Ability to paint on fill layers

[CPP]

Something I found useful in Photoshop was the ability to place a grey fill layer above a photo using a blend mode such as overlay. Then by painting in the fill layer either white or black with differing amounts of opacity I could non-destructively dodge and burn portions of my photo. This appears not to work in Affinity Photo since the fill layer appears not to permit painting in it. Specifically if I attempt to paint with black the painted sections turn transparent.

 

Therefore my feature request is to permit painting in a fill layer.

[JimGoshorn]

Well I just tried it the manual way. I first created a pixel layer and painted a black rectangle on it. Then I created a layer and using the paint brush I painted it gray and then changed the mode to overlay. The black rectangle showed through the gray layer as expected but gray was displayed around the rectangle as well. I then painted on the gray layer using white and to my surprise it didn't lighten the rectangle in the least just made white appear around the rectangle.

 

Based on this, it would appear that overlay works a bit differently than it does in Photoshop  :huh:

[coranda]

CPP,

 

You can do this in AP but not with a fill layer.  Just create a new pixel layer and fill it with 50% grey.  You can do this either with the flood fill tool or select Fill... from the Edit menu.

[coranda]

Jim,

 

It's the same in PS.  You have to rasterise the rectangle layer first.

[JimGoshorn]

OK, I must be doing something wrong. I painted a black rectangle on the lower layer. Painted medium gray on the upper layer set to Overlay. I then tried painting white on the overlay layer and just like before, the rectangle remained the same and white areas surrounded it.

[coranda]

Jim,

 

I've had a look into this and I think the problem is that we're using black and white (or transparent) on the bottom layer.  In blend modes black equals 0 and white is 1 and the maths of the overlay mode means that any pure white or pure black on the bottom layer won't be changed by the upper layer.

 

Try this:

Create a new pixel layer and fill it with a light grey.

Make a rectangular selection in the layer and fill that with a dark grey.

Add a new layer on top and fill that with 50% grey and put it into Overlay mode.

 

Now when you paint on the upper layer with white the image gets brighter and painting with black makes the image get darker.

[JimGoshorn]

OK, my bad. I tried to make a quick experiment thinking black and white were only important on the overlay layer. This time I used an image for the bottom layer and everything worked as expected. I'm not generally a shortcut person and this reminded me why  :P