Opacity - Flow - Hardness

[Larry44]

Good morning.  Can someone please explain the difference between Opacity, Flow and Hardness and the appropriate times to adjust them.  I have viewed a number of Affinity Photo tutorials where the presenter says to adjust one or the other without explaining why.

 

Thank you very much.

.....Larry

[Old Bruce]

Opacity is like transparency, 100% means nothing under the "Ink/Paint" will show through, 1 % means most of the underneath stuff will show through.

Flow is ... hopefully some one who know what it actually is will show up.

Hardness is how much of the brush will put out all the  "Ink/Paint" it can but that is true for the centre and gets less out to the edges at 1 %. At 100% the whole surface of the brush will put out all the ink, not just the centre.

Note that Brushes in and of themselves can be more or less transparent so at 100% for everything you'll still be getting a faint amount of "Ink/Paint".

[h_d]

Well... Here's a standard round brush (250 pixels) with opacity and hardness both set to 100%. Flow (top to bottom) at 100%, 50% and 25%:

Not quite sure of the use case, it's probably more applicable to the artistic brushes.

 

 

[Larry44]

Thanks.  Your responses really help

.....Larry

[Pšenda]