smadell

I'm pretty sure I know exactly what you're after. I think the problem you're facing is that Photoshop (as I understand it) treats masks, and indeed all channels, as greyscale layers when they're being edited. So, the brushes, adjustments, etc. tend to work just as they would if you were editing a regular pixel layer. Affinity Photo, on the other hand, treats masks as they truly are – alpha channels, with no color whatsoever. Trying to edit them as if they are pixel layers just doesn't work. (Wish it would, but that's another story.) The answer to do what you're after is a workaround. Instead of making a mask out of, say, the blue channel, start by making the blue channel into a Greyscale layer. This will create a greyscale pixel layer in the Layers stack, which you can edit like the pixel layer it is. Take your black or white brush, set the blend mode to Overlay, and have at it. Once you've got your purely black and white layer (which is, I assume, what you're after) choose Rasterize to Mask by right-clicking the layer in the Layers panel, or by choosing it from the Layer menu. Drag the mask that results into the proper layer.

A suggestion and a comment: 1) Try clicking the little green circle (upper left) as this might reveal the menu bar. 2) That's quite a photo!

Glad that everyone is finding these helpful. I’ve learned so much in the past few years, largely because of this Forum. It feels good to give something back.

You've inadvertantly discovered the clipping-vs-masking question, and when it does (and doesn't) matter. Check out this video for the "official explanation" from Affinity's James Ritson:

The easiest way I can think of is by using Luminosity masking, or by fiddling with the Blend Options directly. In brief, you can take your dark-sky-and-stars layer, duplicate it, and use Blend Options (click the Gear icon at the top of the Layers panel) to limit each of these layers to the dark areas or the light areas, respectively.

Thanks, Walt. Good to know.

Correct me if I’m wrong, guys. But, the Snapping Candidate lines only appear when the Move tool is active. Since I often (usually) like to have Snapping ON, just activating the Hand tool (you can just hit “H” on the keyboard) makes the snapping candidate lines go away.

Frank... If you want to use the selection tool, just make a selection and then create a mask. 1F3D2CAB-5BF3-40BA-B650-CF0B1E508BE2.MOV

Although you can’t literally crop a single layer, you can effectively do the same thing by clipping the layer to a vector shape. Create a shape (such as the rectangle I used in the screenshot below) and drag the layer into the shape, so that it becomes a child of the shape.

In the Context Toolbar (under the main Toolbar, but above the image) you need to set the Source to “Current Layer and Below.” You are trying to use the Healing Brush tool on an empty pixel layer, which is a good way to do this non-destructively, but you need your source to include the layers below to get anything to work.

In fact, the Nikon D7000 was first sold in 2010, but the D3300 did not hit the shelves until 2014. If you haven't upgraded your MacBook's OS since you bought it (maybe?) your 2012 operating system couldn't possibly recognize the newer camera's Raw files.

Based on the appearance of your Dock and the old icon for iTunes, I'm guessing that you're using an older version of the Mac OS. Is it possible that this older version does not recognize raw files from one of your cameras?

To make these edits even more concise, there’s no real need to duplicate any portion of the original pixel layer. In the first case, you can make the selection on the Background and simply add an HSL adjustment. The selection will mask the effect, and you can further refine its effect by limiting the color range it acts on. In the second case, you can make the selection of the hands on the Background, then add a levels adjustment. Don’t move any of the sliders at all - just set the Levels adjustment to Screen and adjust the opacity as desired. These refinements are a little “cleaner,” and probably result in somewhat smaller file sizes too.

I posted this a few days ago...

In my experience, macros don't always play well with child layers. The only way I've been consistently able to work with layers that end up as children of another layer is to i) first create the new layer (pixel, adjustment, filter, etc.) at the "root level" of the layer stack (that is, set your Assistant to add an adjustment as a new layer rather than as a child layer); ii) do what you want with that layer (rename, set parameters, etc); then iii) use the "Move Inside" command to place the layer as a child of the layer directly below it. Sometimes, you can choose a child layer by first choosing the parent layer and then "going inside" the nested layers. But this does not seem to work reliably, and is often the source of immediate crashes when I am writing macros.