Affinity Photo Windows / Why I cannot paint on layer mask ?

[Kwin K]

Hello, 

I just purchased Shadow Overlays addon and try to test it. 

I just wonder why I just cannot simply paint on layer mask to remove some area like I can easily do in Photoshop ?

This function should be very straight forward ! 

or another option, if there anyway to use Affinity shadow overlay asset to use in Photoshop instead ?

 

Thank you very much.

[Kwin K]

This is very frustrated. Nothing happen when I try to paint on mask layer. 

[iconoclast]

Hi Kwi K!

What tool are you using? And with what settings and colour? To paint away the shadow you would need to paint with black on the layer mask. With white, you can restore the parts you painted away. By pressing the key "X", you can easily switch between black and white - if they are set as foreground and background colours.

[walt.farrell]

It would help if we could see the complete application window, @Kwin K.

[Kwin K]

Hi Iconoclast, Walt

Thanks for your support.

1. I understand concept switching between black and white mask. I did it so many time in Photoshop. Just don't understand why in AF is so complicated 

2. Below is my full screen capture, Is there anything I miss ?

 

[iconoclast]

The wrong tool is selected, as far as I see. It is not the paint brush. Seems to be the Undo Brush. Maybe you have hit the short key of this tool by accident?

[walt.farrell]

You seem to have the Undo Brush Tool selected, not the Paint Brush Tool.

[Kwin K]

 

Thank you Iconoclast,

I already change to paint brush "B" but still cannot paint. There is nothing happen at all . 

I 

[iconoclast]

Hm, it is not easy to see the settings because the screenshot is too small, but it seems that the mask layer is set to the Blend Mode Multiply. This might be possibly the reason. As far as I can see, in the middle of the image is a short stroke that might be painted on the mask layer. Could it be?

[Kwin K]

Thank you for your afford to help me check problem. It seems to be a "bug"

After I close and start new fresh file now It work as expect.  

 

 

[Kwin K]

Thank you Iconoclast and Walt. Problem is fixed now. I close and restart program > create new file and now it work as it should be.

Thank you very much for your support. 

[iconoclast]

Your welcome. Never had this problem. I'm not sure if it's a bug. Could also be the mouse/stylus. My mouse temporarily stopped working last week. But in that case it didn't do anything, not even moving the cursor. Had to restart the computer, then it worked again. As I said, in the center of your image, the brush seemed to work at least for a short time. Keep an eye on it. If it happens repeatedly you should possibly write a bug report.

[Pšenda]

19 minutes ago, Kwin K said:

I already change to paint brush "B" but still cannot paint. There is nothing happen at all .

And how was this drawn?

[Kwin K]

Psenda, I also wonder why I can paint on that spot. It seems to be software error because i only can paint only one stroke before this file is crash and I have to restart over again. 

[walt.farrell]

27 minutes ago, Kwin K said:

Thank you for your afford to help me check problem. It seems to be a "bug"

After I close and start new fresh file now It work as expect.  

You now have a Normal blend mode, rather than Multiply, which may explain the difference.

[iconoclast]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You now have a Normal blend mode, rather than Multiply, which may explain the difference.

That was my suspect too. But as I tested it, it didn't seem to make a difference. I'm afraid we'll never know what went wrong here.

[Kwin K]

I will let you know if this problem happen again.  What I did after purchase Shadow overlay addon, I open AF Photo and problem ask me to update to latest version. 

Then I close problem and install update .exe file.  Then start using  and find this problem. After program crash I restart problem again, create new file and now it works fine.

[iconoclast]

10 minutes ago, Kwin K said:

I will let you know if this problem happen again.  What I did after purchase Shadow overlay addon, I open AF Photo and problem ask me to update to latest version. 

Then I close problem and install update .exe file.  Then start using  and find this problem. After program crash I restart problem again, create new file and now it works fine.

Things like these often happen because of single wrong settings - like e.g. the wrong tool is selected, the opacity is set too low etc. A classic concerning this topic is that the wrong colour is selected, what easily happens because Affinity Photo often switches the colours when you change the tool. E.g. if you first filled the background layer with the Fill Bucket and then select the Paint Brush to paint in the foreground. That may confuse many newbies. Confused me too at the start.

To find these tiny settings is not easy if one can't see them on the screenshot. In most cases it is important to be able to see the Layers Panel and the context bar of the tool you actually used. Or the panel(s) of the certain function(s) you used before. Sometimes of course also the History can help too. So it would be good to create expressive screenshots, that are also big enough to be able to read the settings. Never be too stingy with informations!