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“Half a league, half a league … ” – oh, you know the rest, right? Of course. Now to the matter at hand in Today’s Fun Yet Somehow Dumb Question: 

Why can I no longer create selections using the PEN tool on an image layer and then save them to a NEW layer using Cmd + J on a Mac? 

This was possible in Photos (1.9.3) as recently as last week. I could select a layer, select the pen tool, create an outline, and then select the ‘extras) - grow/shrink,feather, etc before saving it as either a spare channel or a selection in the image's folder. Today I attempted to create a fairly basic rectangular selection of a sign to be made into its own layer - and couldn't do that anymore. The ‘Assistant’ [sic] immediately popped in and added its own Curves adjustment layer, thus removing from me the image layer with the information I wanted to cut out to put on its own layer. Despite many tries, I could not - and CAN NOT - get around the damned Assistant’s dubious yet somehow pointless ‘assistance.’

Today’s BIG QUESTION: HOW can I regain use of the Pen Tool to create cutouts which are then saved to their own layer? Those ones are much more crisp than the pixel-based Selection Tool compromise layers. Steps followed are fairly basic: Select Pen tool, create path, click Cmd-J, and … nichts. Alles ist verschimmelt …

All responses welcomed and appreciated, and thanks to all for entering this week’s Big Dumb Question session … 

Mac Pro (Mid-2010) G5, 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon i7; macOS ‘Sierra,’ 12GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5770; S271HL Acer Display (1920 x 1080); Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher 1.10.8, Photoshop CS6, Illustrator CS6, InDesign CS6, QuarkXpress 9.5.4.1, ON1 RAW 2020, Portrait Professional Studio64, Topaz Labs Suite, Nik Collection, LibreOffice; separate Western Digital external HDs for storage  

Proudly Wearing the Shame of ThoughtCrime …

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Couple of things come to mind.

  • Your image must be rasterized, ie; a pixel layer. If the layer says (Image), it must be rasterized first
  • After creating your path, look at the left side of the context toolbar, there's 2 buttons. One says Selection. Press it to create a selection from your path.

That should get you what you want.

Affinity Photo 2.4..; Affinity Designer 2.4..; Affinity Publisher 2.4..; Affinity2 Beta versions. Affinity Photo,Designer 1.10.6.1605 Win10 Home Version:21H2, Build: 19044.1766: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s);32GB Ram, Nvidia GTX 3070, 3-Internal HDD (1 Crucial MX5000 1TB, 1-Crucial MX5000 500GB, 1-WD 1 TB), 4 External HDD

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Hmm … the layer was already a pixel layer when I attempted to create the path with the pen. I'm attaching a screencap with the selections created with the Selection Tool because none could be created directly with the Pen Tool. Please advise if you see anything that's not following proper form here … Thanks.

1471832022_ScreenShot2021-05-21at23_16_04PM.png.f34124ced9e20ec2833f320b9c179868.png

Mac Pro (Mid-2010) G5, 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon i7; macOS ‘Sierra,’ 12GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5770; S271HL Acer Display (1920 x 1080); Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher 1.10.8, Photoshop CS6, Illustrator CS6, InDesign CS6, QuarkXpress 9.5.4.1, ON1 RAW 2020, Portrait Professional Studio64, Topaz Labs Suite, Nik Collection, LibreOffice; separate Western Digital external HDs for storage  

Proudly Wearing the Shame of ThoughtCrime …

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Proof-of-concept testing just confirmed your hypothesis … making the selection with the Pen Tool and then clicking ‘Selection’ worked exactly as I remembered it having worked previously. This (I think) should serve as proof that there are some things that don't get better as we get older. Thanks again for your input.

Mac Pro (Mid-2010) G5, 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon i7; macOS ‘Sierra,’ 12GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5770; S271HL Acer Display (1920 x 1080); Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher 1.10.8, Photoshop CS6, Illustrator CS6, InDesign CS6, QuarkXpress 9.5.4.1, ON1 RAW 2020, Portrait Professional Studio64, Topaz Labs Suite, Nik Collection, LibreOffice; separate Western Digital external HDs for storage  

Proudly Wearing the Shame of ThoughtCrime …

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6 hours ago, Dr_No said:

Proof-of-concept testing just confirmed your hypothesis … making the selection with the Pen Tool and then clicking ‘Selection’ worked exactly as I remembered it having worked previously. This (I think) should serve as proof that there are some things that don't get better as we get older. Thanks again for your input.

So everything's fine now?

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

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Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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All is now as it was, is, and should be … Life, indeed, is Good once again …

Mac Pro (Mid-2010) G5, 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon i7; macOS ‘Sierra,’ 12GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5770; S271HL Acer Display (1920 x 1080); Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher 1.10.8, Photoshop CS6, Illustrator CS6, InDesign CS6, QuarkXpress 9.5.4.1, ON1 RAW 2020, Portrait Professional Studio64, Topaz Labs Suite, Nik Collection, LibreOffice; separate Western Digital external HDs for storage  

Proudly Wearing the Shame of ThoughtCrime …

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