Smoothing edges to simple anti-alias after resizing

[jtlapp]

I work in monochrome, and my modus operandi is to paint with a brush, convert to vectors, and resize/reshape as needed.

Affinity Photo doesn't support converting raster to vectors, so I'm trying to find another way to make do.

The main issue is that when I increase the size, the boundaries become fuzzy. I want to restore simple anti-aliasing. It seems that I need to smooth the boundary first by a large number, flood fill in the smoothed region, and then smooth the result by 1 pixel to get simple anti-aliasing. But I can't get this to work.

I've been experimenting for hours without success.

It seems that every marquee retains a feathering that it applies regardless of how I modify the marquee and regardless of the tolerance I use to flood fill the marquee. I can add feathering to a marquee but not remove it.

How do I accomplish this? Thanks for your help!

~joe

[jtlapp]

For example, I can find no way to flood fill this marquee with a solid color. It retains these irregular transparent areas for everything I can think to try. Applying a threshold reduces the problem, but the image below is after applying a threshold.

UPDATE: I'm finding working with Affinity Photo so frustrating that I'm off looking for another app to do the job. But please let me know if it can be made to work.

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, jtlapp said:

It seems that every marquee retains a feathering that it applies regardless of how I modify the marquee and regardless of the tolerance I use to flood fill the marquee. I can add feathering to a marquee but not remove it.

Un-click the Anti-Alias checkbox. Have Tolerance set to 0%. Use the Flood Fill Tool with a higher tolerance (that will fill similar coloured pixels too).

[jtlapp]

7 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Un-click the Anti-Alias checkbox. Have Tolerance set to 0%. Use the Flood Fill Tool with a higher tolerance (that will fill similar coloured pixels too).

Thanks for responding, but I'm not seeing an anti-alias checkbox anywhere. Not in the context menu for magic wand or flood fill, not in the Select menu item dialogs. Maybe I'm just in the wrong place? I'm using Affinity Photo 1.6.7 on a Mac.

[Old Bruce]

Sorry, I was making an assumption, it is the lasso tool only. I really should have checked more tools (and asked how you make your selections) first. There is the Select > Refine Edge and set everything to Zero or -100% which ever is least, gets you about 98% further along.

[jtlapp]

Okay, that helps. Thanks. I have a procedure that gives better results, but when I make a macro of it, it variously crashes the program or results in pasting the cut that preceded running the macro. I don't think macros I quite working right. Here's the procedure:

1. Selection From Layer
2. Smooth selection (8 px)
3. Selection refinement (all zeros, matt off, 1 px0)
4. Invert selection
5. Flood Erase
6. Smooth selection (1 px)
7. Flood fill
8. Cut
9. Deselect
10. Flood Erase (because the cut leaves remnants behind)
11. Paste nodes inside
12. Deselect

I created this macro to test the procedure on various drawings, but since it never runs properly, I'm back where I started -- needing a convenient way to smooth after resizing.

[jtlapp]

For now I plan to use Super Vectorizer to convert drawings I make with Affinity Photo to vector for use in Affinity Designer.

This is a pain in the tush, though, because Super Vectorizer doesn't support layers. I have to export and convert each layer separately.

Amazingly, it's hard to find a graphics editor other than Illustrator that converts selections to paths.

[Old Bruce]

11 minutes ago, jtlapp said:

Amazingly, it's hard to find a graphics editor other than Illustrator that converts selections to paths.

Sadly some stuff is so difficult to do well it never gets done due to a lack of resources, i.e. Time & Money.

[jtlapp]

Thank you for your help!

Affinity, if you're reading this, I'd prefer to have an easy way to smooth and clean the edges of a pixelated enlarging over the ability to convert selections to paths. I mainly need the paths for resizing but prefer to adjust things by drawing.