Three questions from a former photoshop user

[raid1]

Hello!

I recently switched from Adobe Photoshop to Affinity Photo and I'm delighted!

Just for a few things I've grown used to over the last years I cannot find an affinity equivalent. Maybe you could enlighten me, please?

- PS showed the position of the brush/pencil on the display rulers. To get the position in Photo I need to use auxiliary lines (which is less comfortable)

- When moving a selection in PS, I could double the object with just a button click. In Photo I have to use the cloning tool to do that but that is more time-consuming.

- Selections on a layer could be rotated by 90°, mirrored horizontally or vertically. Affinity Photo rotates or mirrors the whole layer, not only the selection.

Most likely I'm overlooking the obvious. I beg your pardon beforehand.

Thank you very much for any hint!

 

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, raid1 said:

- PS showed the position of the brush/pencil on the display rulers.

AFAIK, that is not supported in AP.

8 minutes ago, raid1 said:

- When moving a selection in PS, I could double the object with just a button click. In Photo I have to use the cloning tool to do that but that is more time-consuming.

If you mean duplicate the selection you can use Copy & Paste to duplicate the selection on a new layer. It isn't a one click solution but by using the keyboard shortcuts it takes less than a second to do.

 

12 minutes ago, raid1 said:

- Selections on a layer could be rotated by 90°, mirrored horizontally or vertically. Affinity Photo rotates or mirrors the whole layer, not only the selection.

After making the selection & insuring the layer is selected in the Layers panel (because 'marching ants' selections do not belong to any particular layer) you can rotate or flip the selection on the layer with the Move Tool selected using the Arrange menu, & also use the Transform panel's options, but I do not know how you could use that to automatically mirror the selection.

[loukash]

16 hours ago, raid1 said:

Selections on a layer could be rotated by 90°, mirrored horizontally or vertically.

1. Select > Edit Selection As Layer = enables a sort of mask mode independent on actual document layers
2. edit to your liking, including Move tool, Selection tools, brushes, erasers, rotate, mirror, etc.
3. Select > Edit Selection As Layer = disables this mode again

P.S. "Edit Selection As Layer" is in fact the same function as the "Toggle Quick Mask" button, just named differently. (Duh!)

[lphilpot]

17 hours ago, raid1 said:

- PS showed the position of the brush/pencil on the display rulers. To get the position in Photo I need to use auxiliary lines (which is less comfortable)

The Info panel will show your pixel coordinates, if that's useful.

I'm not sure why some of the tools (hand, color / style picker, move, flood / gradient, node / pen, shape, perspective / mesh, measure and zoom) have ruler position indicators, but not others. Seems like an oversight on Serif's part, maybe?

[user_0815]

17 hours ago, raid1 said:

- Selections on a layer could be rotated by 90°, mirrored horizontally or vertically. Affinity Photo rotates or mirrors the whole layer, not only the selection.

If you mean rotating the actual pixel content, then it needs to be a pixel layer. Photo keeps layers, that are images, as such (Image Layers). They retain all the original image data (color space, original resolution, dpi etc). Perhaps similar as smart objects in ps contain more data than simple pixel layers.

To change from an image layer to a pixel layer, right-click and hit "Rasterise".

On a pixel layer, you can make a selection and edit just that selected area. On an image layer, you can only alter the entire image (move, rotate, mirror etc.).