copy and past between pixel layers

[Noura]

Hello guys, 

So happy with my Affinity photo experience for drawing my comics, except while working - and since it's new to me - I mistakenly start to draw on the wrong layer*, and when I try to cut that part and paste it into the correct layer I do the following:
in the current layer I select the part I wish to transfer
ctrl + x
I choose the layer I'm wishing to have this part on instead 
ctrl + v 

and what I get is a new layer with this part and the same name as the layer I cut the part from, and then I have to merge and it's really quite frustrating 
is there any parameter I can adjust to solve that? am I doing anything wrong?

*side note: I don't know how I suddenly move from one layer to another without realizing! I'm in my desired layer and all of the sudden I'm on another layer with already half of what I've done in there! I must be doing something stupid somehow 😅 any ideas

Edited May 6, 2020 by Noura

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums.
You can use “Paste Inside” to make the new pasted layer a child layer of the selected layer but I don’t think there’s an equivalent of “Paste and Merge”.
Just out of interest, why do you need to merge the layers so often? Wouldn’t having the layers separate make it easier to modify things later?

[Noura]

6 hours ago, GarryP said:

Welcome to the forums.
You can use “Paste Inside” to make the new pasted layer a child layer of the selected layer but I don’t think there’s an equivalent of “Paste and Merge”.
Just out of interest, why do you need to merge the layers so often? Wouldn’t having the layers separate make it easier to modify things later?

thanks for your reply Garry!
so I have text layer and by mistake I was writing my text in ink layer instead, I cut this text and tried your suggestion to "Paste inside" and I actually have two problems with that:
1- my purpose was just have the text as a part of text layer but now it is still in a separate layer but under the text layer
2- A new problem 😶 : even it's there now I don't see it on the canvas!! it's not locked or hidden it just disappeared from the display but I can see it among layers 😕

now for the merge, I actually use it because I have this problem (sorry maybe I didn't express myself clearly) I'll use text and ink layers as an example: so this text that I wrote mistakenly on ink layer and after cut and paste is now in a new layer alone, I eventually merge this new layer with text layer (because what I originally wanted is to transfer this part from ink layer to text layer and not to create a new layer out of it, it just confuses me to have multiple layer for the same purpose)
thanks for asking! 🙂

[GarryP]

Now I’m actually a little bit more confused.
What is an “ink layer”? This term does not exist in the English versions of Photo, as far as I know.
It might help if you can explain what you are trying to do, not how you are doing it, as there could be an easier way to get what you want.
For instance, if you want to put text over your illustrations then you can just use the Artistic Text Tool, add the text as its own layer, and just keep the text as it is so you can modify it rather than merging it with the illustration.
If you can give a visual example of what you want to do that will probably help us to understand your requirements.

[Noura]

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

Now I’m actually a little bit more confused.
What is an “ink layer”? This term does not exist in the English versions of Photo, as far as I know.
It might help if you can explain what you are trying to do, not how you are doing it, as there could be an easier way to get what you want.
For instance, if you want to put text over your illustrations then you can just use the Artistic Text Tool, add the text as its own layer, and just keep the text as it is so you can modify it rather than merging it with the illustration.
If you can give a visual example of what you want to do that will probably help us to understand your requirements.

OMG sorry for the confusion, this is embarrassing 😅, those are actually layers I create once I start any new project.
and it's not only a problem with text, I can be sometimes painting in the wrong layer and willing to move this paint to the correct layer 

I'm attaching an example where you can see how I divide my work, and in this example you can see a text says "a weekend day vs..", you can recognize that "a weekend" is in a different layer from the rest of the sentence and I would like it to be back with them in the same layer, how would you do it? (for me I was choosing it, cut and paste, and having all the troubles I talked about above) 

weekend_morning_Example.afphoto

[GarryP]

Ah, I see, that makes more sense now, thanks.
In this particular case you can right-click the layer in the Layers Panel called “text” and choose “Merge Down” from the menu. That would merge the pixel layer called “text” (containing “morning vs.”) into the pixel layer called “ink”, which is the layer underneath the “text” layer.

However, personally, I would just leave it as it is as you can more-easily move it around and do other manipulations, but that’s just my preference. (I’ve attached a copy of your document where the text has been split into words – in the Group called “text” – which makes it easier to move them around. The spilt was done with Copy/Paste.)

If you create a new Pixel Layer for every new pixel-based thing you add then you can easily move them around, manipulate them, or (temporarily, if necessary) set them to invisible.

When you come to export as an image you can simply not tell the software to keep the layers (this is default so you probably don’t need to do anything) and it will generate one single image – essentially a “Merge Down” for all layers. (The layers in your AFPHOTO file will remain intact.)

Does any of this help?

weekend_morning_Example-option.afphoto

[Noura]

Thanks Garry
it is actually good to shift my mentality from a layer to a group (I'm still new in digital art, couple weeks ago I was still a paper/pen kind of artist 🙂) , I was just thinking that I need them all in one layer but keeping them in different layers under one group is actually more practical.

so to wrap up (for anyone having the same issue) we can't paste something inside a layer directly (as what I was trying to do) but we can paste inside a group of layers using "Paste inside" or (Ctrl+Alt+V)