Copy Selection from Layer

[wls]

Affinity v1.8.4 -- running into unexpected behavior, could be a bug, could Affinity does things differently...

PROBLEM
When attempting to do an Edit / Copy on an area of a layer selected by the Marquee Tool, Affinity duplicates the layer as a whole, rather than just the selected area.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Open Affinity Photo and drag in a "large" image to use as the Background layer.
2. Drag in a "smaller" image which should appear as a layer over the background.  Make sure this layer is selected.
3. Choose the Rectangle Marquee Tool and select an area of the smaller image.
4. Press Command-C ... you expect that the area within the Marquee is now on the clipboard.
5. Press Command-V ... you expect the clipboard with the copied area will now be pasted as a new layer.
    ...THIS FAILS, instead you get a duplicate of the layer you dragged in!  That's the bug.

Now... prove that your expectations weren't wrong.
6. With the Marquee still in place, do Shift-Command-C (the Copy Merged)... this should get the same "area" but now all layers, now just the currently selected one.
7. Press Command-V ... and this time just the area within the Marquee is pasted.
8. If you select the Move Tool (V), you'll see you can move that pasted area around now.

This is highly problematic when you want just the layer and not the background layer, i.e. the marquee extends beyond the image within its layer.

[walt.farrell]

Check the Layers panel. In step 2 you will have ended up with an (Image) layer rather than a (Pixel) layer. Image layers are a kind of indivisible vector object, and if you want to work with the pixels you need to Rasterize that layer, which will make it a (Pixel) layer.

You can:

• right click on it in the Layers panel and choose Rasterize..., or
• right click on the image itself and choose Rasterize..., or
• use the menu, Layer > Rasterize...

[wls]

Excellent.  That addressed it.  Thank you!

However, that begs the question -- What is an image layer?  And how's it different than a Pixel layer?  And what's it used for / makes it special?
🦟  DOCUMENTATION UPDATE:  Affinity's official help topic About Layers, doesn't mention them, only Pixel, Mask, Adjustment, Fill, Snapshot, and Vector.

I also noted that file I dragged on was a screen shot, giving the layer name a long name like "Screen Shot 2020-09-01 at 1.19.57 PM", which pushed out the indicator of what type of layer it so far it was obscured. (See what I saw in the attachment.)
🦟  POSSIBLE FIX: To handle long layer names, Affinity should put the layer type under the layer name, as there's plenty of room for it.

[Move Along People]

-

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, wls said:

DOCUMENTATION UPDATE:  Affinity's official help topic About Layers, doesn't mention them, only Pixel, Mask, Adjustment, Fill, Snapshot, and Vector.

Yes, it does. From that Help topic:

And a bit further down:

It would be nice if drag/drop of an image were also mentioned; it's a form of Place.

[wls]

Ah, that's what it meant. It's worth pointing out where user-confusion originated from.

Here's the actual Affinity Photo Layers against the Documentation.  There's a one-for-one listing in the type of layers for the first four, building a pattern of expectation.  One would expect, then that any vector would appear as "vector", and so when a layer appears as an "image" that's a surprise and typically one does not think of vectors when told something is an image -- creating the illusion something is either new or missing from the manual.

Realistically, snapshots are used less frequently than those four -- so this may not be tried.  If one does, the trend breaks. Instead of getting a layer that identifies itself as a snapshot, you a layer with what appears to have been snapshot'd.  It causes a moment of pause, but there's the "oh, I guess that makes sense" moment.

Knowing this, it opens a whole new level of appreciation, when a true vector is placed as the software identifies it as a "Rounded Rectangle" or a "Curve."  Clever!  And what we see is that the vocabulary for Affinity Photo is using the term 'image' to mean 'a vector region containing a bitmap'.  In hindsight, I have to say the abstract concept of an image is dead-on and Affinity got it right.  The unsuspecting user using a pixel editing tool (especially if new or a novice) drags an image file in, the initial uninformed expectation is that they are working on a pixel layer.  If one does not realize dragging an image file onto the canvas is also the same as "placing" it, it's easy to not realize what's just happened.

This also explains the very subtle differences in the documentation, that a Vector layer is actually many different kind of things.

Your posts have both enlightened me and educated me.  Very much appreciated!

[MEB]

Hi wls,
I agree the documentation is a bit misleading and contains a few errors. I'm logging this to be looked at. Thanks for your feedback.

[walt.farrell]

11 hours ago, wls said:

And what we see is that the vocabulary for Affinity Photo is using the term 'image' to mean 'a vector region containing a bitmap'.

Sorry, but no. It's more complex than that. The (Image) layer is not simply a bitmap, nor is it simply a vector. It is its own unique type of layer with its own operational characteristics.

Here, for example, is what the Layers panel shows for a vector object (rectangle) containing a bitmap fill, and a Placed image:

[MEB]

An Image layer is a self contained object that holds/preserves the original/placed image data (including colour profile) and has nothing to do with vectors. It can't be edited at a pixel level until it's rasterised (converted to a pixel layer according to the dpi set for the document). The "vector layer" section as described in the Help documentation is also misleading - they are actually generic containers (layers) that can hold any type of content including pixel, image, adjustments/filters (in Photo), masks (both vector and raster based) embedded/linked documents and vector objects (text, curves, smart shapes etc) layers. The Help will be improved/changed to avoid these misleadings/fix inaccuracies among other things.