Affinity Photo 2 - Using Elliptical Gradient Mask on a Curves layer: Mask is Grey and White instead of Black and White??

[cayenne]

Hello all,

Ok, I've been away from Affinity a LONG time...and having to not only relearn my basics that came from PS days..but also with using Affinity Photo 2 tools which at times are a bit different..although the concepts are the same.

 

Anyway, I'm working on an image and I want to use a curves adjustment tool with an elliptical mask to basically increase the highlights in a tiny part of the image.

I checked and my colors are Black and White.

I started with the curves layer and drug up the mids to lighten things up, and see where my mask was, etc.

When I did the elliptical gradient...the mask did appear, however it wasn't want I expected with the mask being an elliptical white area fading quickly into black....it is apparently white fading into medium gray.

 

For the life of me, I kept trying to figure why my entire image was being lightened...till I examined the mask isolated and it dawned on me that rather than black areas...it was grey....which would make sense that it would lighten fully in the small white area, but would still lighten everywhere else a bit where it was gray.

I've attached a part of a screen shot to show the mask and my settings.

I'm sure I'm missing something simple, but I can't seem to find what the deal is...I'm wanting to dodge and burn a lot of areas in my images....and need to figure this out.

Thank you in advance,

cayenne

[stokerg]

Hi @cayenne,

Can you just check the Fill Colours of the gradient?  Also what is your workflow for this?  Personally, I would do the following:

Add the Curves Adjustment, select the Fill Tool and set this to Elliptical and make sure the colours are set White to Black.  This should then work as expected.  If its not, please do create a sample file or detail workflow click by click and we will be able to help further.