Why is it so difficult to copy and paste and do simple things in this software?

[grimjack_28]

something as simple as using a magic wand or a selection box to copy from an image to create another or really anything.

 

I have been sent to youtube and all sorts of help pages. I get told to rasterize or something vague and that's not even an option for this file. As you can guess, I am just copying the whole blessed thing over and over again.

I want to support Photoshop competitors because I hate Adobe and their abusive practices, but Affinity makes it really hard to do the most simple things. It looks really powerful and it's so god forsaken frustrating.

 

I'm forced to warn people how hard it is to use which makes me feel much less intelligent, but it isn't clear how different Affinity Photo is just by looking at it.  Photoshop was the furthest thing from intuitive, and Affinity takes that and adds a number of extra twists. Perfectly logical reasons I'm sure, but I can't even do something that is as simple as a copy and paste.

 

I'm in complete disbelief at how difficult it seems to be.

[Callum]

Hi Grimjack_28,

Welcome to the forums

You should just need to right click the layer you are making a selection from in the layers panel and hit rasterise this should make copy and paste work.

Thanks

C

[R C-R]

11 hours ago, grimjack_28 said:

I get told to rasterize or something vague and that's not even an option for this file.

Look on the Layers panel. If the selected layer says "(Image)" instead of "(Pixel)" then as @Callum said, you need to right-click on it & choose either "Rasterize" or "Rasterize & Trim" from the popup menu.

This is because Image layers are basically special kinds of container layers that retain the color space & pixel resolution of the object they contain, independent of that of the document. Rasterizing them converts those properties to those of the document.

[David in Яuislip]

Actually a marquee selection or one created with the Flood Select tool can be Edit/Copy Flattened to get it on the clipboard from an Image layer

But newcomers really need to understand the ways that APhoto works like Image vs Pixel layers, Rasterise & Trim, Pixel Alignment to name but three.

No advanced image editor is completely intuitive and a fair bit of work is necessary to understand their idiosyncrasies. If you consider the extent of jobs that can be handled

eg  then add Tone Mapping, Power Duplicating and so on and on

Did I mention it's just shy of fifty sovs? Remarkable

 

[R C-R]

16 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

Actually a marquee selection or one created with the Flood Select tool can be Edit/Copy Flattened to get it on the clipboard from an Image layer

There is no Edit > Copy Flattened in the Mac version. 

[David in Яuislip]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

There is no Edit > Copy Flattened in the Mac version. 

I've always admired Bill Gates 🙂

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, David in Яuislip said:

I've always admired Bill Gates 🙂

But that haircut!

[David in Яuislip]

18 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

But that haircut!

You haven't seen mine

[grimjack_28]

ok. my despair and confused anger has subsided.

thank you for your answers.

 

but something like that one particular idiosyncrasy should be handed out on a very loud yellow explanation card, with respect to the whole rasterizing, containers and how Affinity sees things differently. a popup cheat sheet or something with a tips box.

[Lem3]

3 hours ago, grimjack_28 said:

ok. my despair and confused anger has subsided.

thank you for your answers.

 

but something like that one particular idiosyncrasy should be handed out on a very loud yellow explanation card, with respect to the whole rasterizing, containers and how Affinity sees things differently. a popup cheat sheet or something with a tips box.

I quickly learned to consult Help -> Tutorial... whenever something in Photo wasn't working the way I thought it should.  The brief videos are a collection of yellow explanation cards describing everything from basic operations to more advanced topics.

In this case, https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/tutorials/photo/desktop/video/365012457/ would help.