Possible to change colour of black vector?

[MaryLennox]

Hello. I've only been dabbling in Affinity Photo for about a year and I don't have experience in any other programs. Is there a way to change the colour of a black vector using Affinity Photo? For example, changing it from black to green. Is this possible in Affinty Design? I've been searching, but haven't found the answer anywhere...which makes me think it's not possible, but thought I would finally ask. Thanks.

[Dan C]

Hi MaryLennox,

Welcome to the forums

What format is your vector file in please? Both Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer have the ability to change the colours of vector objects by selecting them with the move tool, then choosing their Stroke and Fill colour in the Colour Studio (Right hand side of the UI above Layers). I hope this helps!

[MaryLennox]

Hi Dan! Thanks for the response. The vector is .png Is that what you mean? I still can't seem to figure it out.

Edited August 15, 2019 by MaryLennox

[Dan C]

This is the same in both applications, Designer and Photo can create and edit vector objects, including their fills. Could you please provide a copy of the vector file in question?

[MaryLennox]

Sorry, I edited my response because I realized you said it was the same in both in your original answer. I've attached the type of vector I would like to change.

 

[Dan C]

Thanks for that, this file is a PNG, which is a raster format and not a vector. This means you can't 'select' the flower as an object, as it's pixel based.

You can still recolour this object in either Designer or Photo, but this will not 'convert' the object to vector, it will still be pixel based but a different colour.

I used a Selective Colour Adjustment to change the colour from black to green. After creating the adjustment layer, change the colour dropdown to Blacks. Now set the Cyan and Yellow sliders between 50% - 100% (depending on the shade of green you're looking for) and finally set the black slider to around -50% (again based on how light you want the shade to be).

I've included a screen recording of this below

[MaryLennox]

Okay, thanks! This is great! Thanks so much for including the video! I'm afraid I don't know all my terms with vectors and rasters, I still have a lot to learn.

[v_kyr]

If you want to have those roses as real vectors (instead of bitmap/pixels) you have to trace that raster image into a vector format. This can be done either via software or manually.

Here are both of those roses as plain vectors in SVG vector format ...

• rose1.svg
• rose2.svg

... you can open (import or place)  these SVG files in Affinity Photo and change the stroke color to your individual needs.

[MaryLennox]

Thank you! I see how easy it is to do with the .svg files now.

[EDog]

Hi, I've just watched your video and managed to recolour my image as you have shown.  It there a way to easily match the colour of the resulting Select Colour Adjustment to the swatches I have been using elsewhere in my document?  Thank you!

[lepr]

8 hours ago, EDog said:

Hi, I've just watched your video and managed to recolour my image as you have shown.  It there a way to easily match the colour of the resulting Select Colour Adjustment to the swatches I have been using elsewhere in my document?  Thank you!

Instead of fiddling with a Selective Colour Adjustment, simply use the PNG image to mask a vector Rectangle (or a Fill object) that is filled with the required colour.

masked rectangle.afdesign

 

[EDog]

Thank you for your speedy reply - I'll give this a go!

[R C-R]

FWIW, for raster images similar to the OP's rose one that are mostly transparent, using the Paint Brush tool with "Protect Alpha" enabled can produce some interesting 'painterly' color effects that are not limited to a single color.

Otherwise, the method suggested by @anon2 is probably the way to go.