Fill layers to dodge and burn

[Edel Ayala]

Hey guys, I saw a technique to dodge and burn but it wasn’t with curves. This guy used a 50% gray fill layer and then used an overlay blend mode next thing was to paint with the  paint brush in white to burn and black to dodge but I don’t achieve to paint on the fill layer. I tried what I just told you but it does nothing.

Hopefully some of you guys have tried this technique and can answer what is happening. 
 

Here is where I saw this: https://affinityspotlight.com/article/drue-photo-shares-his-secrets-to-beautiful-light/

[smadell]

You can't use a "Fill Layer" here because Affinity Photo treats that as a vector object. You can't paint on a Fill Layer. Instead, add a new Pixel Layer (or just choose "New Layer" from the Layer menu) and then fill it with 50% grey. Set the blend mode to Overlay. If you paint with white, you will Dodge. If you paint with Black, you will Burn.

Suggestion: use a brush with 0% (or very, very low) hardness, and with 2-5% Flow. I usually keep the Opacity at 100%. The low Flow rate lets the strokes build up slowly, especially helpful if you're using a tablet.

I've attached a macro that you can import into your Library panel. This will create the layer for you.

Dodge & Burn (50% Grey Layer).afmacros

[lepr]

23 hours ago, Edel Ayala said:

Hey guys, I saw a technique to dodge and burn but it wasn’t with curves. This guy used a 50% gray fill layer and then used an overlay blend mode next thing was to paint with the  paint brush in white to burn and black to dodge but I don’t achieve to paint on the fill layer. I tried what I just told you but it does nothing.

Hopefully some of you guys have tried this technique and can answer what is happening. 
 

Here is where I saw this: https://affinityspotlight.com/article/drue-photo-shares-his-secrets-to-beautiful-light/

The problem is that painting on a Fill layer is painting on its built-in mask just like painting on the built-in mask of a live filter or adjustment. Since 50% grey in overlay mode has no effect on the underlying image, anyway, nothing appears to happen when the mask of the Fill layer is edited.

Rasterise a 50% grey Fill layer to convert it to a Pixel layer on which you can paint.