How to merge Edges of Image into background paper white?

[Chris26]

As you can see from the image I am not placing it full page size, I have been trying to merge the top edge of the image into the page so that there is no straight cut-off showing.  I tried to place a rectangle over the top, fill it with white and then set to 100% gaussian blur, but as you can see it does not work, is there an efficient way to do this in affinity please?

[Wosven]

You can do this with different methods: rectangle or mask  and gradients (no brushes to work on the mask), etc. Just be careful to have the white part covering your image's border.

gradient_to_white.afpub

 

[Chris26]

Ok, Wosven, First the attachment does not open, it is blocked by affinity.  Second,  masks and channels have been a huge part of my editing over the last 5 years both in indesign and mostly in photoshop and I am very familiar with them.  But For the life of me I am perplexed and confused by how they work in affinity.  There are absolutely no tutorials or help files on this that I can find.  The dialogue box, half or it is a complete mystery despite playig around with it I am no wiser, sorry.  feathering, smooth, borderwidth I undrstand, but the rest????.  Also I don't see, after messing around for ages, how on earth you can apply anything without using a brush.   So I would appreciate an explanation about how to work with this feature, really, messing with it just gets me frustrated. I can read for hours, and study, but if there are no helps or tutorials I have to post, I really do not like posting like this, but there really has to be some more in depth tutorials about affinity publisher.  After I have applied the mask, I can not seem to do anything logical with it.

 

 

blends and 

[Wosven]

42 minutes ago, Chris26 said:

Ok, Wosven, First the attachment does not open, it is blocked by affinity.

Strange, I'm on Win 7, and can reopen it.

Here a version made in ADesigner (but I've got a different result with the levels layer… that's not a problem since it was a test and not the first use we would have for this type of layer).

Like you, I searched the brush tool, it would be usefull for masks.

 

If you've got AD or APhoto, you can place your image in an AP or an AD document, add the mask, use the brushes here, and copy-paste your image + mask back in the APublisher document.
I hope it's be easier when the 3 applications 'll work smoothly together.

gradient_to_white.afdesign

 

Notice: I copied-pasted the test with image+levels layer from AD to APub, and the result was fine (the part that should be white was white, instead of black as in AD. Perhaps a bug in AD?)

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Chris26 said:

the attachment does not open, it is blocked by affinity

The Affinity apps don’t block attachments, but antivirus software and browser security settings sometimes do.

[Chris26]

It was

10 minutes ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

The Affinity apps don’t block attachments, but antivirus software and browser security settings sometimes do.

It was in the affinity window that I read the message'' The owner does not have permission....or something, or you have not been granted....' I never took a screen shot but the wording was along these lines.  It was not my windows that did this.

[Chris26]

17 minutes ago, Wosven said:

If you've got AD or APhoto, you can place your image in an AP or an AD document, add the mask, use the brushes here, and copy-paste your image + mask back in the APublisher document.
I hope it's be easier when the 3 applications 'll work smoothly together.

Hi Wosven, yes I will have to take the image back into indesign and do it there Oh I can't!  Well Photoshop then, but the problem is that I will have text aligned in a certain way I need to eyeball this in page layout, calculation sizes and distances will not work,so taking into photoshop is not possible,  Indesign has a simple gradient tool (affinity calls it transparency tool) and the gradient tool in affinity is just a colour thing, no good.  So indesign is just one click 3 seconds and drag and it blends straight away with the background page, so I guess affinity does not do this yet?  But that mask dialogue is a problem and I will have to somehow understand there system of working it.  And then how to use it. Thanks for the  help though.

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, Chris26 said:

It was in the affinity window that I read the message'' The owner does not have permission....or something, or you have not been granted....' I nevertook a screen shot but the wording was along theselines.  It was not my windows that did this.

APub is simply relaying what Windows reports when it asks the file system for access to the file. Assuming that you’ve downloaded the file to a known location, you can right-click it and choose ‘Properties’, and then look for an ‘Unblock’ button in the Properties dialog.

[Chris26]

No I could not even download it, it was blocked before any download started.  But I take your point and respect your better understanding of affinity than I do.  thanks for the input Alfred.

[Wosven]

You can open the .afdesign file in APub and look at the way I did it.

You can use a white rectangle (or another form, triangle, something draw with the pen or the pencil tool), and add a transparency gradient or a gaussian blur effect.
> Tip: if you draw something with the pen/pencil too and add a blur, create it bigger than needed and enclose it in a rectangle that fit the size of your image to avoid it to be visible on your background (or use the crop tool).
 

Another way is to add a mask (layer studio, at the bottom of the studio: grey square with a black round in the middle icon), and use a gradient from black to white on the mask.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Wosven
not the crop tool!

[Wosven]

Perhaps you'll be able to download and open a zip archive?

gradient_to_white.zip

[Alfred]

16 minutes ago, Chris26 said:

But I take your point and respect your better understanding of affinity than I do.

My point was that I don’t think this is anything to do with Affinity. That theory seems to be supported by the fact that you say it was blocked before the download even started.

[mac_heibu]

Only out of interest: @Chris26: You say, masks and channels have been a huge part of your editing in InDesign snd Photoshop. How did you edit/use masks and channels in InDesign?

[Chris26]

7 hours ago, Wosven said:

Perhaps you'll be able to download and open a zip archive?

gradient_to_white.zip

Wosven, thankyou for your help.  I have downloaded both now and will have a look later on today, I do appreciate your help.

 

7 hours ago, mac_heibu said:

Only out of interest: @Chris26: You say, masks and channels have been a huge part of your editing in InDesign snd Photoshop. How did you edit/use masks and channels in InDesign?

Funny....when writing and typing to so many people at once, what you think and what you type sometimes go a blur in the hecticness....I know there are no channels or masks in IDD, I was simply thinking the both of them as I was writing.  

 

7 hours ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

My point was that I don’t think this is anything to do with Affinity. That theory seems to be supported by the fact that you say it was blocked before the download even started.

Alfred, I just downloaded BOTH files with ease. using the same manner.  No problem.  My computer did NOT block anything, unless it was in a bad mood lst night!  Affinity clearly said something that was nothing to do with anti virus, malwarem security, defensive mechanisms, strategic deflection or anything else of this nature.  It was clealy on the the affinity desktop environment.  this is all I m saying it is no big deal at all, it really really does not matter, but I know what I saw.  Respecfully.  Chris

[Chris26]

Hallo Wosven,t hanks for that image,  I see that the top image is the better one for me.  So after playing around I see on the Layers Panel, third layer down you have a rectangle, with a sub layer called curve.  I replicated what I think you did::

1. Created a shape using the pen tool

2. Adjusted nodes accordingly

3. Filled shape with white 255 255 255

4. used transparancy tool and dragged

5. Use FX dialogue to apply radial Gradient

6.  Gaussian blur over all

 this is a long winded path than the one click drag in indesign

Forget this image, wanted to delete but see no way of deleting uploaded images?

[fde101]

wouldn't you be able to put a rectangle over the edge and set its fill to a gradient that has 100% opacity in white at the edge of the picture and 0% opacity in white a bit further in?

[Chris26]

Hallo fde, that was the first thing I tried, the problem with that is that there is white on the colour as it fades away downwatds, you want that colour to be sort of toned down gently not covered in half see through white.  Also upon trying to gradiate by applying a mask over that faded area I get nothing, but that is becasue i simply can not get this mask business to work in affinity, that bit is the most frustrating of all, masks are fundamentally straight forward but affinity's version is complicated and un-intuitive for the likes of me,  plus what the hell does 'ramp' mean?  where are the tutorials for this masking feature? 

So far that long winded path I did comes very close to what I am looking for.

Chris

[Chris26]

SIMPLE SOLUTION FOUND, unbelieva-a-bubble...by not using the image tool or the frame tool. Transparency problems I had were caused by using these methods of importing.  they give a bounding box to the image.  The top screen shot (top image)  is what I have been trying to do since last night

Simply open your image from the hard drive from within affinity, drag  (do not place) drag the image to your document page and use transparency tool.  This first screen shot shows it clearly,  regards the second screenshot, not clear.(I could not delete this one, if affinity forum has a delete button for deleting images before you commit to post please tell us).

 

 

 

 

 

nsions as original, now apply the transparency tool.  Done.  

Chris

 

[Wosven]

Hi,

When you import images in your posts, they appear at the bottom with a "+" or a bin.  Use the bun to delete them.

You can use gradient on mask in APub.

Sure the most easy way to fade an image is to use a transparency gradient, but sometimes we want more and should use a mask for different results. 

Perhaps when APub's personas will work it'll be easy as a click to use brushes on a mask with AP or AD.

 

Why does it fade to grey on one of your examples? Is there a background color as in the default image frame ?

[Chris26]

1 hour ago, Wosven said:

Why does it fade to grey on one of your examples? Is there a background color as in the default image frame 

I did this procedure twice, and results were the same, no idea about the tint, but you only get the tint and that border when you iport into a constrained frame as mentioned earlier.

[Wosven]

That's because you placed your image in a picture frame, they've got a light grey background color.

 

To delete an image from your message on the forum:

[Chris26]

Why Have I never noticed that Rubbish Bin?  I've been looking for that all over affinity.....it must have been masked when I was doing it......

Ok yes I know, the image frames have a tint of grey, sorry, I was seeing blue in my images top and bottom and just asssumed you saw grey instead....but thanks for pointing out the rubbish bin for me.  So at least now I have that perfected and the drag frame sliders independently of image mastered, and don't place TIFF's with alpha channels.