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What I'm thinking of is an alternative to the classic layers: a node editor, where each layer would now be a node, with a mask and before input, so that you can reuse layer groups. What I'm thinking of: Each node has inputs and outputs depending on the type (example blur: input=image, radius form=type, radius, output=image) Creating groups and naming them storing created groups as global templates (like macros, but as components that can be stored) adding custom inputs to groups with custom labels maybe sharing groups online? (like as a marketplace for quick templates) As an orientation for how it would work, I would like something like Blender 3Ds node editor. As for how it's integrated into the UI, either it's a separate editor that you need to toggle on/off on a per-project basis, or it's a layer (like a node layer or something) that then opens a UI

Why am I seeing the icon to the left of "White Balance Adjustment". I've never seen this before and there seems no explanation as to what it is (seems to only affect the layer below I think) or how to get rid of it. Normally I expect adjustment layers to affect ALL layers below which is what I want. Not sure how to look this up in a FAQ as I don't know what it is called. I assume I did something to make this appear.

I often want to compare two different versions of a shape in two layers. Is there a way to do that with one keyboard shortcut without having to perform three actions (hide layer => show other layer => press spacebare to hide bounding boxes)? -thx Dave

Hey, I'm in the position showed on the screen. I wanted to change colour of the background. I already did, but how to merge it all together to have green plant and creamy background?

When you have many layers that includes different adjustments or effects I feel that the layers panel gets very cluttered, and it's hard to find the layer I am looking for even though I try to be thorough with naming the layers. I think it would be much easier to overview the layers if the name sticked to the same position regardless anything else happening within the layer. I've added a screenshot with a suggested solution (the suggestion probably have a lot of challenges that I have not thought about, but I thought it might at least be a good way to explain the clutter I am experience today, and how much simpler it would be with a consistent title placement). Finally, just want to state that I truly love Affinity and all the great work you do!

This is so necessary for keeping objects in register for things such as animation.

I cannot preview the grouped layers in the layer panel in V2, but no such bug existed in V1 on the same computer running the same system.

Scenario: I am working on creating a tileset for my game. In order to make my tiles seamless, I need to ensure that each side is able to match up with the opposite. So what I have is a single tile created, and I created copies of that tile on all edges that way I can see what needs changing. What I would like to do is have one 'master layer' per say, and have each of those copies just be representative of the original master layer. I think this is something you can do in photoshop but not sure. Anyways, is there any feature or assistance with this type of workflow?

Hello, I tried to search and didn't find any related topic. I have been wondering why the Layer's blend mode's list is short and doesn't display all the modes at once. Is there a setting in the preferences that I might be missing? 🤔 Juan

I am working on a repeat pattern utilizing the symbols capability. However, there is an object that is not syncing up properly and no matter what I try, it will not go all the way back or even underneath the symbol that it is crossing over. I am not sure what to do because I've tried sending to the back the initial object on Artboard 1. That did not work. I re-layered the objects so that the selected curve (and its whole group) are underneath the object I want on top, but that does nothing. I have no idea what I am missing or doing incorrectly. Not sure how to fix this. Included is a screen shot of what is happening. I wasn't able to find any FAQ topics that answered or mentioned my question. In the screenshot the object selected is the one I want on top. The vine crossing over it is definitely included in the group that is below that object. I have checked every section, grouping, and layer of each Artboard and every occurrence of that repeating vine. All the other occurrences of that vine are behaving as desired. Not sure what is happening with the top half of the repeat on the right. Hopefully it's an easy fix and that I am simply clueless. Affinity Designer 2, latest update, iPad Pro.

My main problem at the moment: My documents are/were previously created in Indesign CS6. After having successfully implemented some smaller projects in Affinity Publisher, I wanted to migrate other projects as well. And in doing so, I encountered problems that I a) didn't expect and for which I b) didn't find any explanations or help in the form of tutorials. The tutorials and also the help files probably explain some of the affected details like master pages, layers, frame texts, but without addressing my problem or even touching on it. To migrate documents from InDesign to Affinity Publisher, I created IDML exports and opened them in Affinity Publisher. These are layered documents, with various, even hierarchical, master pages, with basic text frames on them, activated on the effective pages of the document using [SHIFT][CTRL] and then used. For InDesign, these text frames are then editable on the relevant effective page. Affinity Publisher apparently sees this quite differently. After IDML import, I can edit all text frames inserted directly in these pages (e.g. for image texts, info frames, etc.) that are on "regular" layers, but not the text frames that I have brought into the page from the master page. I hope this is understandable for outsiders. These text frames, which in my case contain headings and the main text respectively, I see on a strange layer, which on the one hand is labeled with the name of the master page, but on the other hand is grayed out. My question: How can I move these frame texts to one of the "correct" layer ("Text & Images")? And this in the whole document, not manually page by page; after all, these are documents with 200 to 450 pages, but they should be adapted to new circumstances year by year. Additional question: After using optical kerning in InDesign for text, I feel now like wet-shirted in the wind with Affinity Publisher. I would have to reformat or rewrite to appropriate length every single text on every single page. Is there a solution here? Because it looks like ignoring optical kerning for Sans Serif is almost a matter of faith. Which makes a feature update in this direction not likely. My considerations for switching to Affinity Software were: I could continue to work on these documents with Adobe InDesign until CS6 stops working at the current OS level. I could, but only very theoretically, afford an InDesign subscription from Adobe. But since I don't want to support subscription models at all, and on the other hand I've been financially supporting Sans Serif with the Affinity palette since the first version without using the products in any meaningful way so far, I thought the moment when my first InDesign tool no longer supported version CS6 was the right one to switch completely. This works quite well with Affinity Photo with a few sacrifices and some tedious conversions in terms of operation. Affinity Designer, like Adobe Illustrator, I will hardly use. And with Affinity Publisher, I'm quite far along, although the changeover is much more complex than with Affinity Photo. I'm still a bit behind there.

Usually, I work with multiple layers: one is a trace-over background and then I have a group with design layers (line-work, fills and some other miscellaneous pixel layers). Something like this: I would like to have a 4th option in the Flood fill tool, which is: below, only within current layer/ group. This ensures that my trace-over layer will be discarded when filling, because it is outside of the design layer that I work in.

Hello! When working with the “Develop Persona” section, I was very surprised by the lack of elementary tools for working with mask layers! Namely, what is missing so far: There is no way to show, turn off, hide or fix a layer with a mask. I can't invert the layer mask. I can't copy the mask of one layer to another layer. There is no way to adjust the mask to select dark or light parts of the image for processing the RAW file. All data about layers and masks is deleted after I return back from the "Photo Persona" section to edit the raw file in the "Develop Persona" section. A huge request to developers is to implement in the next updates these elementary tools and functions that are available today in almost every raw editor and converter. Thanks! 😗👍

Hello, With version 2 of the Affinity apps comes with not only new layers interface, but also new layer drop zones and new UI feedback (blue highlights). I updated the cheat sheet to reflect these changes to help anyone who is looking for better understanding on how layers behave when dragged within the layers panel. Original post for version 1 of the cheat sheet here. This is a basic guide. It does not address all the possibilities of non-destructive masks, multi-nested layers, etc. There are many complex possibilities. I hope it serves to get you on the right track to understanding the foundations of layers in the Affinity Apps. Here is a PDF version: Layers Panel Cheat Sheet v4.2.pdf Note that my example uses the light UI. I did not create one for the dark UI, but the principles and feedback are the same.

After I have filled several objects with styles that I have created, how can I later click on an object and reveal which style fills that object? I can reveal which layer it is on, but can't find the style that was applied to that object/layer.

Platform: MacOS 12.6, Apple M1 Max processor, 32 GB memory. To reproduce: Open an image (stock image is fine). Add live adjustment layer - exposure. Add live mask layer (Luminosity). All works fine to this point, changing mask and exposure. Now, try sliding mask layer down (click, drag downwards, blue line appears between exposure and base levels). Result - crash. Reproducible. Every time. crash-report.txt

In Design 2 can the color of multiple layers, in a group, be changed without changing each layer individually?

First of all, congrats on the release of the new version. I got excellent value from Designer v1, so was happy to pay again. I am looking forward to playing with the new features. I noticed a minor glitch in text display in the Layers pane. Descenders get chopped off at the baseline. See the "g" and the "y" in this screenshot: Hopefully it won't be too hard to fix Best wishes Will

Just revitalizing this huge thread from the 1.x version since this crucial (but rather complex) feature still has not made it into Publisher. 😢 The original discussion is here.

It's hard to split this one up into several topics, because it all has to do with one and the same thing: layers. I have been going back and forth between Photo and Designer today for a complex file only because I am missing a couple of features in various parts of the software. These features can be are either available in Photo or Designer and not in the other. The same is true for their various personas or between personas in Publisher. I would argue that these basic layer manipulation and organisation features should be available in all of the personas and apps. That way, information is always displayed consistently in the layers panel, regardless of switching personas or programs. To be more specific, I cannot promote groups to layers in Affinity Photo, neither can I add symbols in Photo. In Designer, I cannot create linked layers. In Designer, if I go to the Photo persona, linked layers remain unavailable. In Publisher, I don't have symbols unless I go to the Designer persona. Linked layers are unavailable. For instance, the workflow with symbols in Photo becomes quite strange (same is true for Publisher when switching from the Designer to the Photo persona), because the Linked layer properties appear/ disappear between the two. Leading to different ways of interpenetrating the layer information. 2022-10-24 13-58-05.mp4 For instance, I could unlink the vector shape and it would still remain linked in Designer. Back in Photo, it shows as unlinked, but it is linked again. Though I presume this is a bug, reported here: 2022-10-24 14-03-41.mp4 I do however presume that there is much more prone to breaking the same way as this. Just because the implementation differs between one program and the other for no apparent reason. Anyways, I really think that if I switch programs for the sake of accessing features in one program that's not available in the other, I should at least be able to see my information displayed in the layers panel and the studios (linked layers and symbols) so I can opt to proceed working with them as I would in the other program I switched from. Symbols, linked layers and promoting groups to layers are all such general concepts that they can easily be used throughout the entire suite. Why shouldn't Publisher have symbols in the Publisher persona? Please evaluate these inconsistencies. It should, hopefully also help in having a cleaner and more robust code for the entire suite.

It may be nice to have inverted linked layer states, in which I can show one layer and thereby hide another. This would ease the showing/ hiding process of layers in a complex document. This request is in response to:

The city scale drawings I often work on are large files that necessitate the use of a single artboard for performance/ storage reasons. If I make several drawings on top of the same base layer (e.g. over the buildings), it would be helpful to link the visibility states of all layers that pertain to a particular drawing. However, with linked layers it is only possible to link two layers together. So I would like to request there being the possibility to link 3 or more layers for visibility. You may say, why don't you just toggle them on individually? The reason is that if I export several drawings, I may easily forget to turn particular layers on/ off during the process and thus make a mistake. As a result, I have to then go back and show/ hide lots of layers to re-export. If I could have linked the layers, that wouldn't be the case.

It would be helpful to link layer states (expanded/ collapsed) across layers. Sometimes you need to edit multiple layers and collapse/ expand several nested layers to make edits in two nested layers. In such instances, being able to have both of them expand and collapse synchronously, would ease navigating complex files.

In the Export Persona of Affinity Photo, I can't see that layers are linked by Visibility. I would like to be able to see this or have the links panel visible there. If I have linked my layers and colour coded the ones that are associated, it also doesn't show, because the Export Persona doesn't show layer colours. So this means that both means I have at my disposal to tell linked layer visibility from within the layers studio are absent... 2022-10-23 11-45-55.mp4

Hi! I have a problem best described by an example: I dragged an Afphoto picture of a car into the Publisher. I'd like to use the cutout car layer and another layer with a shadow underneath. But every time I switch the shadow on/off (in the photo persona) it (dis)appears on both inserted instances of the picture. Is there an uncomplicated way how to separate those two instances other than making two different images – one with the car and one with the shadow? Thank you, Stepaan