Eraser and Paintbrush tool

[Tripiatrik]

Hi,

 

I'm a newbie to Affinity, so please bear with me as this is probably a really dumb question..

 

When I have two layers and want to partially add some transparency to the top layer, so that it fades into the background layer, I can use the eraser tool. So far so good, but how can I get the opposite effect?

I mean, adding opacity to my top layer. It must be so easy but I can't seem to find it!

I have seen tutorials to paint an effect using the paintbrush, but when I use the paintbrush, I can only paint in the selected color. What do I overlook? Please help!

 

I've attached an image of the edit to make my issue more clear. The elephant should have looked like it's just coming out of the mist. I've managed to finish it using the eraser tool really careful and undo when I erased too much. 

[barninga]

erasing the top layer is a way to accomplish the goal, but it is destructive: once you've erased something, it's lost and you have to undo to get it back. if you realize, after performing further editing, that you erased too much, you'll have to undo everything you made, erase again (hopefully the right way this time) and redo the subsequent work.

 

my advice is to use non destructive editing, where you can modify at any time what you have done.

 

in your case, i think that the easiest way is to use a mask, painting it black or white according to what you want to hide or reveal. these are the steps you can follow:

 

1) load the background image

2) load the foreground image and make sure its layer is above the background in the layer stack

3) select the foreground layer and add a mask: just click on the "mask layer" icon at the bottom of the layer stack (a small square with a circle in it). you'll notice that a square icon is now attached to the foreground layer: this is the mask and it's white at this stage, meaning that the foreground layer is entirely visible.

4) select the paint brush, choose black as active colour, click on the mask (the white square) and start painting: the foreground layer will become transparent where you paint.

 

the interesting bit here is that the information hidden by the mask is not lost: if you paint white above the black, the foreground will come back.

 

you can set the brush tool options (hardness, stroke...) to obtain a seamless integration of the two images.

 

you can also invert the logic: select the mask and press cmd-i to invert it: from this momento on, it hides everything except where you'll paint it white.

[Tripiatrik]

Thank you!

 

This is exactly what I needed! However, I wonder if this could've not been implemented more intuitive. For example in the eraser tool, normal click for erasing, alt-click for adding. But that's just my thoughts. It would've taken me a long time to find it out by myself. Is this the same in Photoshop?

[barninga]

i am not a photoshop user, but this kind of editing is supported by masks in any program i've tried so far.

 

note that if you add an adjustment to a layer (hsl, white balance...), a mask is automatically added to the stack layer, and you can paint into it to control where the effect is shown. this is more productive than selecting an area and applying the adjustment to that area. you can start from a selection, but through the refine step you can transform it into a mask.

[Tripiatrik]

Thanks again! I guess I will get used to it and it seems like a very convenient way to work.   :)