Can't select anything...

[Barrowman]

I have an image, that I can't select a part of .

I use a rectangular marquee tool but can't select a part of the image. I select a part of it, to duplicate it to extend the background, but it just duplicates the whole layer, even if I try to lasso and drag a part of the image, it just moves the selection not the content I've selected.

 

 

[MEB]

Hi Barrowman,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
That's because you are working with an Image layer. Right-click that layer in the Layers panel and select Rasterise. You can then copy/paste just the part you selected.
Placed files are inserted as Image layers (not Pixel layers) - check the label between parenthesis after the layer's name in the Layers panel. Image layers are considered an object. They retain all original image properties but cannot be edited at a pixel level (you can only transform them - scale, rotate, skew etc). To convert them to Pixel layers for pixel operations right-click on them in the Layers panel and select Rasterise.

[Barrowman]

Thank you so much - you are right, Why is that though? Seems like a weird unintuitive extra thing to have to do?

[Jeremy Bohn]

I never understood that either, and it was one reason why I gave up on Photo soon after I initially bought it awhile back. It just seemed broken because some tools didn't work on my image. I've made comments elsewhere already that Photo needs to be more clear about the difference between Image Layers and Pixel Layers, specifically in Photo as it's contrary to what Photoshop users expect. Either that or an option to automatically make images layers into pixel layers. The command to "rasterize" doesn't make sense either because an image is already a raster. IMO it should be renamed to "Convert to Pixel Layer" or similar. And if Image Layers are considered an object, then maybe they should be called Image Objects.

[Barrowman]

Yes I agree completely, there are some amazingly intuitive things in Affinity, where the learning curve is minimal, this is the opposite of that.

[MEB]

Hi Jeremy Bohn, Jeremy Bohn,
Check this video tutorial for more details about pixel layer vs image layers.

[Jeremy Bohn]

Hi MEB, MEB,

Yes, I understand it now, but when I bought AP years ago, as a long time Photoshop user, I basically gave up on AP quite quickly out of frustration. Thankfully I revisited it. Some behaviour that I found annoying I discovered could be changed with settings. Unfortunately the pixel/image layer thing is not one of them but at least now I know what they are. I wonder how many potential customers were like me, found it frustrating, and then never purchased?

[Barrowman]

Well thankfully I thought it was a bug. Having done the same thing on another image and not knowing why it wasn't responding the same as before. It's an odd paradigm, that makes sense when explained but sits at a level where most users wouldn't expect to need to learn.