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Selection Issues


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Hi, latest version of Affinity Photo on latest Windows 10.

If I clear a selection, then after performing an operation  (such as a blur) and clearing the selection I can not successfully perform a freehand selection. Usually the line is drawn, but on releasing the mouse button, the marquee disappears. Sometimes a line does not appear at all.

If I click on another tool, then back on the freehand selection tool, the problem goes away, and I can perform a normal freehand selection.

This does not happen with the rectangle and ellipse selection tools.

 

 

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Based on the limited info that you provided, it's difficult to judge what could have happened. The scenario described below is (at this moment) the only possible root cause of your problem that I can imagine.

Can you tell us what is the 'Selection Mode' when you encounter this problem?

You indicate that you 'clear the selection' first, so nothing is selected (as a starting point).

If you then create your freehand selection while the Selection Mode would be either 'Subtract' or 'Intersect', it is logical that nothing is selected (and that the marquee disappears).

On my system (also latest version of Affinity Photo on a Windows 10 PC), I have no problems with the selection marquees.

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Ok to clarify this are the stages where I experienced this yesterday, although I have been encountering this for a couple of weeks since the last update:

I copied a number of bland parts of an image as new layers to hide unwanted background detail.

I then wanted to blur the joins.

I used the freehand selection tool to select the area around the first join.

 

Gaussian blur.

<ctrl>-d to deslect.

Freehand selection tool would then draw a second selection, but as soon as I released the mouse the marquee disappeared (experimentation shows the selection is now void rather than just not visible). This behaviour persists through multiple attempts.

Obvious remedies such as ensuring I had selected the right layer etc. were tried.

The only remedy that worked was changing a non-select tool, then back to freehand select.

 

This does not happen with rectangular and circular select. I recall an issue a few days ago with the 'magic wand' select but I may be mistaken.

You can clear a selection with <ctrl>-d and make a new one with the freehand tool with no problems.

The problem arises when you have performed a filter operation on the selection.

 

9 hours ago, i5963c said:

You indicate that you 'clear the selection' first, so nothing is selected (as a starting point).

If you then create your freehand selection while the Selection Mode would be either 'Subtract' or 'Intersect', it is logical that nothing is selected (and that the marquee disappears).

If this has become default behaviour, it's pretty strange. Every other program I have used is 'aware' when the selection has been cleared and defaults back to the normal mode of drawing a new selection.

And why do this only after a filter operation? If I draw a selection then clear it immediately, the tool works as expected, drawing a new one.

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Thanks for your feedback.

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

If this has become default behaviour, it's pretty strange. Every other program I have used is 'aware' when the selection has been cleared and defaults back to the normal mode of drawing a new selection.

I've checked it a bit further, and my findings indicate:

Apparently, it is possible to allocate a 'default' Selection Mode to each of the marquee selection tools (Rectangle, Ellipse, Column/Row, Freehand). These default modes seem (but not sure about this!) to correspond to the last Selection Mode used (*). The defaults seem to be persistent, at least across images (I haven't checked it across AP sessions).

  • When there is no active selection (e.g. after CTRL-D), and then you select a marquee selection tool, the 'New' selection mode becomes prechosen. This seems to be the behavior that you experienced in 'every other program that you have used'.
  • However, in AP, if you have already an active marquee selection tool (e.g. Freehand) with a Selection Mode (e.g. 'Subtract'), and you then de-select via CTRL-D, the Selection Mode is not reset to 'New' (and remains in this example 'Subtract'). If you explicitly want to create a new selection, you either must manually click the 'New' Selection Mode button, or you must select a different tool, and then re-select the desired selection marquee tool again...
  • Also, if there is already a selection active when you click on the marquee selection tool, the default Selection Mode for that tool (see '*' above) is prechosen.

So, the prechosen Selection Mode depends on the order that you activate tools and whether there is already an active selection at that moment.

This is how it works on my system, and this seems 'OK' to me.

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

And why do this only after a filter operation? If I draw a selection then clear it immediately, the tool works as expected, drawing a new one.

Unfortunately, I can't explain it (and I also can't replicate it on my system). Sorry for that. The only option that I can imagine is (as mentioned already in my initial reply) that your default Selection Mode for the Freehand marquee tool is either 'Subtract' or 'Intersect', but this would then contradict with the fact that it seems to work properly without a filter operation. Can you share what Selection Mode is active when you encounter your issue?

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Hi,

The default mode appears to be new i.e. if I create a selection, then draw another, the original one disappears.

After applying a filter, the mode changes to subtract without me doing anything (but only for freehand select).

Presumably this is the source of the problem.

But why would a filter change the select mode?

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Hello @Stub Mandrel,

It's a pity that you keep struggling with problems with the freehand selection marquee.

I checked the behavior of these tools in the old 1.9.2. version, and I see absolutely no change (also in terms of default modes per marquee tool) to what I described in my message above (based on the 1.10.1. release).

So, I can only recommend that you submit (as requested above by Serif support staff) a video with a screen recording of all the detailed steps that you take to trigger the undesired selection behavior. Because you can interact in various ways and sequences with the marquee tools and their associated selection modes, it's extremely important to demonstrate the exact process. Describing this with words risks to overlook something that might be important to identify what happens exactly.

 

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Thanks, can you suggest a suitable screen recording app?

OK, I've found one built into windows, pretending to be an Xbox utility!

I'm afraid the recording is 63 megs.

As you can see a filter puts the freehand select tool into subtract mode.

This does not happen with rectangular or elliptical select, they stay in 'new' mode.

 

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I tried many times and it works fine here, when I select the freehand selection tool after three "box selections" it goes to new as soon as I click on it.

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Hi @Stub Mandrel,

Thanks for the video. I see now what you're actually doing.

Btw, previously, I believed that you were applying your filters as live filters, thus creating extra layers. This is apparently not the case. It also demonstrates why a video recording is always better than lots of words 😀👍.

What happens is actually exactly what I ('ve tried to) describe in one of my earlier replies:

Let's summarize the key principles once more:

  • R1: Each selection tool (/marquee) has it's own 'default' selection mode. To the best of my knowledge: this mode seems to be set/updated whenever the mode button is explicitly selected/clicked when a selection is already active.
  • R2: If no selection is active when a marquee selection tool is clicked, the selection mode is initialized to 'New' (irrespective of its 'default' value, as specified above). This makes sense: if no selection is currently active, and you click a selection tool, it sounds 'logical' that you want to create a selection...
  • R3: If there is already an active selection when a marquee tool is selected, the selection mode is initialized or remains at its 'default' value. This makes sense as well: if there is already a selection, you may want to update it via a series of similar actions (especially add and subtract).
  • R4: Deleting an existing selection while a selection marquee tool is active, does NOT reset the selection mode to 'New' (*).

 

Looking at your video:

  • 1/ I'm pretty sure that your 'default' mode for the freehand marquee tool is 'Subtract' (R1). Indeed, I notice that the Selection Mode becomes 'Subtract' when you click the freehand selection marquee for the first time (at 0:56). At that moment, the rectangular selection is still active. This indicates that Subtract is the default mode for the freehand marquee. Maybe, you don't recall when you set this default mode (probably even unconsciously), but as I said already, this default is persistent for each of the marquee selection tools (seems valid, even across multiple AP sessions).
  • 2/ Then, when you draw a freehand selection that doesn't overlap with the existing rectangle, or after you have deleted this selection (at 1:00), it's obvious that nothing will happen (subtracting something from nothing remains 'nothing').
  • 3/ Next, you reselect the freehand marquee tool (at 1:11, while no selection is active at that moment!), and therefore you enter into the 'New' selection mode (R2). So, you can make selections again...
  • 4/ When you make your next selection (at 1:23), the previous freehand selection is still active, so, you're in 'Subtract' mode again (R3).
  • 5/ Next, you deselect (but remain in Subtract mode (R4)). So, you can't make selections again (once more: subtracting something from nothing remains 'nothing').
  • 6/ You temporarily change tools, and then return to the freehand marquee. Because nothing is selected at that moment (cf. deselect in step 5), the selection mode is initialized to 'New' this time (R2). Once you've created a new selection, the tool changes to it's 'default' mode (i.e. Subtract - R3).

And so on, and so on...

To me, this is 'correct' behavior. I also notice no change compared to 1.9.2.

(*) The only thing that could be open for debate is whether R4 should be changed, implying that, whenever a selection is deleted (e.g. CTRL D), the selection mode of any active selection tool/marquee could probably be re-initialized to 'New'.

If you want to revert your current behavior, I would thus suggest that you reset your 'default' for the freehand selection marquee to 'New' (see R1). This way, (I believe that) you'll be able to draw new freehand selections as much as you want (but make sure that you don't change the 'default' again...).

As a general rule: it's also very important to look always at the current selection mode.

 

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53 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Did you apply a filter and then try selecting a new area?

@Stub Mandrel,

When I analyzed your video, I don't think it's related to filters or not. It's related to whether, at a particular moment in your workflow, you have an active selection or not. The choice between 'New' and the 'default' mode makes sense (according to my opinion). However, if you don't have an active selection anymore (due to CTRL-D e.g.), and you don't touch the marquee selection tool, your 'default' mode remains unchanged (Subtract in your case).

As mentioned in my message, for this last item (R4 in my previous message), you might consider raising an enhancement request at Serif (or a bug report, if you prefer that).

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Question - how do I change the default selection mode for the freehand select back to new?

And if this is the default mode, why does the existing selection disappear and get replaced before I use a filter?

 

I should say I tried using 'add' mode then exiting the tool, but this did not set the (apparent) default mode to 'add'.

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When I start using freehand select:

image.png.0f02360d8884a27cdd5601ecd24ce7d6.png

After using a filter (this doesn't seem right... happens with all filters)

image.png.6188b74cf05d76369ec18fdd2c69b2c5.png

After deselecting or using another type of select tool:

image.png.be07900aaaf7229bd4484154298d2371.png

2 hours ago, i5963c said:

As mentioned in my message, for this last item (R4 in my previous message), you might consider raising an enhancement request at Serif (or a bug report, if you prefer that).

In my mind, this thread is a 'bug report' for the freehand select tool not going back to the first of these when you clear any existing selection.

But if "that's not a bug, it's a feature" for subtracting from a null selection then yes I do want to know how to change my default.

P.S. I do appreciate your help, I apologise if my bewilderment comes across as diffidence or cynicism 🙂

 

 

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3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Question - how do I change the default selection mode for the freehand select back to new?

I've explained this before in an earlier message (R1). English is not my mother tongue, so I probably don't explain it well enough, but I can't do any better...

PS: I've noticed that (apparently) it is even not necessary to have an active selection when 'setting the new 'default'.

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

And if this is the default mode, why does the existing selection disappear and get replaced before I use a filter?

No clue what you refer to specifically. As I've said already, your constant focus on the use of filters is (as far as I can see) irrelevant for the behavior of the marquee selection tools (no diffidence intended🙂).

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I should say I tried using 'add' mode then exiting the tool, but this did not set the (apparent) default mode to 'add'.

No idea what you do exactly. On my system, if I set the mode to 'Add' for a specific marquee tool (e.g. Freehand), do something else, and then return (while some selection is active!!!!!) to the same marquee selection tool (i.e. Freehand in this case), the selection mode is always 'Add'.

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

When I start using freehand select:

image.png.0f02360d8884a27cdd5601ecd24ce7d6.png

Yes, fine. This looks OK (I assume that no other selection is active then?)

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

After using a filter (this doesn't seem right... happens with all filters)

image.png.6188b74cf05d76369ec18fdd2c69b2c5.png

I don't know why this doesn't seem right??? This status bar belongs to the dialog box of the filter that you've launched (Gaussian Blur, I presume?). This has nothing to do with marquee selections. If you would apply a different filter, the info in this status bar will (might) change to something else.

Unless, if your 'problem' refers specifically to the fact that the message bar isn't automatically updated after 'closing' the filter dialog box, and that it's required to manually make a new action (e.g. select a new tool)?

 

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

After deselecting or using another type of select tool:

image.png.be07900aaaf7229bd4484154298d2371.png

Yes, so what? Looking at the text of the status bar, I'm quite sure that the freehand marquee selection (still) had a selection mode of 'subtract', and thus that there is a selection active (when you created this screenshot)? The 'move' option in this text refers to the possibility to move the current selection if you position the cursor within the 'boundaries' of the active selection. In order to subtract from the active selection, you should start drawing outside the boundaries of the active selection.

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

In my mind, this thread is a 'bug report' for the freehand select tool not going back to the first of these when you clear any existing selection.

But if "that's not a bug, it's a feature" for subtracting from a null selection then yes I do want to know how to change my default.

I can 'agree' that the selection mode behavior (i.e. no reset to 'New' when you delete the selection (e.g. CTRL-D) while a selection marquee tool is active) is probably a 'bug'. So, as said, feel free to raise the appropriate ticket (defect or feature request). Good luck!

My remark about the distinction between 'bugs' vs 'features' relates more to a common attitude by many SW companies (I'm not specifically referring to Serif here!) whereby something that doesn't work as someone expects is always (by definition) a 'feature by design', as long as you can't prove that the application crashes.

W.r.t. how to 'reset the default selection mode': see my comments above. I've explained what is my understanding of how I can achieve this. I have no clue how AP makes this setting persistent, but it seems to be persistent, even across consecutive sessions. 

So, this 'default' setting can be easily overwritten / updated (also when you're not aware!). Therefore, also my advice to verify constantly what's the active selection mode whenever you use selection marquees. If the selection mode is not what it should be for a specific step in the editing workflow: just change it to the appropriate mode!

 

 

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15 hours ago, i5963c said:

R1: Each selection tool (/marquee) has it's own 'default' selection mode. To the best of my knowledge: this mode seems to be set/updated whenever the mode button is explicitly selected/clicked when a selection is already active.

As I mentioned, I tried this, and it did not work:

 

12 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I should say I tried using 'add' mode then exiting the tool, but this did not set the (apparent) default mode to 'add'

 

9 hours ago, i5963c said:

No clue what you refer to specifically. As I've said already, your constant focus on the use of filters is (as far as I can see) irrelevant for the behavior of the marquee selection tools (no diffidence intended🙂).

See my video, the tool works as expected until I apply a filter, then gets stuck in subtract mode without me changing anything explicitly. It may be that other things will cause the issue, so perhaps I should say 'performing some operations on a selection' but life is too short to test each possible operation to see which cause the issue and which don't. But it's clearly a change that happens as a consequence of performing an operation on the selection, not solely one of using the selection tool.

9 hours ago, i5963c said:

Yes, fine. This looks OK (I assume that no other selection is active then?)

Can you explain an 'active' selection? Does performing an operation on a selection make it active in the context of Affinity?

In my past experience an active selection merely refers to the one indicated by the marquee, in which case when I first use the tool to draw a selection drawing a new one replaces it. After performing an operation the tool subtracts from it.

9 hours ago, i5963c said:

Unless, if your 'problem' refers specifically to the fact that the message bar isn't automatically updated after 'closing' the filter dialog box, and that it's required to manually make a new action (e.g. select a new tool)?

It's a minor issue, but it is confusing that the 'tool hints' don't change back to be relevant to the active tool. I would class this as a bug as the filter is no longer active and the displayed hint is meaningless.

9 hours ago, i5963c said:

Yes, so what? Looking at the text of the status bar, I'm quite sure that the freehand marquee selection (still) had a selection mode of 'subtract', and thus that there is a selection active (when you created this screenshot)? The 'move' option in this text refers to the possibility to move the current selection if you position the cursor within the 'boundaries' of the active selection. In order to subtract from the active selection, you should start drawing outside the boundaries of the active selection.

So what? - the whole point is that the status bar displays this when the active selection has been cleared, so these operations are no longer relevant.

It would be nice if I could find a way to change the default behaviour to new, but (R1) doesn't explain how to do this (and New isn't accessible anyway).

The freehand tool should default to replace mode if I clear the active selection.

This is the behaviour with the other selection modes.

Not being able to get back to new mode without changing to a non-selection tool and back after clearing the selection is bug.

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16 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Did you apply a filter and then try selecting a new area?

Yes I did, I applied a Blur Filter on three different "square" selections and then made one with the "Freehand" selection tool. It worked fine every time. I can't explain why you get a different result.

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31 minutes ago, AlainP said:

Yes I did, I applied a Blur Filter on three different "square" selections and then made one with the "Freehand" selection tool. It worked fine every time. I can't explain why you get a different result.

Same here, working as expected.

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1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:
16 hours ago, i5963c said:

R1: Each selection tool (/marquee) has it's own 'default' selection mode. To the best of my knowledge: this mode seems to be set/updated whenever the mode button is explicitly selected/clicked when a selection is already active.

As I mentioned, I tried this, and it did not work:

Then your system behaves different than mine. I have no idea why, and I'm afraid I can't help you any further.

 

-------------------------------

 

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:
11 hours ago, i5963c said:

No clue what you refer to specifically. As I've said already, your constant focus on the use of filters is (as far as I can see) irrelevant for the behavior of the marquee selection tools (no diffidence intended🙂).

See my video, the tool works as expected until I apply a filter, then gets stuck in subtract mode without me changing anything explicitly. It may be that other things will cause the issue, so perhaps I should say 'performing some operations on a selection' but life is too short to test each possible operation to see which cause the issue and which don't. But it's clearly a change that happens as a consequence of performing an operation on the selection, not solely one of using the selection tool

I don't know to which moment of your video you refer exactly here, but let's try one last time (my life is too short as well🙂). You mention that your selection logic gets stuck in subtract mode. The first time that this happens in your video is at timestamp 0:56.

At that moment, you switch to the Freehand marquee tool. At that same moment, you also still have an 'active selection' (definition: see below). And when switching to this Freehand tool, you'll notice that the selection mode changes instantly to 'Subtract'. In my understanding, this switch is not related to filters, but due to the fact that there is an active selection at that moment (R3).

If you would switch to the Freehand marquee tool without an active selection, I'm pretty sure that the selection mode of the Freehand tool would be 'New' (at least that's what it does on my system, and that's according to R2).

 

------------------------------

 

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Can you explain an 'active' selection? Does performing an operation on a selection make it active in the context of Affinity?

In my past experience an active selection merely refers to the one indicated by the marquee, in which case when I first use the tool to draw a selection drawing a new one replaces it. After performing an operation the tool subtracts from it.

In AP, you have the option to 'hide' the marching ants, without deleting the selection (cf. toggle menu option 'Show Selection' in the View menu). So, if no selection is visible, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not there. However, with CTRL-D, you normally delete the selection. With 'active selection', I refer to the fact that there are indeed certain pixels selected (whether visualized by marching ants or not, is irrelevant here).

 

 

-------------------------------

 

 

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

It would be nice if I could find a way to change the default behaviour to new, but (R1) doesn't explain how to do this (and New isn't accessible anyway).

The freehand tool should default to replace mode if I clear the active selection.

This is the behaviour with the other selection modes.

Not being able to get back to new mode without changing to a non-selection tool and back after clearing the selection is bug.

As said, I can agree with your qualification that the selection mode doesn't automatically gets initialized to 'New' when deleting the overall selection, is a bug. However, my life is too short to expect a resolution for this bug (if it doesn't preselect the desired selection mode automatically, I'll hit the 'New' button myself). In the past, I've seen arguments to use the 'Add' button i.s.o. the 'New' button (here too, one can argue that this makes sense, but so far, nothing has changed in AP's behavior).

Apparently, your system behaves different from mine, so I can't give you further input on how to get rid of your 'Subtract' mode behavior of the Freehand selection tool.

One of the annoying things is that the 'default' behavior, as explained in some of my previous messages, is apparently persistent, even across multiple AP sessions. I've no clue where AP would store this information (I had a look at some of the config files, but couldn't find anything...).

 

 

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59 minutes ago, Hens said:

You could reset user settings under Edit>Preferences>Miscellaneous

Or 

Holding down the ctrl button while clicking the affinity photo shortcut
This will give a menu where you can reset many aspects of the program.

@Hens,

Thanks to remind me of this option to reset things in AP

I tried to reset the tool presets, but unfortunately, it didn't reset the persistent defaults for the 'Mode Selection' parameter of the marquee selection tools. So, this data must be hidden somewhere else😟...

Windows 10 Pro - 21H1 | AMD Ryzen 9 3900X - 12 core - 3.8 GHz | 32GB DDR4 - 3.6 GHz RAM | Nvidia RTX 3060 - 12GB VRAM | 2TB SSD Samsung 970 EVO Plus | Wacom Intuos 4M

Full Affinity Suite (Photo, Designer & Publisher): all version 1.10.5.1342 with HW acceleration ON, Nvidia Studio drivers up-to-date (511.65)

Capture One for Sony v.22 (build 15.1.1.2) | Nik Collection (DXO version 4.3.3) | Topaz AI (Denoise 3.6.1, Sharpen 4.1.0 & Gigapixel 5.8.0)

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16 minutes ago, i5963c said:

if it doesn't do it automatically, I'll hit the 'New' button myself

I wish I could find it...

17 minutes ago, i5963c said:

With 'active selection', I refer to the fact that there are indeed certain pixels selected.

So my system is confused and thinks there is an active selection when there isn't.

18 minutes ago, i5963c said:

Then your system behaves different than mine. I have no idea why, and I'm afraid I can't help you any further.

So it seems, thanks for all your efforts to help.

1 hour ago, Hens said:

You could reset user settings under Edit>Preferences>Miscellaneous

Or 

Holding down the ctrl button while clicking the affinity photo shortcut
This will give a menu where you can reset many aspects of the program.

🙂

Option 2 just started AP as normal.

Alas! Option 1 didn't do it. Just lost all my plugins..

I still can't create a new selection after clearing the old one.

Hopefully the next build will fix this.

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4 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Option 2 just started AP as normal.

You must keep Ctrl pressed until you get the Clear User Defaults dialog.

On my Windows system, I keep it pressed, watch for the application icon to show up on the Windows task bar, click on that icon, and then when I get the dialog I release the Ctrl key.

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

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 1 month later...

Hi I'm using Windows 10 & version 1.10.4.1198 and the Free-hand selection tool doesn't seem to function as I'd expected.  I'd followed a tutorial by Michael Wilson on YouTube  but when I go to the background copy I made to make a selection from (with New mode selected) of the grass.  Go to refine, reduce border width to 0 / Smooth 5 / Feather 1 - Apply.  Then copy / paste move that copied selection to the top of the stack and it has blended ok.  

HOWEVER, when I come to repeat this on the next group of images e.g of an egg/desert grass group, the selection doesnt stay selected after following the steps about (re refine / copy etc)

I tried this by changing the selection mode between New / Add  but neither work for a 2nd selection or indeed a 3rd selections.  Weird as the 1st selection works ok.

Here's a link to the tutorial I followed.

I also used some paid for downloaded brushes from IAMRENSI (Nature, grass)

Is this a know bug or user error please?

Thanks in advance.

Affinity Photo Composite Tutorial - YouTube

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2 hours ago, ToniB said:

Is this a know bug or user error please?

Without more information it may be hard to say. It would help to have some screenshots (including the Layers panel), and/or a video of the issue.

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

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Hi Walt, thanks for your prompt response.  I'm new to Affinity & not very technical. Im afraid I don't know how to do a video of the screen using AP.  Attached is a screen shot (very very rough example, I know my egg refinements are blurry but it's a practise image to work along to Michael Wilsons video tutorial so i could get a handle on how layers work / blend modes etc...

Anyway.  I hope the attached scribble makes sense, basically I made a selection from the background layer of the grass with view to copy/paste & moving it to the top of the stack so that it blends in better with the sand.  When I moved it, the selection itself shrunk.  

I tried to do the same with the other 2 grass areas in the image but the selection doesn't work either when i select New or Add.  

Like I say, possibly user error 🙂1465387079_ScreenshotofAPSelectionissue.thumb.JPG.d83d9954aacc1eccf5f188e693ba02c7.JPG

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