Strange behaviour. When grouping layers they don't have any effect anymore (APhoto V2)

[Ralph Johann]

Hey there,

several times I faced this problem when grouping layers and I don't know why this is happening.

When I work on a picture and have a nice look, I want to group it so I can switch it on/off to try other versions. When I group layers it happened several times that my look is gone once it's in the group. The problem is not all the groups make so obvious changes like in the video, so I already missed several times that my group didn't have any effect anymore. That's very annoying because I always have to check if the grouping works correctly or not. Not very helpful for my workflow...

Thoughts anyone ?

 

[walt.farrell]

I can't tell for sure from your video, but I think you may have a Group with adjustment layers and a pixel layer in it. In that case:

• Before you group it, the adjustments apply to everything below them.
• Once you group them, the adjustments apply only to the pixel layer that is also in the group.

If you want grouped adjustment layers to apply outside the group, you need to make sure there are no pixel layers in the group.

[Ralph Johann]

Ok, understand what you're talking about, but honestly even retouching layers (pixel layers) can be part of my look.

I just tried the following. Grouping only the adjustment layers, then grouping only the pixel layers and after that grouping both groups in another group. Then it worked.

Really ?!?!?

What kind of workflow is that when i have to group everything separately to put it in one group again at the end.
My layers often contain alternating pixel and adjustment layers and so I have to put every pixel layer and the adjustment layers inbetween in single groups first before I group them alltogether ? Come on, that's ridiculous. Grouping should just put layers together in one folder to arrange everything more clearly and shouldn't affect the whole picture. That's pretty unlogical...

[Ralph Johann]

Grouping is a pain in APV2.

1. You can't group just one layer (i.e. when you want to start a new group). You can only group 2 layers and more (was different in V1)

2. Adding a mask to a group results with a mask layer above the group instead of adding it as a mask for the group (I think that was different in V1 as well)

3. When you close the group you can't even see if a mask belongs to it. Why not showing the mask right next to the folder icon as it is with any adjustment layer. This is very inconsistent and confusing

Any thoughts for that ?

[Old Bruce]

33 minutes ago, Ralph Johann said:

When I work on a picture and have a nice look, I want to group it so I can switch it on/off to try other versions.

Have you tried linking the different adjustment layers? Window > Links. It is a bit of a fiddle to get them to work. 

[lepr]

22 minutes ago, Ralph Johann said:

Grouping should just put layers together in one folder to arrange everything more clearly and shouldn't affect the whole picture.

Exactly! That's what should happen when a Group has Passthrough blend mode (or 'Pass Through' in Photoshop). The name describes the expected behaviour.

Unfortunately, Affinity started with a dual-personality Passthrough and the developers have stuck with it despite many complaints in the forums over the years.

There is a hack that persuades Passthrough to consistently behave as expected: make the bottom object in a Passthrough group be white with Multiply blend mode, and cover the entire canvas with it. A white Fill Layer or vector Rectangle are ideal.

 

 

[Ralph Johann]

16 minutes ago, ,,, said:

There is a hack that persuades Passthrough to consistently behave as expected: make the bottom object in a Passthrough group be white with Multiply blend mode, and cover the entire canvas with it. A white Fill Layer or vector Rectangle are ideal.

 

 

Wow, just tried it and it worked. I added a fill layer which came in white colour directly and changed to multiply blend mode. Abracadabra 🎩🧙‍♂️

Thanx ! Nice workaround for something that should already work like this

[debraspicher]

I know it is not the primary reason for your post, but try Layer States if you need to test different versions. It is new to V2.

[NotMyFault]

14 hours ago, ,,, said:

Exactly! That's what should happen when a Group has Passthrough blend mode (or 'Pass Through' in Photoshop). The name describes the expected behaviour.

Unfortunately, Affinity started with a dual-personality Passthrough and the developers have stuck with it despite many complaints in the forums over the years.

There is a hack that persuades Passthrough to consistently behave as expected: make the bottom object in a Passthrough group be white with Multiply blend mode, and cover the entire canvas with it. A white Fill Layer or vector Rectangle are ideal.

 

 

Nice workaround. 
A side effect: flattens all transparency to white, which maybe undesirable.

[Ralph Johann]

11 hours ago, debraspicher said:

I know it is not the primary reason for your post, but try Layer States if you need to test different versions. It is new to V2.

Thanx Debra,

I watched an instructional video on layer states. Unfortunately, it is not what I am looking for. Most importantly for me, grouping puts the layers in one group for clarity and does not change the image by grouping it.

The blend mode says "passthrough" but that's actually not a correct description of what the group does.

I have photos with 60+ layers, and it is easy to keep track of all the layers when they are grouped by task. In the RETOUCH group are my retouch layers with the retouch color corrections, in the BACKGROUND group is the actual background I want to use, including the associated adjustment layers, and so on. In APV2, I can't group them because it's mostly a mix of pixel and adjustment layers.

It also happens from time to time that I have to rework a mask because it wasn't worked out quite cleanly. With groups, it's easier to narrow down the layers to find the mask that needs to be touched up than it is to search and scroll through all the individual layers of the photo.

APV2 makes work in this regard cumbersome and confusing.