1. Using a Black & White Adjustment Layer. To begin, open your image in Affinity Photo. Go to the Adjustment Panel and select Black & White or click the Adjustments icon in the Layers Panel and select Black & White. You’ll see that this creates a new Black & White Adjustment Layer in the Layers Panel. A Black & White panel will appear, allowing you to adjust the different colour values in your image.
2. You can also create black and white images using the HSL, Gradient Map, and Threshold adjustments. The following settings can be adjusted in the dialog: The sliders control the lightness value of the named color areas of the image. Drag the slider to the left to darken areas of the named color, drag the slider to the right to lighten them.

For example, an object in the black and white photo might be Blue in real life but the AI may colorize it as Red. This is because it only does the guesswork while coloring the black and white photo. 2) Depending on the quality of the old photo, the tool may not be able. The stroke color is represented by the cutout (donut) color selector. The fill is represented by the solid color selector. In Pixel Persona, the two solid color selectors indicate interchangeable Primary and Secondary colors. The Swatches panel also shows None, Black, Mid-gray and White swatches, recently used colors.

What exactly is a blend mode?

In graphic design or digital art, more complex designs use multiple layers stacked on top of each other. The pixels of the higher layers are placed on top of pixels on lower layers, obscuring them in the process. While this default behaviour is perfectly acceptable, the use of blend modes across these layers opens up a world of creative freedom and possibilities.

Essentially, blend modes determine exactly how an upper layer’s pixel colours will blend with those on the layer(s) beneath. Results can vary quite dramatically depending on the chosen mode. There are five or six most commonly used modes but anywhere up to 30 modes may be available in your app.

Affinity Photo Black And White With Color

Before we go any further…

• Remember that blending affects all underlying layers not just the layer immediately below the blend layer.
• Blend mode names, such as Multiply, Overlay, and Screen are pretty much the same across all graphic design and photo editing apps. They function in much the same way too.

Multiply

How it works

This is your choice for a darkening effect. It multiplies the blend layer’s colour channel values with those of the base layer. Black in either layer gives black; white leaves the other layer’s colour unchanged. Lighter greys will give softer shadows, while darker greys will give deeper shadows. Why? Well, black has a value of 0, and white has a value of 1, and all other multiplied values are divided by 255. “Class, get your calculators out!”

Some other cool examples and applications

• Restoring shadows in faded antique photos
• Darkening of filters (e.g., Lighting)
• Toning down overexposed photos
• Removing white backgrounds in image composites (without having to cut out)

Screen

How it works

So if Multiply darkens, then Screen will lighten—the complete opposite! Black is assigned a value of 1, white is assigned 0; the latter produces white. The inverse of the blend and base layer colours are multiplied. The resulting colour is always lighter.

Other examples

• Boosting underexposed photos
• Removing black backgrounds in image composites (without having to cut out)

Overlay

How it works

Meet the clever combination of the above—Multiply and Screen combined together to increase contrast. In essence, it darkens darker areas, while lighter areas are lightened further. If the underlying layer’s pixels are <50% grey, it multiplies; if >50%, it screens.

Other examples

A cool example of using flat colours with blend modes over images is put to effect in the following example, where we strip an image of its colour and use a Multiply blend mode to effectively colourize non-white & black areas of an image—in this case, all the grey tints. You can see this effect commonly in model studio shots used as artist covers in music streaming services, etc.

Other blend modes

In reality, there are many other blend modes that can be used which offer more subtle and harsher blending effects. Their use is less common so they’re not included in this article—but you can experiment accordingly!

More about blend modes

Affinity Photo White Balance

Most apps will also offer ‘on-brush’ blend modes so you can paint colour that will blend into the base layers as you paint. It’s worth trying these out if you want to blend layer content but only want to do so in specific brushed regions.

Affinity Photo Black And White With One Color

Blend modes are just as important in vector-based graphic design as in pixel-based raster design. The blend modes operate very similarly between the two disciplines with a slight difference: in the former, a chosen mode is applied to the selected object, with blending between that object and objects beneath, as opposed to the latter which is pixel layer over pixel layer.

Finishing up

That just about wraps up this article. I hope it’s given you some insight into the inner workings and application of blend modes.The next time you’re throwing some layers around, try a few blend modes out and see where they lead you!

Black & White Adjustment layers in Affinity Photo are non-destructive, which means, we can play around with how they affect the image below. Using this image as an example, we will show you how to change a colour image to black and white while keeping specific areas of the image in colour.

Using a Black & White Adjustment Layer

• To begin, open your image in Affinity Photo.

• Go to the Adjustment Panel and select Black & White or click the Adjustments icon in the Layers Panel and select Black & White. You’ll see that this creates a new Black & White Adjustment Layer in the Layers Panel.

• A Black & White panel will appear, allowing you to adjust the different colour values in your image. Tweaking these allows for richer tones of grey and greater control over the appearance of your black and white image. It also allows you to adjust the Blend Mode on the adjustment layer and the Opacity, although this can also be altered in the Layers Panel.

In this image, we want to change the colour to black and white but keep the shoes red, so we are going to use a simple masking technique.

• Select the Erase Brush Tool (E) and with the Black & White Adjustment layer selected, start erasing the area you want to revert back to its original colour. This creates a simple masked area, allowing the original colour to show through.

See it in action

So, how does it work?

When you create a new Adjustment Layer, it creates a separate, non-destructive layer over your original image, which applies that adjustment to the layers below. By erasing from the Black & White Adjustment layer, we are removing the adjustment from that area of the image. You’ll notice that on the Layers Panel, the Black & White Adjustment layer appears white and areas you have erased appear black.

Note; you can also use the Paint Brush Tool with black selected instead of the Erase Brush Tool to create the same effect. Or use the Paint Brush Tool with white selected, to paint the adjustment back in. Have some fun by experimenting with different opacities and different brushes, too.

You can also use the Selection Tools to precisely select areas of the image, and then by selecting the Black & White Adjustment Layer, use the Flood Fill Tool or Paint Brush Tool (set to black), or the Erase Brush Tool to remove the adjustment from that area. This also works for other non-destructive Adjustments, such as HSL, as shown in this article.

Tips and tricks

As the Black & White Adjustment is non-destructive you can edit it in different ways, without affecting your original photograph.

Here are some tips:

• As you can ‘layer up’ different Adjustment Layers, try applying an HSL Adjustment alongside a Black & White Adjustment to alter the colours on your photograph and create interesting effects.

• When using the Erase Brush Tool to remove the Black & White Adjustment, set the brush Opacity to a low number. This will make the colour in the original image appear more gradually, allowing for some dramatic changes to the tone of the image.

• Use the Gradient Tool and set the colour points to black and white to create a fade from black and white to colour across your whole image. Note that the black point will show colour and the white point will show black and white.

• Change the Opacity of your Black & White Adjustment to make the colour difference more subtle. In the image below, the Black & White Adjustment has been erased entirely from the blossom, making it stand out. But the area around it is not completely black and white, allowing a little bit of colour to come through using the Opacity slider. This gives the image a vintage feel.

Inspiration