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I have been looking at some XP-Pen reviews. This one notes a problem with Affinity photo - is this a recognised issue? https://www.parkablogs.com/content/review-xp-pen-artist-12-pen-display

Thanks! I'll have a look into these. Do you transfer files between your ipad and desktop, or do you do your Affinity work all on the ipad?

I'm starting out on looking into what options are available to me, if I want to add a graphics tablet or pen display to my system. I have a refurbed mac pro, which currently runs El Capitan. I've also got an iPad Air 2. I had got hopeful that I could make use of this via Astropad - however the Air 2 isn't compatible with the Apple Pencil and therefore not supported. It's also not compatible with Sidecar... and neither would my mac pro be, because I don't think it can run Catalina. So I'm back to looking at third party devices. Any recommendations for ones that aren't super expensive, and will play nicely with my mac, and Affinity apps? I'm open to buying second hand - especially if that might be a good option compatibility wise given my now slightly outdated setup. Or... is there any mileage in considering using the iPad directly - install Affinity apps on that, and find a compatible stylus? I would then work directly on the iPad when I want to do stuff with a Stylus. Does it work to transfer files between the iOS and OSX versions of Affinity apps?

Ah, ok, thanks. That clarifies that I can't achieve this using blending modes in Affinity.

As a matter of interest is there a similar thing that will work with pixel rather than vector layers?

Perfect - exactly what I need! That will save me quite a lot of work today. thank you!

I'm using Affinity Photo (maybe I should be doing this in Designer?) Is there a 'correct' or cleanest way to non-destructively generate what I've shown above? The way I've done it is group (a): the grey block with the text on top of it in an 'erase' blend mode group (b): the text in grey, with a block on top of it in 'erase' blend mode to chop off the top and then I manually align group (a) on top of group (b). That's a rubbish way to do it though, because it relies on me aligning the two parts by eye and if I want to change the text, I have to change two copies of it. What I really want is a blend mode that inverts 'grey' and 'transparent' so I can just place the text on top of the grey block and get the above result. Any suggestions?

Thanks. Haven't used snapshots before. But seems like a bit of a workaround for functionality that ought to be in the slices persona.

This seems like quite a major limitation in what 'slices' can do.

A further question - what if i want to export at a certain size (in mm) and resolution (in dpi) - I don't see how I can do this by typing into dropdown, it won't let me specify mm instead of px, and in any case there's no resolution option. I also can't see how I can do this in the photo persona - the 'export' function doesn't seem to give me these options either. Obviously I can just resize the document - but that cuts out the option of exporting different sizes/resolutions from the same file. Am I missing something obvious?

Ah - thanks, that works, if a little counter intuitive. Is there a way of saving it so that it's available in the dropdown in the future?

Am I right in understanding that it's not possible to use the 'export' persona to export an image file at a custom pixel size or resolution? In other words I can only choose from the standard options that Affinity gives me, like 2x, 3x, 100w and so on. I'd like to export a slice, which is not the whole of my document, at a particular resolution. So, for example I have a document size of 5155x2766, and I've created a slice of the portion I want, which happens to measure 4050x2700, but I want to export it to create an image file that is 1440x960. It seems that the only way I can do this is to crop the image in Photo persona, to the aspect ratio I want, and then use File - Export. Is that right or am I missing something?

Trying to use the Export persona in Affinity Photo and I find the various presets monumentally confusing; there seem to be two types of preset the names of which are too similar. If I've got my head around it, there are both "Export Options presets" and also "Export Setup presets". An "Export Setup Preset" is applied per slice, and it can call on (multiple?) "Export Options presets" for the exports from that slice. I think the names need to be more distinct and clearer about what they actually do. To add further to the confusion, the "expert setup preset" is chosen from a dropdown that's simply labelled "export preset", so it's really confusing, what you're actually choosing in there. I don't know if it's just me but it completely does my head in!