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Three of my last digital collage artworks. I used this time exclusively Affinity Photo and Inkscape with my MacBook Pro instead of other well known software.

I am trying to create a digital collage using some of my original photographs. I have had some partial success but have gotten stuck, I think because I don't completely understand how to use masks and work with irregular shapes. I've watched some tutorial videos but they don't answer all my questions. I used Designer to create an outline of the shapes I wanted to use in my collage. I then brought that into Photo. Most of the shapes are rectangles but there are some irregular areas which is where I'm having trouble. I brought in various images using the Place command and clipped them to the rectangles. That worked fine. But at the bottom of the collage there is a dark area that extends into the bottom of the piece. I used a mask to paint away the part of the rectangle that was covering up the dark irregular area inside the design lines I'd created with the pen tool in Designer, but I painted out too much. I then tried switching the paint brush color from black to white but I wasn't able to paint back in the rest of the rectangular image where I had painted out too much. I'm not sure I was on the right layer though I tried working on several different layers, including the mask layer, with the same lack of result. I just wasn't clear what I should be doing to paint back in the rest of the rectangle that now shows as white. Also, on the top of the piece, I want to cut out some areas of the rectangles and create some irregular areas similar to the one at the bottom and fill those with a different image from the image that is filling the rectangle. I don't know how to do that either. I don't know if I have to create a selection in the rectangle and then somehow fill that selection with another image. I don't even know where to start on this part of the collage. I've attached a jpg of my image as well as a Photo file. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I would appreciate the help. Digital_Collage_Granite_.afphoto