Need help Affinity-ing an old PhotoShop trick

[JofreJKD]

With my transition to Affinity Photo from PhotoShop, I am trying to figure out a way to do something I memorized in PhotoShop via shortcuts. These do not work in Affinity Photo. Any quick ways to do it would be appreciated.

 

So I would have a layer folder that has various layers of B&W artwork (literally black art and areas of white).

to prep that artwork for applying a metal effect to the black areas, I would do the following:

- duplicate the folder (so I can keep the file editable)

- select the duplicate folder layer

- hold ctrl + E, A, X, V

- click mask

- hold ctrl and left click the mask itself on the layer

- hold ctrl + V, D, I

- click and drag mask down to trash bucket

- I am now left with a flattened layer of the same artwork, black color only- no white showing- and translucent background- to apply a layer effect like metal or something

 

 

Is there a way to do this in a simplified way in Affinity Photo?

I found the remove white paper feature... so I could basically copy the folder layer and flatten it/merge it and apply remove white paper- but does that work as well? It would need to completely elimate the white and leave literally just the clean black pixels to work properly.

[firstdefence]

• Select the group folder and press Option-Shift-Cmd + E to Merge Visible, this produces a flattened version of the contents of the selected folder but still keeps the selected folder as is effectively making a flattened version above.
• Cmd+I inverts the "Merge Visible" layer
• Shift+R Rasterises the “Merge Visible" layer to mask 

Rasterise to mask doesn’t automatically have a shortcut but that’s easily rectified by setting one in preferences: Keyboard Shortcuts, I use Shift+R

I’m on Mac so you will just need to refer to the windows shortcuts if you are a windows user.

You should be able to export a flattened version now.

You could probably convert this workflow into a Macro for a single click operation, and while the macro facility is not as full featured and Adobe Photoshops actions it’s still quite capable.

My Macro-Prep For Metal.afmacros

[JofreJKD]

Thank you! I'll give it a try when I have more time!