So I’ve had my first little go at masking photos today. In a little known fact (probably just to me), if you process a raw photo that was taken as Black and White in camera, the camera then saves all the colour information. This means when processing in Affinity Photo, I saw the RAW image in colour. Quite handy if you prefer the colour version.
On one of our rare excursions out during lockdown (and when we were allowed to do so), we visited a windmill in Somerset. It is still in operation, but obviously due to Covid, it wasn’t open or operating during our visit. Despite it being nearby, this is my first ever visit, so I took the camera.
I’ve been meaning to experiment with masking for some time. I had a few minutes to myself this morning. After watching this video https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/photo/desktop/video/332168517/ I came away a bit disheartened. Sadly, despite the ‘basic’ video looking very easy, I couldn’t replicate what the chap was telling me. I had an almost sob whilst staring into the fridge…
Then I tried again at lunch time and watched the video below. It’s very brief and concise. She’s got an exceptionally perky voice, but more importantly, when I copied what she did, I actually got some results. Woohoo!
So, after a bit of tinkering around with the curves adjustment, I was able to make the sky a little bluer, and enhance some of the colours in the grass. I then used the mask to block out the windmill, using the paintbrush tool. Essentially, I kept the windmill from the original unaltered image and combined that using layers and masking with the enhanced colours of the second layer. I’ll be honest, getting my head around which layer I’m doing what too is still messing with my head! This was all trial and error and done at speed in about 20 minutes. It doesn’t pay to look at the edges of the windmill in my Masked image. It also looks slightly odd or artificial, like the windmill has just landed on that bit of grass. However, I actually achieved something whilst my brain isn’t in full function, so that’s got to be good for morale!
Quite definetly room to practise with and I look forward to getting better at this in the future. Seriously though, how does anyone get anything done with a toddler around in lockdown?! I hope for a safer world to return soon. If only for the slightly selfish reason to get my camera out again and my mind to focus on something else.
Stay safe.