I should start by saying I am still a novice to affinity and do not use it on a regular basis (and thus have to frequently revisit certain workflows in the designer). However, I am finding if I want to do certain affects, I might copy a layer and then mask it to another layer. Then I can use layer effects (burn,substract,add,etc) to create this effect over a subselection of the design. This seems to be the best way to get a kind of projected overlay effect where by I can better control a layer blocking another layer but then specially adjust intersecting area using the masked layed. through this process I copy two different layers: one becomes the mask and the other is masked. I also will use the original layers in this effect., so I end up with 3 layers, 1 being the masked layer (a product of copies from the other two).
Now, if at any point in my designing process, I want to revisit changing the original layer used in the mask, such that the outline changes, then this change will not be affected in the masked layer, because I masked via a copy of the layer and this is the only way to do this masked layer operationally, is this correct? There is no solution for this is there?
Likewise if I want to change the original layer which is copied and masked, then the masked layer created from the copy does not reflect the changes in the original layer when I change it and thus I have to repeat the process of creating the masked layer (the same as required to fix the previous mentioned issue). At a fundamental level this is not complex but if I repeat this over multiple layers, it could become tedious. Is there no solution (e.g. Copy by reference -- thus changes are reflected in both places)? Is my workflow wrong?
