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How come the Affinity Photo clipping path keeps it's the surrounding image when imported into Quark?


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I am trying to cut around an image and put into a layout program like I can do with Photoshop. Am I really not able to do this Affinity? When I exported it I said "save without background" but the white background still comes into Quark. Is there a way to do a clipping path like you can with Photoshop?

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Ideally the way it should work (at least in Photoshop) is that the clipping should cut out the white or whatever background there is so that you can see other objects. I know how to cut out an object in Affinity so that I can see other objects below it in Affinity but the problem comes when I bring it into a layout app and expect the clipping to work there.

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I did a search and find that APhoto doesn't support clipping paths. I didn't read the roadmap, but evidently it is on it.

 

Alpha can work for some stuff, but otherwise one can (supposedly), with the pen tool active, convert to a mask and delete the mask and remove the background. Then I would export as a transparent TIFF to bring into Q.

 

I don't get many PSDs with a clipping path here. Those work fine in Q, though. Even so, I most often use transparent TIFF files in Q/ID. Especially if there are layers in the PSD. And I then flatten for the TIFF, too.

 

One reason I will bother with simply removing a background is so I can feather the edge a small radius. A clipping path can provide a nice clean edge, which is fine for certain product shots (in my general case), but for almost anything else, I find it too harsh.

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12 hours ago, dutchshader said:

ii could not get the clipping path to work in quark, but used the alfa channel.

@dutchshader, What dialog box are you at in Quark? It looks like it is in German so I can't tell. I am not familiar with alpha channels in Quark.

I just had a thought, I once heard that Quark has good drawing tools, can I use those tools to do the whole clipping path in Quark!? That would be really nice!

@MikeW I made a clipping in Affinity so that I got the checkered background. When you say "delete the mask and remove the background" I don't understand that. Don't I need the mask to make the clipping work? I may be better for me to just use Photoshop for the time being (and maybe Quark for doing the clipping?)

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17 hours ago, KipV said:

I am trying to cut around an image and put into a layout program like I can do with Photoshop. Am I really not able to do this Affinity? When I exported it I said "save without background" but the white background still comes into Quark. Is there a way to do a clipping path like you can with Photoshop?

I am not experienced enough to be sure I understand what you're doing, but have you checked to ensure that you have Document->Transparent Background enabled in Affinity Photo?

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
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Just now, walt.farrell said:

I am not experienced enough to be sure I understand what you're doing, but have you checked to ensure that you have Document->Transparent Background enabled in Affinity Photo?

Yes, that is enabled (I wasn't even aware of that option.) What I am trying to do is make it so the box around the object goes away. This way when you bring it into a layout app that box will not block the surrounding objects. As far as I can tell you need Photoshop to do this or you can do it straight within the layout tool. I tried doing it in ID once and wasn't very impressed with the result. Hopefully Quark can do this better.

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Perhaps this would work for you?

  1. Select the object.
  2. Invert the selection.
  3. Delete.

At that point you should have only the selected object remaining, atop a transparent background. Export that to a format that supports transparency (e.g., PNG) and work with it further in Quark.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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I don't see what the issue is.

 

Either there is a background in the image or not. If there is not a background in the image, then make sure that the picture box in Q does not have the frame filled with a color. When you first select an image box, the color palette will have the background of the image proxy selected. Make sure it is not filled with white.

 

Else upload a sample APhoto file and or the exported image so I can see what has been done.

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1 hour ago, KipV said:

@dutchshader, What dialog box are you at in Quark? It looks like it is in German so I can't tell.

 

I think it’s reasonable to assume that a non-English dialog box posted by @dutchshader is most likely to be in Dutch! ;)

 

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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BTW, I believe that dialog box that dutchshader is displaying is the Modify dialog box. Only available in Q using Windows. It's no longer available on the Mac since probably version 10.

 

So any of those options are only available using the measurement palette on a Mac, but they are all there. Likely the Windows version will be the same way (no modal dialog boxes) in future versions.

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1 hour ago, KipV said:

Deleting the inverse selection should leave you with a checkered or white background. What we are trying to do is get rid of the background.

No, it leaves you with a transparent background, which many image-editing programs happen to display as a checkerboard.

 

Have you tried it to see if it resolves your problem?

 

(However, I'm reminded of another ongoing discussion about an issue exporting a PNG file with transparency, depending on the version of AP one uses, which might cause a problem with this approach.)

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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I just found out how to do clippings straight from within Quark:

Quark FB group discussion about clipping

Doing it this way might make the most sense since I would only have to use two apps in this workflow instead of three. I can do the basic editing in LR export, and clip in Quark rather then LR edit, Photoshop clipping path, and then import into Quark.

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