Cannot copy and paste after selecting

[arcnor]

This happens all the time and it's HIGHLY annoying. I've managed to "fix" it at times, but I don't even know how, which is not great...

1. Create a new document.
2. From the Windows Explorer, drag and drop an image file on your new document.
3. Select the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" and make a selection with it.
4. Press Control+X or select "Edit/Cut" (or Control+C to Copy, "Edit/Copy").

Instead of doing the expected thing (cutting the selection) it just cuts the while layer (it disappears from the Layers panel). If you copy instead, same thing but the whole layer is again copied.

Flattening the image makes this work as expected, but this is not an usable workaround for obvious reasons...

[Michail]

2 hours ago, arcnor said:

1. Create a new document.
2. From the Windows Explorer, drag and drop an image file on your new document.
3. Select the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" and make a selection with it.
4. Press Control+X or select "Edit/Cut" (or Control+C to Copy, "Edit/Copy").

The pasted content is an image layer with special properties. Rasterise the layer in question after pasting to convert it into a pixel layer.

[arcnor]

You are right, rasterizing the layer makes it work, which I guess is what I managed to do at some point in the past. However, I'd still say this is unexpected/confusing. I'd rather have Affinity Photo say "Cannot cut/copy/whatever because layer is an image with special properties" rather than doing different things.

Thanks for your response!

[Corgi]

5 minutes ago, arcnor said:

I'd rather have Affinity Photo say "Cannot cut/copy/whatever because layer is an image with special properties" rather than doing different things.

Yes. Or simply internally rasterize the image (i.e., leaving it as an image layer) and copy the selection, the pasting it as a pixel layer.

[Michail]

24 minutes ago, arcnor said:

However, I'd still say this is unexpected/confusing. I'd rather have Affinity Photo say "Cannot cut/copy/whatever because layer is an image with special properties" rather than doing different things.

What you can do is copy the contents of the selection in a reduced form. To do this, press Ctrl+Shift+C (instead of Ctrl+C), or use the corresponding command in the Edit menu. Then paste the content back from the clipboard (Ctrl+V). This way, the image layer is preserved if necessary.

[Kevin Teljeur]

Thanks to these replies, I've learned something. Yes, it's frustrating that I've placed an image, and there's no indicator that I can't copy and paste a selection without first rasterising the placed image. I knew (by trial and error) that I could copy a selection by using 'Copy Merged' but that's not intuitive.

While I like the Affinity suite, it's irritating that I have to search on the forums a few times and scroll results in order to learn this. I wouldn't see this as an advantage if someone was thinking about switching from Adobe (the help file for this feature was useless - it gives an example of copying an object, with or without styles, and suggests you check the menu to see what copy options are available).

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, Kevin Teljeur said:

Yes, it's frustrating that I've placed an image, and there's no indicator that I can't copy and paste a selection without first rasterising the placed image

There is an indicator: the layer type shows as an Image layer, not as a Pixel layer.

It is, though, an indicator that is not helpful until you understand what it means.

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Kevin Teljeur said:

Thanks to these replies, I've learned something. Yes, it's frustrating that I've placed an image, and there's no indicator that I can't copy and paste a selection without first rasterising the placed image. I knew (by trial and error) that I could copy a selection by using 'Copy Merged' but that's not intuitive.

While I like the Affinity suite, it's irritating that I have to search on the forums a few times and scroll results in order to learn this. I wouldn't see this as an advantage if someone was thinking about switching from Adobe (the help file for this feature was useless - it gives an example of copying an object, with or without styles, and suggests you check the menu to see what copy options are available).

I agree, I was very confused by this when I first started using Affinity. Perhaps there should be some sort of warning when you try to copy and it's not rasterized, even a system beep would be helpful.