Change selected colour changes whole layer in Affinity Photo 2

[slajerek]

Affinity Photo is great and I really like it, but sometimes it drives me mad as I do not understand what is going on.

Could you please someone explain why my whole layer colour changes whenever I change selected colour (e.g. with pipette) to purple, then when I press ESC it changes colour again to sepia etc. I assume this may show only one colour from RGB or is in some mode that any change of colour changes colour of whole layer, but WHY?

Attached screenshots before and after I clicked with pipette on a colour. How to fix this and simply select colour with pipette?

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by slajerek

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @slajerek

If you are using the Colour Picker Tool on the Toolbar – as opposed to, for example, the Colour Picker in the Colour Panel – the colour you picked will be automatically applied to the selection if “Apply to Selection” option is set to ON in the tool’s Context Toolbar.

(When an Image layer has a colour applied to it, it’s the same as using a Recolour Adjustment.)

If you are using that tool and don’t want to the colour to be applied then un-tick (uncheck) that option.
If you can’t see the Context Toolbar under the main Toolbar then use menu “View → Show Context Toolbar”.

Note: The Colour Picker on the Colours Panel or Swatches Panel will not automatically apply the colour to the selection.

When you are using the Colour Picker Tool on the Toolbar, and you have already clicked to pick a colour, the ESC key will work the same as clicking, i.e. it will pick (and apply, if set to do so) the colour under the mouse pointer. (I don’t know if this is expected behaviour, but that’s what happens for me on Windows.)

Note: The applied colour will have no visual effect on Pixel layers, as opposed to Image layers or other types of layer.