Please select an RGB pixel layer before entering Develop.

[rickraymond]

I am getting the message:  Please select an RGB pixel layer before entering Develop, when I either attempt to close out photo project or access development persona.  I'm new to Affinity and am basically listening it via on-line Vimeo videos and playing around with it.  I have no idea how to address this or how to cancel it out.  Help appreciated.  

[MEB]

Hello rickraymond,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

This message appears when you are in Photo Persona and you try to enter in Develop Persona (clicking on the Develop Persona icon on the top left of the interface) without a Pixel layer selected.

You can check the type of layers in the Layers panel inside parenthesis after the layer's name. If the layer selected is identified as (Image - an object type layer)), right click on it and select Rasterise. This will convert it to a Pixel layer and you can then change to Develop Persona to edit that layer using the tools available there.

 

An Image layer is considered an object type layer, you can apply transforms to it (scale, skew etc) but you can't edit it at a pixel level. A Pixel layer is a "container" where you can perform pixel-based editing operations to the image. For more information about layer types, check Affinity Photo Help ▸ Layers ▸ About Layers.

[rickraymond]

Thanks.  makes sense.  I'll need to play around with it to learn how to do ot.

[LarryOB]

Hi I have the same Message: Please Select an RGB pixel layer before entering develop.

The problem is that it automatically does what I dont want.

EG. I import a black and white photo into affinity photo, I then get the Message: Affinity photo assigned Your working profile (greyscale D50) to this unprofile document. 

… Normally I want to add colors to b/w photos (not documents! I am working With photoes in affinity photo!) So I want to work With a colorprofile, but then affinity made it a B/w one so now I cannot add color !?!?! 

And sometimes I want to make a color photo into a b/w one but not being able to choose profile makes it difficult.

Trying to change persona gets me the Message, Please Select an RGB pixel layer before entering Tone Mapping. … Raterizing the image does help. There is no kind of link to a help page on either Notification boxes, youtube left me nowhere, With a guy putting color on a Girls face With some strange masking tecnique over and over many many times... No persona boxes or anything.

 

please help how do I change these profiles, I need to change this pic for a Client fast!

[walt.farrell]

28 minutes ago, LarryOB said:

. I import a black and white photo into affinity photo, I then get the Message: Affinity photo assigned Your working profile (greyscale D50) to this unprofile document

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

First, we need to know what you mean by "import" as that's an imprecise term.

Do you mean Open, as in File > Open, where the image becomes the document you're working on?

Or some kind of Edit in Photo from another application, which gives that same result of the image being the complete document you're working on?

If so, the Document menu has an entry to change the color format, Document > Convert Format/ICC Profile.

[Zumzifero]

I have the same problem.

This is my workflow: I scan a negative film of a B&W picture and save it as a TIF file.

I open the Tif file in Affinity Photo correctly and when I try to edit it and switching from in Photo Persona to Develop Persona. I obviously have a single  Background layer (pixel).

I tried using "Rasterize" command on the layer but I keep getting the same " Please select an RGB pixel layer before entering Develop" message.

[Old Bruce]

Is your TIFF file from the scanner an RGB file or is it a Greyscale File?

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Zumzifero said:

I open the Tif file in Affinity Photo correctly and when I try to edit it and switching from in Photo Persona to Develop Persona. I obviously have a single  Background layer (pixel).

But is that layer actually selected before you try to switch personas?

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

But is that layer actually selected before you try to switch personas?

And, as @Old Bruce (and the error message) have hinted, is it an RGB pixel layer?

[Zumzifero]

The layer was selected and I even tried rasterizing it. may be I'm doing something the wrong way or am I misunderstand what an RGB layer is?

Edited March 6, 2022 by Zumzifero

[walt.farrell]

7 minutes ago, Zumzifero said:

am I misunderstand what an RGB layer is?

It would usually be a pixel layer in an RGB document. You wouldn't have one in a CMYK or Grayscale document.

[Zumzifero]

15 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It would usually be a pixel layer in an RGB document. You wouldn't have one in a CMYK or Grayscale document.

I see: it seems that if I rasterize the layer and then convert it to an ICC profile at RGB 32 I can access it on the develop persona.

There should be some reference in the help menu of affinity but I wasn't able to find any. It might looks simple for a software expert to understand what is missing, but it is not for someone who has no idea about what an "ICC space" is and why it should be added to a simple TIFF file.

Converting film to digital by scanning it is pretty common nowadays so I guess some kind of direct guide about how to create a TIFF file which can be fully manipulate in Affinity photo could be really useful.

Thanks for the help anyway.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Zumzifero

[thomaso]

30 minutes ago, Zumzifero said:

There should be some reference in the help menu

The Help in Affinity is neither a reference manual nor a workbook, which both would require a lot more content, respectively step-by-step instructions. Consider that design, layout and image editing programs initially were made for professionals with special educations, e.g. typographer or type setter / photographer / image, film or colour lithographer / print or pre-press. To cover all related subjects in all possible details and relations among each other would mean to produce a huge help resource.

Also note, Serif offers, aside the app help, various sources like video tutorials or their "Spotlight" articles. For instance this article about colour management might interest you and answer some questions:

https://affinityspotlight.com/article/display-colour-management-in-the-affinity-apps/

[Old Bruce]

Hello @Zumzifero,

Do I understand your workflow correctly?

You scan a film negative and save a TIFF file.

Is that TIFF file an RGB file? If it is then there would be no need to rasterize, just open the TIFF file with Affinity Photo.

If the TIFF file is not an RGB file (let us say the TIFF file is a Greyscale file) then you would need to open the TIFF file and change the document's Colour Format to RGB.

[NotMyFault]

On 3/5/2022 at 6:51 PM, Zumzifero said:

This is my workflow: I scan a negative film of a B&W picture and save it as a TIF file.

I open the Tif file in Affinity Photo correctly and when I try to edit it and switching from in Photo Persona to Develop Persona. I obviously have a single  Background layer (pixel).

 

If you start with a scanned tiff file, there is no real reason to use Develop Persona at all.

You can do everything (useful)  in Photo Persona.

Would you mind sharing what you intended to do with us, and upload one example file?
The forum probably can show you excellent ways to achieve your goals without ever using Develop Persona.

Even if you prefer to use Develop Persona, with help of an example file we can find out a way that it will work for you.

As you mentioned you have a B&W scan, the probable reason is that the file is if type GREY/8 or GREY/16. You may need do use Document > Convert to convert it into RGB/8 or RGB/16 if you really need Develop Persona.

If you have a true B&W scan of 1 bit color channel depth, Affinity is not the right tool to edit those files.

[Nickgm]

Good grief. I've followed the advice and still can't adjust b&w photo.  The superb thing about Serif products (before) was ease of use.  Photoplus, Pageplus and Drawplus were extraordinarily powerful at the price but incredibly easy and intuitive to use.  Affinity may be more sophisticated but good grief, they have lost the usability and ease of use BIGTIME.  Also, the manuals appear not to have been checked by novices, but by people who already know how to use the software.  It takes serious work to be simple, but it's incredibly easy to be complicated.

[NotMyFault]

11 minutes ago, Nickgm said:

I've followed the advice and still can't adjust b&w photo.

Welcome to the forum, @Nickgm. Which advice did you follow? 

 

Please consider this advise:

On 3/6/2022 at 10:55 PM, NotMyFault said:

As you mentioned you have a B&W scan, the probable reason is that the file is if type GREY/8 or GREY/16. You may need do use Document > Convert to convert it into RGB/8 or RGB/16 if you really need Develop Persona.

 

[kasperhjorth]

I keep getting this message. Also after rasterizing a color photo.

Here's an idea for Serif to improve usability:
If a layer is selected that does not meet the requirements for entering the Develop Persona, instead of the current "error prompt" make a new prompt saying:

"The selected layer is incompatible with the Develop Persona. Would you like to automatically rasterize the selected layer and change the color profile now?
Under this question display two buttons: [Yes, please rasterize and change color profile] and [No, close the window].

If the user clicks [Yes] do whatever it freakin' takes in the background and enter the Develop Persona. 🤘😎☀️

[walt.farrell]

26 minutes ago, kasperhjorth said:

I keep getting this message. Also after rasterizing a color photo.

If you need help understanding why you're getting it, we can provide that. It would be easier with a sample file.

If you want to make a suggestion for an improvement, this is not the right place. You should do that in the Feedback and Suggestions forum, where the Serif planners look for them.

 

[smadell]

I'm going to suggest that you start with your scanner's settings. If you are scanning black and white negatives, you can still save them as color TIFF files. Although this may seem like a contradiction, it will make subsequent use of Affinity Photo easier. I have an Epson photo scanner, so the screenshots I'm including are from that scanner. But, your scanner will probably have a similar ability.

In my scanner, I can specify how to save the file that the scanner creates. Here are screenshots of two different settings. The one on the left will create a file that has a greyscale profile. The one on the right will create a file with a 16-bit color profile (even if the thing being scanned is only black and white).

Once I have created these files, I can open them both into Affinity Photo. Now, look at the Context Toolbar. (Make sure the "Show Context Toolbar" is checked in the View menu.) The Greyscale TIFF file (whose settings are above, left) is the document whose context toolbar is on top, in the screenshot below. The Color TIFF file (above, right) has a context toolbar which looks like the one on the bottom. Note the red arrows, which point to the ICC Profile of the document as it is opened in Affinity Photo.

If your image opens with a profile that includes the letters "RGBA" then you have a "color RGB" layer, and you should be able to open this image in the Develop persona without any difficulty. If your image opens with anything else (such as my greyscale scan, which is noted to be a "Grey/16" file) then you must use the "Convert Format/ICC Profile…" choice from the Document menu. Choose that menu choice, and then choose "RGB/16" (or RGB/8 or RGB/32) from the dialog box that opens. Once you do that, your document should now be a color document, and the layer which includes your scanned image should open into the Develop persona.