 AM, iforgotmyname said:

American flag has 13 stripes.

 

Here's another version with the correct number of stripes of the correct weight (instead of having a blue stripe which is wider than the others, and gaps which are narrower). I used the SVG version of the US flag from Wikimedia Commons, together with Carl's texture file, but it would obviously be better to use a texture file that isn't watermarked!

 

Gray-Blue-Grunge_US-Flag.afdesign

[Rick G]

1 hour ago, owenr said:

 

First he Ctrl-clicked (that's for Windows, Cmd-click for macOS) the thumbnail of the group of vectors to make a pixel selection marquee (marching ants) based on the alpha of the group. Then, when the texture layer was copied with that selection, the alpha of the selection was multiplied into the alpha of the copied pixels.

 

 

I am not getting this. I made some shapes, grouped them CTRL CLICKED to get the marching ants an no matter if I already added the texture layer to the top or ad it at this point, when I copy it and paste as a new layer I get the full texture graphic with the marching ants showing on it I am missing something basic

Disclaimer: I am especially dense today to begin with ...

[Alfred]

1 minute ago, Rick G said:

when I copy it and paste as a new layer I get the full texture graphic with the marching ants showing on it

 

 

Your screenshot shows that you're working with image layers. You need to rasterize the texture layer if you want to copy a pixel selection.

 

[Rick G]

2 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

Your screenshot shows that you're working with image layers. You need to rasterize the texture layer if you want to copy a pixel selection.

 

Oh DUH!!! I am fairly new to Designer but have done stuff like this. It worked like a CHARM Thank you so much

But...

The new offset pating in this beta make a total mess. (Yes we can deselct all then move them back to where they should be)

Thanks for all the help!

[toltec]

7 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

Your screenshot shows that you're working with image layers. You need to "rasterize" the texture layer if you want to copy a pixel selection.

 

 

Has to be one of the most used words in the Affinity dictionary. In fact, a search of this forum produces 807 results for rasterise and 752 for rasterize. 

 

And it's probably just got worse. Just sayin' 

 

[lepr]

.

[Alfred]

10 minutes ago, owenr said:

 

 

There's a much easier way. Instead of copy then paste, just do Cmd-J to duplicate the selected area to a new pixel layer in the correct location.

 

 

That's what I would do. One advantage (apart from correct positioning!) is that it bypasses the clipboard, so whatever you had on there is still available for pasting.

[Rick G]

17 minutes ago, owenr said:

 

 

There's a much easier way. Instead of copy then paste, just do Cmd-J to duplicate the selected area to a new pixel layer in the correct location.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

That's what I would do. One advantage (apart from correct positioning!) is that it bypasses the clipboard, so whatever you had on there is still available for pasting.

 

I have that one down I discovered what Alfred said about bypassing the odd ball positioning

Thanks so much!

[Chris M..]

Is there any way to use the pixel persona brush to erase from an image?

 

Ex; If I made a flag, created and grouped the shapes, and then rasterize; Is there any way

to use a brush/spray to erase texture? I guess the opposite of adding pixels, just deleting them for a custom texture look.

 

I'm just looking for different ways to accomplish the same thing I suppose..

 

I appreciate the help here! All of this is really useful info.

 

 

 

 

[lepr]

.

[Chris M..]

2 hours ago, owenr said:

 

 

You can make a pixel mask from a distress texture which will cut holes in the vector image, but the result is a raster image, so not what you want if the distressed flag must be entirely vector.

 

Also, there is a blending mode named Erase. It reduces the opacity of the underlying image by the opacity of the pixels in the Erase layer. So, fully opaque spots in the Erase layer will make fully transparent spots in the underlying image, and fully transparent spots in the Erase layer will have no effect. It's another raster effect, though, so again not what you want if the distressed flag must be entirely vector.

 

If the final result must be entirely vector, you could take a distress texture and use a bitmap-to-vector tracer to produce a vector image that can be used as a vector mask which will cut holes in the vector flag.

 

 

2

I appreciate it. I'm not familiar with this process, and this has been a great help.

 

If any of you veterans could do (or refer) some Youtube tutorials on this topic in depth,

that would be awesome, as I've had no such luck finding any.

 

Cheers!

[Rick G]

1 hour ago, Chris M.. said:

I appreciate it. I'm not familiar with this process, and this has been a great help.

 

If any of you veterans could do (or refer) some Youtube tutorials on this topic in depth,

that would be awesome, as I've had no such luck finding any.

 

Cheers!

This guy puts out a tutorial every Saturday and he is easy to understand

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6xPJ4dx82vSjysPUyjlCsw

He has courses on AP,AD and AP for Ipad (and a macros course) all are well worth the money