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Feature request: Clipping mask on groups


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This is the one photoshop feature keeping me from switching. Photoshop allows you to create a clipping mask applied to a group. This saves a huge amount of disk space and time because I only have to apply the mask to the group itself instead of having to apply it to ever layer in the group. Additionally, I can apply layer styles to groups. Unfortunately, I cannot load the majority of my images into affinity photo because of the lack of this feature.

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Hi,

Affinity supports clipping path and pixel masks for groups inside its own document format. This might be an issue importing specific files.

I would suggest that you create a new thread in the questions subforum and upload an example document where you observe the issue.

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i was able to get my trial started again. Here's the error message I get when I load a typical photoshop file from my artwork... Notice that it explicitly reports that layers clipped to groups are not supported.

 

image.png.f704d2c842acac700cd34f5e81e7385c.png

Edited by jz2000
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There is an older thread for this topic. The example file loads on iPad without error messages. On Windows, I get the same error message. The file loads, but you need to find the clipped layers and move them to the nested position (instead of clipping position).

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/85474-layers-clipped-to-groups-not-supported/

imported (with clipped layers)936051208_Screenshot2022-01-28at17_11_40.thumb.png.001dfce722d250540e68b4428e612538.png

manually corrected after import1769468115_Screenshot2022-01-28at17_12_54.thumb.png.a2a7017cea766b7016b52df0b88871db.png

Edited by NotMyFault
Updated

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Seems to be a known limitation / incompatibility.

You could create the same effect by clipping the text layer to the image.

 

Screenshot 2022-01-28 at 17.25.03.png

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Yes but as I mentioned originally, it's a waste of memory , disk size and inefficient to have to apply the clipping the text to every image in a group. The file I uploaded was just a simple example. In the real world, I often have 25-50 layers inside of a group. To apply  the clipping to every layer in the group is unreasonable. Additionally, the lack of support for the gradient layer (and probably other layer types as well) means that I cannot truly replace photoshop with affinity photo. IMO, they should implement these basic levels of compatibility or they will lose customers who have these types of images but have to keep photoshop around in order to edit existing material...

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Well. I only tried to show how the same function can be achieved using Photo. There are principle differences between Adobe and Serif in how to achieve the same effect, and sometimes one term (like clipping masks) is used for different thinks.


There might be a reason why Photo gives you the explicit message about unsupported features. Your request is understandable, nothing wrong with it. 
 

I gave my reply’s to other potential readers getting the same issues and stumble over this post with help of search engines.

These users might not be limited by the circumstances you are, and may use the workarounds and are able to continue using Affinity Photo.

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6 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

Well. I only tried to show how the same function can be achieved using Photo. There are principle differences between Adobe and Serif in how to achieve the same effect, and sometimes one term (like clipping masks) is used for different thinks.


There might be a reason why Photo gives you the explicit message about unsupported features. Your request is understandable, nothing wrong with it. 
 

I gave my reply’s to other potential readers getting the same issues and stumble over this post with help of search engines.

These users might not be limited by the circumstances you are, and may use the workarounds and are able to continue using Affinity Photo.

thanks and I understand. I was just trying to clarify because your original reply indicated that the features that are missing are indeed supported and that's not the case. Clipping masks cannot be assigned to groups in affinity photo.

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3 minutes ago, jz2000 said:

Clipping masks cannot be assigned to groups in affinity photo.

This might be a terminology issue. You can use clipping masks for groups, but not in the sense of PS / PSD files. The same term is used for different things. To be precise: PSD files containing clipping masks applied to groups are not supported in Affinity. Never the less, Affinity supports (their interpretation) of clipping masks, which work on groups.

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Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps.

My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected.

 

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3 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

 

This might be a terminology issue. You can use clipping masks for groups, but not in the sense of PS / PSD files. The same term is used for different things. To be precise: PSD files containing clipping masks applied to groups are not supported in Affinity. Never the less, Affinity supports (their interpretation) of clipping masks, which work on groups.

Unfortunately, not helpful to folks who are transitioning to affinity photo from photoshop since they will no longer be able to load their files. And it's not just PSD files. It will also not load TIF files with clipping masks applied to groups. And it's not just clipping masks. My file also has a gradient fill layer applied which is also not supported. This tif file loads in affinity with no errors but the clipping and gradient layer are not loaded!

 

 

 

 

junk2.tif

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Tiff files with layers use Adobe specific extensions of the format. This is (technically not correct) kind of a psd file encapsulated within a tiff file. Vanilla tiff does not support layers at all.

 

Tiff is controlled by Adobe. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF#Private_tags_2

The format was created by the Aldus Corporation for use in desktop publishing. It published the latest version 6.0 in 1992, subsequently updated with an Adobe Systems copyright after the latter acquired Aldus in 1994. Several Aldus or Adobe technical notes have been published with minor extensions to the format, and several specifications have been based on TIFF 6.0, including TIFF/EP (ISO 12234-2), TIFF/IT (ISO 12639),[3][4][5] TIFF-F (RFC 2306) and TIFF-FX (RFC 3949).[6]

Affinity does not support / has only limited support for Adobe extension of tiff format, as these extensions are again Adobe proprietary like psd.

 

Private tags[edit]

Developers can apply for a block of "private tags" to enable them to include their own proprietary information inside a TIFF file without causing problems for file interchange. TIFF readers are required to ignore tags that they do not recognize, and a registered developer's private tags are guaranteed not to clash with anyone else's tags or with the standard set of tags defined in the specification. Private tags are numbered in the range 32,768 and higher.

Private tags are reserved for information meaningful only for some organization, or for experiments with a new compression scheme within TIFF. Upon request, the TIFF administrator (currently Adobe) will allocate and register one or more private tags for an organization, to avoid possible conflicts with other organizations. Organizations and developers are discouraged from choosing their own tag numbers arbitrarily, because doing so could cause serious compatibility problems. However, if there is little or no chance that TIFF files will escape a private environment, organizations and developers are encouraged to consider using TIFF tags in the "reusable" 65,000–65,535 range. There is no need to contact Adobe when using numbers in this range.[7]

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My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected.

 

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It seems Adobe introduced a special setting to increase  compatibility within different versions of Adobe own software.

It might be a stretch to expect other Apps costing a fraction of Adobe’s annual fee to be 100% compatible to undocumented (on file format level) features of a proprietary Adobe file format.

 

https://asktimgrey.com/2019/02/22/maximize-compatibility-unnecessary/

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My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected.

 

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1 minute ago, NotMyFault said:

It seems Adobe introduced a special setting to increase  compatibility within different versions of Adobe own software.

It might be a stretch to expect other Apps costing a fraction of Adobe’s annual fee to be 100% compatible to undocumented (on file format level) features of a proprietary Adobe file format.

 

https://asktimgrey.com/2019/02/22/maximize-compatibility-unnecessary/

you're misinterpreting the standard. Adobe owns the TIF spec and publishes it to the public domain, much like they do with PDF. Anyone can create a PDF editor, pdf printer, etc., and the same is true with TIF standard. Windows explorer, microsoft paint and windows photo viewer and google drive can render the TIF file I uploaded without any adobe extensions loaded. Affinity will never improve if folks continue to make excuses for missing features. 

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2 hours ago, jz2000 said:

you're misinterpreting the standard. Adobe owns the TIF spec and publishes it to the public domain, much like they do with PDF. Anyone can create a PDF editor, pdf printer, etc., and the same is true with TIF standard. Windows explorer, microsoft paint and windows photo viewer and google drive can render the TIF file I uploaded without any adobe extensions loaded. Affinity will never improve if folks continue to make excuses for missing features. 

This is not correct. 
If you do not trust me, you may trust the official FAQ or Wikipedia?

Layered TIFF files

There is no such thing as "layered TIFF".  The TIFF standard only handles flattened images as part of the publicly described tags.

TIFF does allow for companies to register additional tags for their own use. Adobe registered two private TIFF tags that enable them to embed layer data in a TIFF.  These tags are an extension and are not part of the central TIFF standard.  These tags are used to embed PSD layer data into a TIFF, in addition to the standard flattened image.

Since Affinity has a PSD importer, we are able to import the layer data from a TIFF if it has these tags.  However, since this is handled by our PSD importer it is subject to the same limitations as importing a standard PSD into Affinity.  We make clear that while we aim to provide the best third party support for PSD, we can never replicate 100% the way Photoshop handles and displays a PSD file.  Photoshop has its own approach to applying alpha/transparency, vector masks and vector strokes, layer effects and gradients.  This means that while we can offer importing of editable elements of a PSD file, the result will not be a one-to-one pixel reproduction of what you see in Photoshop.

We have registered our own TIFF tags for embedding Affinity layer data in a TIFF, in similar fashion to PSD layer data. This is intended for use with DAMs that use TIFF as their interchange format.  When saving a TIFF file, if your document has multiple layers you will be given the option of including Affinity layer data.  This will preserve the editable elements of a multi-layer document.  This obviously comes at a cost of increased file size.  Our TIFF tags will use our proprietary data format and as such can only be used by Affinity applications.

At this time we have no plans to save TIFF files with the PSD format layer data.  PSD layer data held in a TIFF file will be imported and converted to the Affinity format.

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My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected.

 

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37 minutes ago, jz2000 said:

search for layers

Did, and this is from that wikipedia page: "Among other things, Baseline TIFF does not include layers, "

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1 hour ago, jz2000 said:

You're wrong 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF 

search for layers

 

It has know been proven multiple times that my post in this thread are factual and correct. Cannot understand why you still insist to repeat your baseless accusations. I will step out of this discussion at this stage, I don’t like to discuss this ad nausea. Have a nice evening.

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Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps.

My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected.

 

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This is a feature I really miss since I moved away from Photoshop. Although I have been able to find some workarounds and certain layer types do support clipping to Groups to some extent, a big problem is that clipping Pixel Layers to Groups just doesn't work without rethinking your entire workflow structure. I used this feature a lot when painting and the only way I have been able to achieve something similar is through some heavy use of Linked Layers.

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  • 11 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

This is under "Affinity Photo V1 on Desktop" and it's definitely not true... it's very much needed on V2.

The frustration is real... 99% of the things work, yet it's that 1% that breaks everything and need to go back to photoshop. Filling with Primary/Secondary colors shortcuts, clipping masks on groups, brush global pressure sensitivity. Wasn't there on V1 and "on the ALL NEW, ALL THE NEW FEATURES" V2 neither.

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