brucet

Command J no longer makes a new layer from a selection. All it does is make a new layer of the whole page. Used rectangular marquee to select a portion of the image. Then tried Command J and got a new layer, but it copied the whole image as a new layer, not just my selection. Same thing with Layer>Duplicate selection; duplicates the whole image, not just the selection. How can I fix this?

Thank you, Lisbon, that is exactly what I was looking for.

Photoshop clone tool had a submenu of variations, among which was "color" With that, one could click a source area and then paint over the target area to change its color to the same as that source, but without changing the pixels of the target; so modifying the pixels' color values, but not replacing them. I suspect that there must be some tool in Affinity Photo v1 that can do the same, but I've not yet found it. Can anyone help?

Original 1780 x 900 file seems stretched in width. In Photoshop I could click on "layer" "copy layer", then CMD+T to select it for manipulation of width/height/rotation, then grab one side and drag until objects in the image look properly proportional. Finally, I could crop and merge layers before saving. I'm sure that the same result can be done with AP, but I can't figure how to make a copy of the background layer, much less to select it and grab one side to squeeze it to proper proportions. Select All seems to do nothing at all. How does this simple task get done in AP1?

Thanks for the move tool suggestion. That has the elements of PS Cmd+T and helpfully displays pixel size of the modified layer. No skew, distort, etc. Though. I have viewed many of James Ritson's fine Affinity videos, but - not to fault Affinity - their titles are not written to accommodate some old PS user trying to find a particular functionality, so finding what I want to know can be difficult. I never would have thought to look at a Move Tool video to find resizing and rotating. If there is one on Mesh Warp tool, I could not find it in the list.

Thanks, all, but none of the videos is helpful; most about Affinity 2 or text, etc. I sometimes need to select a portion from one side or the other of of a scanned old diapositive image image shot with a wide angle lens, where the image has been distorted by the edge compression of the lens. I simply want to find a way to do what could be done in Photoshop CS5 where Cmd+T brought a sizing box with which one could drag to enlarge/reduce size of a layer image, stretch laterally or vertically, and/or drag to move it around. Also under the edit tab (I think) were a series of distorting tools; Skew, Distort, Perspective, etc, which enabled selectively changing dimensions of various parts of the image. Closest I have found is Mesh Warp Tool, which is interesting, but not the same.

I tried that, finding a half dozen or so, none of which was on subject.

Photoshop made distorting, skewing, warping, etc easy. I found distort filters, but have no idea how to use them or what they can do. Affinity "help" is no help at all, just a summary list of functions without any explanation how to use. Can someone point me at instructions or a good tutorial?

Yeah, good point. I don't have clients, just cleaning up scanned family photos and such. Many of them get emailed, so huge files are a problem and I can't control initial size while scanning because I don't do all of them myself. I guess the real problem is that the only way one can control the sizes of files when saving them is by Export. Photoshop allowed file size control (in arbitrary steps, not as wonderfully precisely as Affinity's Export) in Save or Save As. Affinity Save may either increase or decrease file size by some unpredictable amount.

How is that possibly a "feature"? Most people want to open a file, modify it and then save back to the folder it came from. I can't even think of a situation in which such a stupid behavior could be useful.

Mac 1.10.5 When saving a file by exporting (in order to control file size) Export saves it not to the folder it was opened from, but instead, to the last folder Export saved a file to. I don't know if Save command does the same thing or not. It should default to save (actually replace) to the same folder the file was opened from.

Now I clicked on "Toggle Function?" at the bottom of the view dropdown list and all of the tabs at the top disappeared. Is there some way to return to default settings?

I assume that I must have accidentally hit some keyboard command that did it, but have no idea what or how.

Mac v 1.10.5 I opened an image file and Affinity Photo screen was all black. I managed to find view tools to restore those, but the right side boxes that display layers and allow access and toggling on and off are gone. How do I get them back?

Thank you to all of the members who responded to my questions about Affinity Photo, some even with screen shots to show me exactly what to do. Your generous sharing of your skills and knowledge have proven to me that I no longer have to allow Photoshop CS5 to hold me back from being able to upgrade from OS X 10.11 El Capitan to Big Sur, with its newer version of Apple Mail whose security protocols my email provider accepts, and browsers that are fully supported by all web sites. You folks are great!