Lock transparency

[B4ttleCat]

Hey guys,

 

I hope I haven't missed something in the UI but basically I'm after a "lock transparency" feature that works the same way as in PS. It's very handy for blurring things that you don't want the edges to shrink/grow. It also has the secondary benefit of being able to paint inside already painted pixels without going outside the bounds. (I know this can be done by masking, but locking transparency may be the workflow of many already and means you don't have to create an extra layer to mask with).

[MattP]

The 'Pixel Persona' Paint Brush Tool has a 'Protect Alpha' checkbox on its context toolbar - this is the setting you're looking for. We actually have a set of advanced blend options which we could enable for each object in the layers panel - and these would allow for per-channel blend ranges (including the option to disable blending in each channel) - but the only reason we haven't is simply that the UI was a bit of a confusing nightmare... We can obviously add this back into the UI as soon as we've got a nicer way of presenting it...

 

Thanks,

Matt

[B4ttleCat]

Thanks Matt,

 

The Protect Alpha is exactly what I talking about for the second case so that's great. It's also good to hear there's more layer functionality under the hood that doesn't have a UI yet. It's sorely missed. I hope you guys can fix this soon! 

[SLowmo75]

Hmm, that's a little frustrating - If I've got untidy paint edges I like to lock transparency then Smudge up to the edge. Saves having to repaint or pick colours. Looks like the smudge tool doesn't have the same Protext Alpha checkbox though.

Any chance it could get it at some point? Or just a lock alpha check on the layer itself?

Cheers

Wayne

[Eproxus]

I'll bring this up again since it doesn't seem to exist in Affinity Photo 1.5.

 

This option really needs to be on the layer, and not in the Pixel Tool. Another use case except for using the pixel tool is for shading a layer with a brush, but not adding more pixels to the layer. Sure, one could use a mask but that quickly gets complicated. Photoshop has a really nice transparency lock which is very useful.

[verysame]

Is not available for the clone tool either.

For now, a workaround is to mask the layer.

[YURII]

Yes, same here, was looking for 'protect alpha' checkbox for clone tool and its not there, hope you guys can add it soon!

[ajay.ganapathy]

Here's a trick I use to get around lack of protect alpha. 

I make an alpha mask super fast, by holding the command key and double-clicking on the layer thumbnail where I want to alpha protect. That gives me a selection of that layer. Then, I make a new pixel layer, fill the selection with a color, and then nest the layer as a mask. See the attached video (1 minute long).

I hope this helps!

[Aammppaa]

1 hour ago, ajay.ganapathy said:

Here's a trick I use to get around lack of protect alpha…

A quicker method…

1. Ctrl+Click the layer icon to make a selection from the layer.
2. Then click New Mask at the bottom of the Layers Panel.

That's it!

[lepr]

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