PanSpec

Thanks for taking the time to make your suggestions. The "Insert Inside" is somewhat helpful, but I still end up with a ton of layers and clutter because of it. Creating some kind of workflow with Designer is probably the key - I've done it before with Clip Studio Paint/Manga Studio with Illustrator, so maybe its just a matter of not living with ultra-convenience. I'll have to see if I can get some kind of synergy out of the two programs, but with only 5 days left on my trial of Photo, I doubt I'll be able to. Cheers! Pan

That is correct. I'm not necessarily requesting this, I'm just trying to see if there is a way to do it in Affinity Photo as part of my evaluation, to see if I can live without paying an Adobe Subscription.

Thanks for your response, that is helpful and has tipped off some ideas for workarounds. It seems like I started my trial session a bit too soon.

I'm currently trying out the Affinity Photo trial, coming from an extensive Photoshop background. One part of my workflow in Photoshop for painting complex backgrounds is creating vector paths to help create numerous selections and details that can be used as masks, or paths for effects, etc. I've been trying to duplicate this in Affinity Photo, but find that each created shape is on its own layer, and when I try to select a different layer, the previous one's lines disappear, making it impossible to draw shapes in relation to others. The closest I've gotten is having the shapes filled, so they show up without the nodes, but that is a very primitive workaround. Is there any way to work on multiple shapes/paths on a single layer and have the nodes be visible so they can be easily tweaked? Thanks for any info you guys might have