Outline Person or Object

[davidapoe]

Been trying to figure out how to do a solid outline around a picture via affinity Photo on iPad. I was able to do the cut out, although it isn’t very good, then went in FX and added a outline, as you can see by the picture isn’t smooth. Any help making it smooth would be nice.

[stokerg]

Hi davidapoe and Welcome to the Forums,

 

The Outline effect uses the selection path to generate the outline from.  If you have a selection that isn't smooth, then the outline is going to come out smooth.  When making the selection try disabling or enabling snap to edges, depending on the background it may help to work with snap to edges on and then make use of the Refine Selection to see if that gives a smoother selection. 

[davidapoe]

I was just going off of tutorials that were done via photoshop and they don’t have to do a lot of refining to get their objects in order for the outline.

 

heres an example: 

 

 

I also seem to keep having a issue were if I refine to many times it gets stuck in an endless refine and then I have to start all over.

 

This didn’t seem to be super hard, but apparently harder then I thought.

 

Trying to learn!

[Madame]

I tried this, and I used the smooth option on a quite high level.
Then I put the selection on it's own layer. I could then outline the selection.

 

[Alfred]

10 hours ago, stokerg said:

If you have a selection that isn't smooth, then the outline is going to come out smooth.

 

In the Selection Persona on Affinity Photo for iPad there is a 'Smooth Selection Tool' which you can use to tackle the problem.

 

Instead of adding an outline as a filter effect, you could try the 'Outline Selection Tool' (also in the Selection persona) to create a border selection which you can flood fill.

 

[Madame]

Ok, -iPad. I forgot to check. Sorry!

[davidapoe]

On 10/10/2017 at 3:56 AM, stokerg said:

Hi davidapoe and Welcome to the Forums,

 

The Outline effect uses the selection path to generate the outline from.  If you have a selection that isn't smooth, then the outline is going to come out smooth.  When making the selection try disabling or enabling snap to edges, depending on the background it may help to work with snap to edges on and then make use of the Refine Selection to see if that gives a smoother selection. 

 

On 10/10/2017 at 1:41 PM, Madame said:

I tried this, and I used the smooth option on a quite high level.
Then I put the selection on it's own layer. I could then outline the selection.

 

 

 

On 10/10/2017 at 2:52 PM, Alfred said:

 

In the Selection Persona on Affinity Photo for iPad there is a 'Smooth Selection Tool' which you can use to tackle the problem.

 

Instead of adding an outline as a filter effect, you could try the 'Outline Selection Tool' (also in the Selection persona) to create a border selection which you can flood fill.

 

 

Thanks everyone! I’m still struggling with getting a nice smooth boarder, appently I’m just to much of a noob to get this effect down.

 

I don’t know why but I’ve always liked the look of paper cut out type stuff, like in little big planet, South Park or the paper cut look that’s popular today. Just cant seem to get it mastered.

 

Gonna have to keep working at it. 

[Alfred]

Can you share the original image from which you produced the cutout that you posted at the top of the thread?

 

[davidapoe]

Yep, sure no problem. 

[Alfred]

Here's my quick go at it. Not as tidy as it might be (particularly around the left ear) and it would probably benefit from some anti-aliasing to remove the 'jaggies' from the outline, but at least it demonstrates that it's possible!

 

 

My first attempt gave me a selection with a lot of unwanted feathering, so the resultant outline was very uneven. I tackled this by applying a threshold adjustment to create a silhouette so that I could make the background transparent with a sharp edge. I then selected and filled the background with black, shrank the selection and finished by deleting the shrunken selection to leave a black outline.

[davidapoe]

9 hours ago, Alfred said:

Here's my quick go at it. Not as tidy as it might be (particularly around the left ear) and it would probably benefit from some anti-aliasing to remove the 'jaggies' from the outline, but at least it demonstrates that it's possible!

 

 

 

My first attempt gave me a selection with a lot of unwanted feathering, so the resultant outline was very uneven. I tackled this by applying a threshold adjustment to create a silhouette so that I could make the background transparent with a sharp edge. I then selected and filled the background with black, shrank the selection and finished by deleting the shrunken selection to leave a black outline.

 

Thanks! I just need to practice and become more familiar with this program. I’ve played with it a little bit, but not enough to be proficient. Going to play more with the settings and see what I can do. Thanks again!