[Photo] Group as Layer Mask

[LordStuff]

Hi there!

When I right click a Group and click Mask to Below, the resulting Layer Mask can not be edited well anymore. The group cannot be expanded anymore.

You can see that in the picture. The left side is before, the right side is after making the group a mask. It renders as expected, but is kind of destructive as you cannot handle the group in seperate layers.

Is there a way to use multiple layers inside a single layer mask?

 

Thanks and Cheers!

[stokerg]

Hi @LordStuff,

Could you attach the afphoto file for this and i'll help further once i've seen how everything is setup and displays  

[lepr]

On 12/6/2020 at 5:28 PM, LordStuff said:

When I right click a Group and click Mask to Below, the resulting Layer Mask can not be edited well anymore. The group cannot be expanded anymore.

That's an unfortunate limitation of the current app. To edit the members of the group, the group must be released from its masking position, edited, and then mask-nested again. We've been told by Serif people that this restriction may be removed in the future. No ETA, though, so safest to assume that it will never happen.

[Dazmondo77]

You can edit the mask by making sure you have the move tool selected (v) click on the mask in the layers panel then hold the ⌘ key while right mouse clicking on the area of the page where the mask sits, which gives you a list of whatever in in the mask group - you can then edit, blur, alter opacity or mess around with blend ranges and all that, on a all elements that make up your mask, you can move from each element of the mask by using ⌥⌘[ and ⌥⌘] shortcuts 

Once you're working inside the mask group you can even add pixel and vector layers to the mask and paint or add shapes - very powerful

[LordStuff]

On 12/8/2020 at 11:51 AM, stokerg said:

Hi @LordStuff,

Could you attach the afphoto file for this and i'll help further once i've seen how everything is setup and displays  

Hi,

I made a quick sample document.

It's relatively easy to reproduce, once you assembled a group you want to use as a mask, you only need to drag'n'drop it on a layer or alternatively right click the group and click Mask to Below.

You can even see the app still recognizes it as a group, but the group collapse button is not there, so you cannot edit the group's different contents seperately.

Thanks for your time!

sample.afphoto

[LordStuff]

On 12/8/2020 at 1:42 PM, Dazmondo77 said:

You can edit the mask by making sure you have the move tool selected (v) click on the mask in the layers panel then hold the ⌘ key while right mouse clicking on the area of the page where the mask sits, which gives you a list of whatever in in the mask group - you can then edit, blur, alter opacity or mess around with blend ranges and all that, on a all elements that make up your mask, you can move from each element of the mask by using ⌥⌘[ and ⌥⌘] shortcuts 

Once you're working inside the mask group you can even add pixel and vector layers to the mask and paint or add shapes - very powerful

Screen_Grab_2020-12-08_at_12_17_51.mov

Thanks for answering!

Unfortunately I wasn't really able to follow that as I'm working on Windows 10. I tried selecting the group mask, then Ctrl+RMB which only gives me the default context menu. All I do there is affecting the whole group.

I've watched the video and I'm sure this would at least enable me to work with masks that consist of groups, but I somehow cannot reach that layer selection menu you showed! It does indeed look powerful!

Thanks again for your effort! I really appreciate it.

EDIT: Then again, the logic for editing layers in a grouped mask obviously exists, so I'd prefer it to be accessible through the known tools for groups ;D

[Dazmondo77]

5 hours ago, LordStuff said:

EDIT: Then again, the logic for editing layers in a grouped mask obviously exists, so I'd prefer it to be accessible through the known tools for groups ;D

Hopefully sometime in the future we'll get the little triangle icon at the side of a multi-mask to expand and collapse, and also the ability to press Alt while clicking on a layer or layer group and get item isolation that you can edit rather than it just switch back to viewing all the layers - then it would be super-powerful.

Surely there has to be an alternative shortcut for windows to right click and select a layer inside a layer group - come on moderators 

[lepr]

1 hour ago, Dazmondo77 said:

Surely there has to be an alternative shortcut for windows to right click and select a layer inside a layer group - come on moderators 

Possibly involves left+right clicking in combination with five keys

 

[phoenixart]

I too cannot select as @Dazmondo77 does in the clip.

Is this option available only on Mac?