The Capricious Erase Brush Tool, Part Deux

[GDPR-354025]

@Joachim_L helped me tremendously on Part 1 of my expedition to conquer the Great Affinity Erase Brush Tool problem. The upshot was that his Erase Brush Tool worked on the same image downloaded from the internet that my Erase Brush Tool did not work on, and that I had to resort to the Magic Wand and Selection Brush tools to come up with a really crappy edit with tons of artifacts the Erase Brush Tool should have removed. I considered that the problem was my ten-year-old Windows 7 laptop that shall not be pried from my cold dead hands. But I'm not sure this is the case. I did not ask Joachim if he used a Mac (his edit was pristine).

I say I'm not sure that the love of my laptop life is the problem because when I downloaded another random image from the internet, the Erase Brush Tool did work. I went to a second Windows 7 laptop, downloaded the image that Joachim_L and I had both worked on, and-- WOW! It also forbade the Erase Brush Tool. These mutually downloaded images were of Simpsons' characters, which leads me to ask if images downloaded from the internet can be digitally protected in some way from being edited even if the images are recognized by Affinity as "pixel" images. I put this qualification in italics because until I posted the original question on the Erase Brush Tool, in fifteen years, I did not know an image had to be a pixel image before the Erase tools would be able to work on them.

To conclude: the Erase Brush Tool did not work on a downloaded image of a Simpsons character on either of two laptops. The Erase Brush Tool DID work, flawlessly, on a downloaded picture of a baby koala bear on both laptops. Joachim's Erase Brush Tool worked on the downloaded Simpsons image.

I have increasingly come to believe that Affinity works to maximum effect on Apple products as opposed to Windows. I would sincerely appreciate knowing if this inference is true.

Thank you, and happy holidays.

[firstdefence]

It's a bit of both, plugins tend to have a better chance at working on windows than Mac so not everything is sunshine and roses on this side of the pond. From what I have seen of Affinity and yawl crazy windows users,  it seems you have the lions share of trouble, but I think this is more the Operating System in conjunction with any app not just affinity, that causes a lot of issues. Mac just seem to be less troublesome, we have issues but they seems more easily fixable and less of them. I use a 2011 iMac at home and it rarely has trouble.

With regard to protection, I have never come across an image file type that you can open and it be protected from editing i.e. locked to editing. I think one of the reasons this is either not considered is it's so easy to screenshoot an image. If people want to protect an image they would either watermark it visually or invisibly plus copyright is always there.

Ps. So people can follow your epic journey through the dark town of eraserville (I see a series here ) link to the other post so people can get some back history, i.e. Characters, plot, storyline... 

[GDPR-354025]

@firstdefence Your Mac is 2011? Hmph. Mine is circa 2010, and I didn't think it would run Affinity. I'll install it and see what magic happens.

9 hours ago, firstdefence said:

With regard to protection, I have never come across an image file type that you can open and it be protected from editing i.e. locked to editing. I think one of the reasons this is either not considered is it's so easy to screenshoot an image. If people want to protect an image they would either watermark it visually or invisibly plus copyright is always there.

Now that is the weird part. I too considered it would be impossible for anyone who uploads an image to the Inter Webs to control what happens after it's downloaded. But I can't otherwise explain what happened. One of the few joys in my life being the opportunity to be splenetic on Affinity Forums, I know Serif wouldn't want to deprive an old man of one of his few joys. I was extremely disappointed NOT to be able to blame Affinity for planting malicious bugs in my Erase Tools.

Well, you have given me a game plan. I will download Affinity to the Mac, download the Simpsons image, and see if the problem persists. I call this series... "Eraserhead: Affinity"

[R C-R]

On 12/26/2019 at 9:27 AM, Guest-354025 said:

To conclude: the Erase Brush Tool did not work on a downloaded image of a Simpsons character on either of two laptops.

I'm not sure what you mean by "did not work." In your other topic in this post your second screenshot clearly shows that quite a bit of the downloaded file has been erased so one way or another something erased all that. If not the Erase Brush Tool, then what did? 

[catlover]

Please forgive me in advance, I'm sure you're all much more experienced in all matters Photo than I.

BUT ..... @Guest-354025 : are you sure you've got all brush settings at 100% ? Opacity, Fill, Hardness ?

Sort of like Ooops, left the lenscap on ..... (that should also tell you I'm rather ancient ) 

To all you Forum regulars : Have I good New Year in the best of health !

C.L.

[GDPR-354025]

@R C-R As I said above, the Magic Wand + Clear (or Delete) and/or the Selection Brush Tool + Clear (or Delete). Big fail.

@catlover Hel-lo, my fellow Olivio fan. Yep, the Erase Brush Tool was set to fire on all cylinders. Attached is a little gift to you for making me aware of the best Masking video I ever watched. It was part of a contest to turn a French film title into an animal. Oui, I have too much time on my hands. You have a great holiday season as well!

BUT... Affinity is gaslighting poor Ingrid. The Erase Brush Tool is now working on the Simpson downloads on the original laptop where it wouldn't work a few days ago. It is fixed. And I know Affinity is gaslighting me. How do I know this, you may ask. I know it because after logging on just now and finding Catlover's comment, I dutifully tried to boot Affinity to see if I indeed had all the settings as they should be. Affinity would not boot! I had to click on the icon three times. Then it booted, and I used the Erase Brush tool, and VEE-OH-LA! The Erase Brush Tool worked like a charm.

If Grampa retires to the Home and you never hear from him again, you will miss him. And Ingrid.