Convert Photo To Silhouette

[Priamo Gregory]

You can make a silhouette by taking a photo of a backlit object with the lights coming from behind. You can also create silhouette effects using photo editing software like Fotor's silhouette maker. It lets you make a silhouette from any photo in a matter of seconds.

Fotor's silhouette maker provides in-built photo editing tools that you can use to make beautiful silhouette artwork with ease. Overlay images to create an abstract double-exposure silhouette portrait, or use various preset backgrounds and stock images to add a fantasy backdrop to your silhouette. You can turn your favorite photo into a silhouette in a variety of ways. Try it out right now to make your very own silhouette art.

Fotor's silhouette maker gives you everything you need to make spectacular silhouette pictures online. There is a library of silhouette clipart that you can freely use- tree silhouettes, bird silhouettes, cat silhouettes, dancer silhouettes, and a whole lot more. In addition, you can customize the opacity and colors of the silhouette clipart, move it around the image, and scale it up or down to fit your needs. Creating a silhouette photo has never been easier!

I'm trying to convert from photoshop to affinity but am struggling. This literally takes me seconds in AI.

I find a picture I like... I open it up... I trace the image as silhouette... I expand the image... I have outline of image... a smooth outline no anti-aliasing.

How do I do this in Affinity? It's been 2 hours of googling and playing but no luck... So far this is what I've done:

Opened up image in Photo... removed background... save as .png... open up image in Designer... layer effects > Outline... I expand the outline (but I can not tell what thats done, if anything)

I'm now stuck... how do I just get that outline... nothing else, just a vector image of that outline with no anti-aliasing?

Thank you for any helpful answers

(I'm begging you guys for help here, I seriously do not want to go back to Adobe... I realise there's a learning curve and there will be something obvious but I'm struggling... I can usually switch to a new bit of software with a few tutorials and some googling but this is just getting painful... sorry)

Oh god that was the answer I was dreading

I still want to support the underdog though... I've bought copies and will continue to play with them but it looks like I'm going to have to pay the extortionate Adobe fee's

Thank you for your reply Gary... just to double check... are you saying I can not convert that pink outline I've created into a vector?

Really appreciate your solution... just loaded it up and it is perfect... unfortunately Inkscape, as much as I love to use open source and (donate to it) is clunky AF with it's XQuartz on my mac... so frustrating... I love the Affinity software, it really does have a beautifully made UI... it just doesn't do what I need

Looks like I'm going to have to suck up the Adobe price in order to have that "just works" experience... I do appreciate all the answers and help I've had from folks here but I also have animation to do

Looks like my move to open source and alternatives to the giants will have to wait a little longer... gutted but I gotta work, eat and pay bills

Thanks again

AFAI remember I tried that out once, it works with setup layers (manual layer based) and offers manual adjustments. So you do sort of a manual color quantization with that software (setup each wanted color layer). It can give good results though needs more time and manual work in contrast to other software.

Yes as default Intaglio Vectorize traces one color layer, so you would have to setup/add other additional color layers manually inside, in oder to trace for multiple colors. I'm not sure if that software uses maybe potrace too internally, since potrace usually traces just in BW and thus in order to trace for multiple colors one needs a color quantisation method there for dealing with the handling of different colors.

Inkscape for example does exactly that automatically, they use a modified potrace code here, where they do their own color quantisation with. - Aka remember and extract all colors, or a setup amount of the most used colors, then do a continious sequence vector trace after all those single colors, finally add all traced color vector layers together to form the colored vector result.

Answer: There are many ways in which Potrace can be useful in processing color images, with some extra work. For example, you can trace an image to SVG format using the --svg and --opaque options, and then use e.g. Inkscape to color it manually.

Or you can extract individual color components from your image using the Gimp or ppmcolormask (part of the netpbm package), trace them separately, and then overlay the pieces to get a multicolored image. You can get pretty good results for posterized images. I have used a command line similar to this:

Answer: No, Potrace is not designed to do centerline tracing, and for technical reasons, it is unlikely that this will change in the near future. Algorithms used for centerline tracing are quite different than those used for outline tracing; it might be more useful to write a separate program for this purpose. You could try Autotrace, which has such a feature.

Yes, in Inkscape you can limit or enhance color scans, setup quantisation, generally adjust settings to use etc. In Intaglio Vectorize for color traces you have to do add/setup manually more color layers for the desired colors there then.

Honestly I don't know, since I didn't followed their latest software version evolution approaches. But if they also add centerline tracing capabilities that's good news and of course will offer some more tracing capabilities then. All in all Inkscape has very smart tracing capabilities. - Further if they now support MacOS Quartz directly, so no more XQuartz is needed, it will be even better to use on Macs too.

I've tried the native Inkscape1.0 beta app and it works Ok so far also under El Capitan, so I've exchanged the XQuartz one with that. - Well X11 times are gone by far, last time I worked/programmed with the X Window System was under NeXTstep via Cub'X-Window, then porting some XView (OpenLook) stuff for NeXT (so ages ago).

Arguably one of the most complicated buttons I have ever made involved learning how to use GIMP to turn a portrait into a silhouette PNG which I could then use for other types of art. To be fair, I set out to make this button because I wanted to learn how to cut a person out of a picture and turn that image into a silhouette. This was 100% about trying to learn a new skill so that I could teach it to teens in the Teen MakerSpace. The cool button was just a bonus.

After you have loaded your image, you then need to select the figure you want to cut out of your picture. You will use the intelligent scissors to do this. Under the tools menu, choose selection tools and then choose intelligent scissors at the bottom of your list.

You will then begin outlining your picture by clicking at various spots along the figure. Start at one location and go completely around your figure until you return to your original starting point. Each time you click, you will see a small white circle which indicates a kind of an anchor for your scissors. This shows you the area that is going to be cut out. You want to be as precise as possible to get clean lines.

When you have gone fully around your figure you will double click on your first circle, your starting point, and the circles will disappear and a dash line will appear around your figure. Your figure is now the foreground and it is separated from the background.

Right now, your figure and background are separated by your dash line and you are working on the foreground, your figure. If you clicked delete right now, it would remove your figure, so you have to let the program know that it is the background and not the figure (the foreground) that you want to remove. You need to invert your image. To do this, go under the select menu and choose invert. Invert lets you toggle between the foreground (the figure) and the background. You can now hit delete and it will delete your background. If you accidentally delete your figure just hit CTRL Z to undo it and invert again to select the right object to delete.

Because you have inverted, you are now working on the background image. So to continue working on the figure, you need to repeat the invert step to let the program now that you are once again working on the figure.

You now have a silhouette png that you can use in a variety of ways. For example, you can make a cameo if you so choose. For our button making purposes, we overlay the silhouette over a book page. You can do this in two ways.

The high tech way: You could do this right there in GIMP, but my GIMP skills are not that advanced, so I do this part in Publisher. Save a picture of a book page. You can take a photo, download it, and upload it into Publisher. Or simply do a Google image search for a copyright free book page. Insert a circle shape and fill it with the picture. You can then insert your silhouette as a separate image and lay it on top of your filled circle.

As I have mentioned, for me this is hands down the most complicated button I have made. It is also the most personal and perhaps my most favorite. I made copies of this button and gave it to family members for Christmas. It took me several attempts to learn how to do it, but now with practice I can sometimes even do it without looking at the instructions again. But only sometimes.

This article was a well worded, creative and easy to follow instruction on how to make this beautiful silhouettes for a variety of uses. This can be great to use in a library setting in school or with social workers/counselors in schools. I love working in the library with my librarians as a social worker. Best place ever! Have to make my silhouette for my avatar.

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