Default color for a new correction layer or a mask is not white anymore

[floopik]

Hi everyone!

Ran into an issue with color of a new correction layer or mask. Now they all grey by default. Not sure it's a bug or I just can't understand simple mechanic but my investigation through help and google pages gave no result. I attached the problematic file (new files work fine). This trouble appeared after creating a fill layer and changing fill color in this grey. I tried repeat this procedure and change color to white, but this didn't help.

Preventive thanks for possible replies.

P.S. Wrote here cause not sure if this is a bug. Sorry if I missed with choice of subforum.

for_bugreport2.afphoto

[Wosven]

Hi @floopik and welcome,

You've got a 50% pixel selection (visible on the channels).

Just deselect, and the adjustements/masks will again be white

[floopik]

Hello @Wosven ! Many thanks!
Didn't know I could have a selection without running ants in Affinity 😄

Edited August 29, 2021 by floopik
typo

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Wosven said:

Just deselect, and the adjustements/masks will again be white

Not happening here on my Mac running AP 10.0.1, at least for the OP's file & the Black & White adjustment. I tried deselecting from the Channels panel & from the Select menu. The adjustment thumbnail on the Layers panel remains grey.

[Wosven]

5 hours ago, R C-R said:

Not happening here on my Mac running AP 10.0.1,

That's strange, I just recovered and opened the file from the bin and displayed the channels:

[R C-R]

9 hours ago, Wosven said:

That's strange, I just recovered and opened the file from the bin and displayed the channels:

You show the same thing I saw for the Black & White adjustment layer in the Layers panel -- it's grey, not white. Try deleting that adjustment layer & adding a new one without changing the (apparent?) pixel selection. For me it is white, not grey.

Also, in the channels panel, try inverting the pixel selection -- when I do that, the entire canvas gets the marching ants outline. That suggests to me that there actually were no pixels selected prior to that.

Have I just misunderstood something about how this should work?

[Wosven]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

You show the same thing I saw for the Black & White adjustment layer in the Layers panel -- it's grey, not white

I show you the 3 steps I did to get rid of the selection and have white mask (if I don't unselect, they are grey also).

 

Can you open again the original file and add an adjustement? I thought you also had grey masks when adding them if you didn't unselect first. That's what I had without deselecting.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Wosven said:

I show you the 3 steps I did to get rid of the selection and have white mask (if I don't unselect, they are grey also).

I guess I am misunderstanding something but I am talking about the color of the Black & White adjustment layer in the Layers panel. In all 3 of your screenshots it is grey.

[Wosven]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

the Black & White adjustment layer in the Layers panel. In all 3 of your screenshots it is grey.

Yes, it's grey because of the 50% selection that was invisible. And any other adjustement added had this same 50% grey. That was the problem, and the OP thought it was a bug in the app, he couldn't have anymore white mask/adjustements.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Wosven said:

Yes, it's grey because of the 50% selection that was invisible.

OK, but why is there no indication anywhere (that I can see) that there is a 50% selection? Is it a 'marching ants' selection that belongs to no layer or what?

[Wosven]

Good question... no selection should have done that... Perhaps a mask was fill with 50% grey, and the selection came from it.

It's probably like each time we make an error, it can come naturally without us knowing it would cause a problem, and us able to reproduce the steps

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, Wosven said:

Perhaps a mask was fill with 50% grey, and the selection came from it.

But there was no mask (that I could find) in the OP's afphoto file. Also, inverting the pixel selection in the Channels panel set a marching ants selection to the full size of the document, which implies to me that the inverse of that (what it was before being inverted) was that no pixels were selected.

It seems buggy to me, but I am not sure how.

[Wosven]

I don't know either how it happens, perhaps it was this one in a million possibilities to get an error!

[smadell]

I don't know how the OP made the 50% selection, but it is indeed possible. Also, the marching ants will only be visible when the selection is 50% or greater (so perhaps this selection is just a fraction under 50%). Inverting the document will invert the selection as well, and when it becomes a fraction OVER 50%, the marching ants are now visible.

Also, selections never belong to a layer. They are independent of layers, but will act on the selected layer when called upon to do so.

One way to create a 50% selection would be to use the "Selection from Layer" command after using the Blend Options dialog on the multi-colored pixel layer, as shown here:

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, smadell said:

Also, the marching ants will only be visible when the selection is 50% or greater (so perhaps this selection is just a fraction under 50%). Inverting the document will invert the selection as well, and when it becomes a fraction OVER 50%, the marching ants are now visible.

Just to be clear, I am not talking about inverting the document, just the marching ants (?) pixel selection in the Channels panel.

13 minutes ago, smadell said:

One way to create a 50% selection would be to use the "Selection from Layer" command after using the Blend Options dialog on the multi-colored pixel layer, as shown here:

But wouldn't using that blend option & selection make the multi-colored pixel layer noticeably transparent like in your screenshot? I do not see anything like that in the OP's file.

[smadell]

Hello, @R C-R. If, for instance, the entire document was 49% selected, (i) there would be no visible marching ants; (ii) any adjustment layer or live filter layer would automatically have its mask made grey with 49% luminosity; and (iii) inverting the pixel selection (not the document – my bad) would result in the entire document being 51% selected, in which case the marching ants would be visible.

Also, as I said, I have no idea just how the OP managed to get a partial selection on his entire document. My example was only to point out that it is very possible.

Also, for completeness sake, one can use Blend Options as indicated in my graphic, then use Selection From Layer, then (without deselecting) click the Revert button in the Blend Options dialog. This will keep the partial selection but re-establishes the 100% opacity of the multi-colored layer. I doubt that's what happened, since that sort of series of steps would be memorable(!), but it is one of (probably) several possibilities.

[R C-R]

20 minutes ago, smadell said:

Also, for completeness sake, one can use Blend Options as indicated in my graphic, then use Selection From Layer, then (without deselecting) click the Revert button in the Blend Options dialog. This will keep the partial selection but re-establishes the 100% opacity of the multi-colored layer.

But in that case, would not the opacity of the multi-colored layer be reset to 100%? If so, why should the thumbnail of the Black & White adjustment layer be grey? Why is this different from (for example) using Select > Select All to set the marching ants to the full size of the canvas (or layer if it is the same size as the canvas) when the layer is already 100% opaque & then adding a B&W adjustment? At least here, if I do that, the adjustment layer is white.

[Ron P.]

@R C-R, I done a quick screen recording showing what @smadell described.

 

[smadell]

If one uses Blend Options as shown previously (a horizontal line at 50%) and simply closes the Blend Options dialog, 2 things change – first, the Layer Opacity remains at 100%; and second, the icon shown in the Composite Alpha line in the Channels panel is now 50% grey. I think this bears on the difference between alpha channels that are pre-multiplied and those that are computed (my terminology is undoubtedly wrong here). The blend options change the alpha channel and not the layer opacity setting.

If you use the Blend Options to get the 50% grey alpha channel, then using Selection From Layer gives you a 50% selection of all the pixels. If you simply lower the opacity of the layer to 50%, then Select All or Selection From Layer will select all of the pixels at 100%.

If you (a) use the Blend Options to set everything to 50%; (b) choose Selection From Layer; then (c) reset the Blend Options, you will not have changed the selection itself. As I said earlier, the selection is not intrinsically linked to any particular layer. Therefore, the 50% selection survives (as long as you don't DE-select) even if you change the Blend Options for the layer.

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

@R C-R, I done a quick screen recording showing what @smadell described.

But unless I missed it, you did not reset the blend option back to 100%.

6 minutes ago, smadell said:

If one uses Blend Options as shown previously (a horizontal line at 50%) and simply closes the Blend Options dialog, 2 things change – first, the Layer Opacity remains at 100%; and second, the icon shown in the Composite Alpha line in the Channels panel is now 50% grey.

That does not seem to be happening here -- like in your screenshot the pixel layer appears to be set to 50% transparency.

[Ron P.]

 

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But unless I missed it, you did not reset the blend option back to 100%.

Yep, I caught that after I uploaded it so I redone it.

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

Yep, I caught that after I uploaded it so I redone it.

Can you try it one more time, this time with a Black & White adjustment layer above the pixel layer like in the OP's example?

[smadell]

Try this, @R C-R. I was making this video while @Ron P. was posting his.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, smadell said:

Try this, @R C-R.

Thanks, I can now duplicate that but what I am still trying to figure out is why the adjustment layer's mask is grey, IOW, why this is different from selecting the layer via select all when everything is still 100% opaque to begin with (because the blend options have not been changed from the default) & then adding the adjustment layer.

[smadell]

@R C-R – I'm guessing here.

If you don't bother changing anything in Blend Options and do a Select All, then all of the pixels are selected. Furthermore, the Alpha Channel for the layer is presumably all white (meaning that the Alpha Channel is set to 100% for all pixels). Choosing a Select All (or, choosing Selection From Layer) will (i) select all the pixels; and (ii) use the Alpha Channel for an indication of "how much" they are selected. Since the entire Alpha Channel is 100%, then all of the pixels are completely selected and the mask in a subsequent Adjustment layer is white.

If you set the Blend Options to 50%, as I did previously, this does NOT change the layer opacity setting, but it DOES change the layer's Alpha Channel. When you do a Selection From Layer (although not when you do a Select All) you select all the pixels, but then use the Alpha Channel to determine how much they are selected. In this case, since the Alpha Channel is set to 50% throughout, then all of the selected pixels are 50% selected. In this case, when you create an Adjustment layer, its mask is set to 50% grey since this reflects the 50% selection of all of the layer's pixels.

If you set the Blend Options to 50% then you have changed the Alpha Channel to 50% grey. If you do a Selection From Layer, then you have selected all of the pixels at 50%. This 50% selection survives resetting the Blend Options to 100%. Creating an Adjustment layer with that active selection (a 50% selection of all the pixels) will create a mask that is 50% grey in the Adjustment.