Question about masking and selecting

[jmputz]

I am quite new to Affinity photo and I use it because some functions are really superior to the equivalent in Photoshop ( I say some, because I only used some of them until now). One of those is the selection tool.

I am preparing some effects for Final Cut Pro /  Motion5 and I need to cut out some subjectd in order to animate them within FCPX (or Motion). I spent quite some time to cut out this really special goat made of rubber I saw recently in Port Mathurin (Rodrigues Island). My cut is done very accurately and is in my eyes very precise.

When I apply a mask to this image, I find a lot of noise round the goat and I am really wondering how this is possible.

Of course I could use a workaround to clean the exported PNG, but I would like to understand what I am doing wrong.

I did not use Refine in this version because the contrasts are sometimes so tiny that Refine adds noise rather than solving the problem.

Any help is welcome.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Jean-Marie

[firstdefence]

Can you show the Refine Panel, even though you haven't used it, it would help to see it, also might be helpful save your selection as a Spare Channel and to upload the afphoto file

 

 

[jmputz]

Thanks for that quick reply.

I add the aafphoto file to this mail together with a screenshot of the refine. I hope this helps

F0008472.afphoto

[firstdefence]

Turn Off the other masks and Adjustment layers, better yet delete them.

 

• Deselect the selection
• Turn Off the Locked background Layer
• Select the Unlocked Background Layer
• Load the Selection as a Mask by right clicking on the Spare Channel in the Channels Panel and choosing Load to Pixel Selection
• Invert the selection
• Press Delete
• Select the Erase Tool
• Choose a basic Brush and enlarge it to about 1000px
• Now run all over the image to erase the marks.
• Press Ctrl/Cmd + D to deselect.

You should have a clean image now. The marks may have been a consequence of using a soft brush, either less than 100% flow or Opacity. You might want to redo the selection, its not as good as you think, this maybe be down to the opacity of the masking, consequently when erasing the marks there will be some erasing of the sculpture.

 

When selecting with a brush make sure its at 100% opacity and the flow is also at 100% the hardness can be less than 100% to get a fine edge. Go slow and zoom in a lot, be prepared to change the brush size a fair bit and use the X key to flip between Black and White.

[jmputz]

Hi Firstdefence,

 

Thanks so much for your tips. As I am not really familiar with Affinity Photo, rather than following your detailed procedure, I first checked opacity and flow. Folw was indeed at 50%. So I recreated the selection (it's so easy if you have done it a few times), and I have now a clean selection...

 

Thanks again.

[firstdefence]

Excellent, always a learning curve eh! glad you got it sorted 

[jmputz]

Thanks again.

 

I was so glad I immediately worked it out in a short video... (This is not yet the result of what I intended to do but I guess it demonstrates the ease of use of Affinity Photo, even for newbies...)