Affinity Photo - pixelated / blurry selections

[Richard Sollorz]

Evening everyone, I recently purchased Affinity Photo after researching this product for a while. Now using it, I am frustrated by the selection tools. When I try selecting a portrait, the edging is pixelated and blocky. Also, it seems to blur or delete the edging a bit, even those areas which are inside the selection.

I placed the border width at zero percent and keep the ramp at 0%. When I do the same steps with Photoshop Cs5, the results are significantly better. 

Watching the videos on the selection tool, it looks amazing..in practice, its terrible. What am I overlooking?

I have included examples in this for assistance.

[firstdefence]

Hi, if you change the Preview in the refine Panel to Black Matte you get a much better idea of how the selection Looks and how it will look after you have refined it. I generally keep Border at 10% or there about, I add smoothing and a small about of feathering, Ramp moves the selection edge back and forth.

So by example

Prior to refining

 

After refining the edge

 

[Richard Sollorz]

Thank you @firstdefence much appreciated.

I discovered what my issue was. The first was that I was using a soft brush and not a hard brush for the selection. The other is that my brush size was too large. A quick test this morning found a significant improvement with the selection and similar to that of the tutorials. What a relief!

Appreciate you taking the time to respond...looks like it was just a rookie mistake.

[firstdefence]

Easily done but thanks for posting your solution, happy selecting 

[Austiemo]

I have owned Affinity Photo on iPad for a year now.  Literally every time I tried to make a selection after pressing Refine Tool it would do this.

I will try setting similarly to firstdefence posted. It will be a big game changer if it works. My only complaint of the software. I would do great selections with pen tool and have them ruined by the Refine Tool. I hope this works.

[Austiemo]

1 hour ago, Austiemo said:

I have owned Affinity Photo on iPad for a year now.  Literally every time I tried to make a selection after pressing Refine Tool it would do this.

I will try setting similarly to firstdefence posted. It will be a big game changer if it works. My only complaint of the software. I would do great selections with pen tool and have them ruined by the Refine Tool. I hope this works.

Adjusting the ramp has definitely make the selection much better.  On the iPad ramp is hidden on the menu you have to press the right arrow to show. I have never once used it or the other options in that menu. Very happy I found this post.