Astrophotography: pasting synthetic flat back into layers changes the merged layer to a flat as well

[Keith Moseley]

Forgive me if this has come up before but I haven't found it in a search yet.

I am following, to the letter, James Ritson's YouTube tutorial in which he improves an image of the Orion Nebula. All goes well until I copy the synthetic flat back into the layers stack. Upon doing this, the merged (visible) layer (from the raw image plus curves etc) immediately changes to a copy of the synthetic flat. So, I have two synthetic flats and the original merged image has vanished. 

I have tried this procedure twenty times now with the same result. I have even tried the turn off/on idea and even rebooted the computer but, alas, the same happens each time.

I suspect there's a button I may have turned on accidentally or maybe it's because my ancient Mac, running 10.11.6 El Capitan, does work properly with Affinity, although nothing else seems wrong.

Help! 

[NotMyFault]

On 4/29/2021 at 6:18 PM, Keith Moseley said:

Forgive me if this has come up before but I haven't found it in a search yet.

I am following, to the letter, James Ritson's YouTube tutorial in which he improves an image of the Orion Nebula. All goes well until I copy the synthetic flat back into the layers stack. Upon doing this, the merged (visible) layer (from the raw image plus curves etc) immediately changes to a copy of the synthetic flat. So, I have two synthetic flats and the original merged image has vanished. 

I have tried this procedure twenty times now with the same result. I have even tried the turn off/on idea and even rebooted the computer but, alas, the same happens each time.

I suspect there's a button I may have turned on accidentally or maybe it's because my ancient Mac, running 10.11.6 El Capitan, does work properly with Affinity, although nothing else seems wrong.

Help! 

Hi Keith,

Welcome to the Forum.

Based on my understanding of your description i would assume that the flat back layer may have been placed in a wrong position within the layer stack. For certainty, could you please upload

• a screenshot of your layer stack ?
• a video recording of your editing steps?

This will help to tackle the issue.

[Keith Moseley]

Thanks. I'll try to generate the video as requested. In the meantime, the video I was watching is below...and the action I refer to is at 32:26 minutes into the video. Like him, I used cmd C, closed the file (cmd W) then cmd V, thus I did not choose the position in the stack as such. 

...and the action I refer to is at 32:26 minutes into the video. Like him, I used cmd C, closed the file then cmd V, thus I did not choose the position in the stack as such.

[NotMyFault]

Did you move the "flat" layer down by one position?

When it is pasted, it will stay in top position. So you just need to move it down. James used a keyboard shortcut, but it might be simpler to just drag it by mouse.

At about 33:23, you can see the required order: