John-B

Thanks. It wasn't obvious how to get the Stroke panel to show up with the text selected, but I got it working. The results are pretty similar to the bold text I'm trying to match.

How do I set text to bold (or italic) if the font doesn't have those styles? I'm trying to match some text created in Photoshop, but in AF the bold and italics options are not available unless the font supports them. Can I only apply styles are that available for a particular font?

I finally got it working. Thanks again. I discovered I'd missed this one critical step. If you don't opt-click the thumbnail (obviously), the mask is invisible, and it looks like nothing is happening. One more thing I still can't seem to do is paste into the mask. For example, if I want to copy an alpha channel from one image to another.

That works (cmd-click on Mac), but it selects all the pixels in the layer. I'd like to just select the pixels within the original selection, but this is a limitation I can adjust to. Thanks.

That just changes the size of the selection area. A rectangular marquee just gets bigger or smaller.

How can I shrink a rectangular (or other) selection to an irregularly-shaped object? In Photoshop I can draw a rectangular marquee around some shape, then nudge the selection (cmd-arrow), and the selection shrinks to only include the filled pixels in that layer, edges and holes are excluded from the selection. Is there a way to select just the filled pixels, maybe a different selection tool or selection options, within a given area without selecting the empty space?

How about "Creating/Editing the Alpha Channel" for Photoshop users. This is something I still have not figured out, and still rely on Photoshop for. There is nothing in the manual or any of the tutorials about the topic. Alpha channels are the only thing I've found that are treated completely differently in AF than in Photoshop, and the only (big, glaring) gap for me in the tutorials and documentation.

I do a lot of UI graphics and textures for 3D models that have transparency, so having access to the alpha channel, beyond just creating masks from selections, is very important to me. I've tried with the patient help of people on this forum to edit the alpha channel of a TIFF, and have not succeeded. I've also tried to create a new TIFF with an alpha channel without success. Creating and editing TIFFs with an alpha channel is the one thing I still need to use Photoshop for. Which is inconvenient as I have to use someone else's computer. I understand it is possible to edit the alpha channel (in theory), but it's not like editing other channels or layers. The pencil icon that indicates when a channel is editable, does not work for the alpha channel (Composite Alpha), it has no effect. You can't paint in the alpha channel, sample color, do fills or effects, or do much of anything. The alpha channel seems to be separate and treated differently from other channels and layers. I'd like to see the alpha channel treated like just another grayscale layer, so that ALL tools work with the alpha channel just as they do with other layers, without the additional steps of creating/merging new masks and layers. Just click the Pencil tool, make the alpha channel editable, and then edit it. Another, related change I'd like to see is being able to see the entire image even where the alpha channel is black. As it is, you can't see parts of the image where the alpha channel is black. I believe this is possible too, but is not obvious how to do it. Ideally, it would be a toggle to see the entire image or the alpha-masked image.

Thanks for all your help, but I'm just not getting this at all. I've tried MANY times, and just cannot seem to get it to work. Every time, I end up spending way too much time, getting frustrated, then giving up and using someone's else's computer with Photoshop, and getting it finished in a few minutes. Most recently, I tried to create a new TIFF with an alpha channel (a black rectangle with a gray alpha), and failed at that. I don't understand why doing anything with an alpha channel, which is treated just like any other layer in Photoshop, is so difficult in AF. The functionality to edit a grayscale channel already exists in the program. There's even a Pencil icon for the alpha channel which the hint says makes it editable, but doesn't. Access to the alpha channel seems like basic functionality for a program such as this.

There is no "Background Alpha" channel after Create Layer Mask. The attached shows the Channels panel before and after your step 3. See the attached screen capture, before step 3 on the left, and after on the right. There are only Composite Alpha and Mask Alpha channels.

Are you using the latest version? 1.6.7 Can you reproduce it? Yes Does it happen for a new document? If not do you have a document you can share that shows the problem? No. If you cannot provide a sample document then please give an accurate description of the problem for example it should include some the following: What application (Designer/Photo/Publisher) are you using? Affinity Photo What is your operating system and version (Windows 10, OSX Mojave, iOS 12 etc)? Mac OS 10.14.2 What happened for you (and what you expected to happen) I tried to apply a Gaussian Blur to a layer with a Levels Adjustment as its child. Provide a recipe for creating the problem (step-by-step what you did). Apply a Gaussian Blur to a layer with a Levels Adjustment as its child. Screenshots (very handy) or a screen capture/video. See attached.

The screen capture shows the problem. I'm trying to apply a Gaussian Blur to the blue layer. You can see the original on the right, and the filtered on the left. The selected area is 218 x 48. It looks like the cause of the problem is having a Levels Adjustment as a child of this layer. If I disable the Levels Adjustment, it blurs normally.

As the attached screen capture shows, I got through step 4, I created the mask and filled it. That does let me see the entire image, but I still can't edit the alpha mask. This is a transparent UI panel that I need to enlarge. In the screen capture, I've resized the image, and now I need to make the gray part of the Alpha channel fill the image, but keep the rounded corners the same. Anything I try to do — copy/paste, select/drag, fill — only affects the image layers, not the alpha channel. If I try to sample the gray color with the eye dropper tool, I get the color in the image. This happens when the pencil icon is dimmed for all but the Composite Alpha channel. Am I missing something? Editing the alpha channel should be simple and straightforward.

But it doesn't work. For me. At all. I'm running Mac Affinity Photo 1.6.7, recently purchased from the App Store, on Mac OS 10.14.2. The built-in help doesn't rely on a browser, so that shouldn't be an issue. If this is a known bug, it appears to have been around for quite some time. Now that I have the on-line link, it's not such a big deal, but a bug like this really should be fixed ASAP. Non-working help and no easy way to find the missing documentation does not make for a very good first impression.

Yes, please post detailed instructions. You mentioned merging with the alpha channel; that would work the same as pasting if I can create/edit my alpha channel in a grayscale layer. Thanks. I guess I'm not missing anything, editing the alpha channel directly is not supported. I mostly need a program like this to create textures for 3D models and UI graphics, so working with alpha channels is a big part of what I do.