Getting To Grips With Layer Masks?

[hawk]

Hiya, I come from using Pixelmator for years and I'm trying to switch to Affinity Designer but I cannot wrap my head around layer masks.

 

I'd like some advice on how to think about layer masks in Affinity Designer versus Pixelmator, i.e. what is the mindset that I should have when I want to do things that I'd previously use masks for in Pixelmator.

 

For example, I tried to design a logo and I wanted to put a gradient fill over the entire logo, but when I applied the gradient fill on the group containing the different letters and parts of the logo it behaved as if I applied the gradient on each object individually.

 

So I thought I could just overlay a rectangle with the gradient fill on top of the logo and mask it so that it only appears exactly on the logo objects, but at first I had problems creating the mask. I command-clicked on the individual logo objects to load their selection (like in Pixelmator) but I couldn't find a way to "add to the selection" each object (holding shift while command-clicking clears the selection), so I looked for a "quick mask" editor like in Pixelmator but couldn't find one. So I manually created a new pixel layer and loaded the selection of each object and filled it (this is before I realized I can just make an "add" compound out of the logo objects). Then I applied this pixel layer as the mask for the gradient fill rectangle and it worked... except whenever I moved and resized the gradient fill rectangle it also moved the mask. I did notice there's a "Lock Children" option and while that would have worked fine in this particular case I wonder whether it would be practical in more complicated scenarios (e.g. multiple child objects that you want to transform proportionaly as well as mask that you want in a fixed position).

 

Then I realized I could add the logo objects into a compound and add that as the mask to the rectangle, but the problem here is that I lose editability of the individual objects. I can still move the compound out of the mask slot and edit it, then use it as a mask again, but this is really inconvenient and you can't see how the changes you make affect the masked result.

 

So I tried using each object as a mask individually but that caused nothing to show up at all, because it seems like all masks have to intersect somewhere.

 

I think there should be a way to set masks as linked/unlinked with regard to transformations to the masked object like there is in Pixelmator, to have masks be either "positive" (the masked object appears only within the mask as is currently the case) or "negative" (the mask objects hides parts of the masked object like in Pixelmator) and to have multiple non-overlapping masks be "OR-ed" together (in the case of positive masks only). Also, compound masks, group masks, etc should remain editable separately if possible.

 

That said, maybe I'm just going at it the wrong way and I need to think about accomplishing these tasks in a different way, and that's what I'd like your advice on. Thanks!

[DWright]

Hi hawk,

 

To apply a gradient to only part of your drawing select these objects and then group them together and then on the context toolbar click on the fill and then select the gradient tab this will then allow you to create the required gradient and this will only be applied to the group. This link is to a video tutorial that shows this in action as well as defining the gradient.

 

Regards,

Darren