Sources panel help please

[nickbatz]

Latest Affinity Photo 2 beta, macOS. Sorry if someone's already explained this - I searched and stopped looking after the second page of results, and none of the settings advertised in the manual seems to exist - certainly not in the context menu or anywhere I can find them.

What I'm going to do: use this guy as a source for clone brushing. I've used the whole thing elsewhere in the same picture, and in fact it's a rasterized version of a photo fragment (with adjustment layers) I copy/pasted in from another file.

So I create a pixel layer, hit K to get the clone brush... and it shows up superimposed on top of all other layers in the same position I used it in before (I'm reluctant to post a picture that's in progress). There's no way to move it TF out of the way, because selecting V closes the window and makes this source disappear.

Why did I do to make it hate me? Does it simply not want to work when the global source is inside the picture you're working on? Is the problem that it's not a whole picture, just a shape cut out of one?

There are certainly workarounds, but I want my Sources window and I want it now.

TIA

[nickbatz]

Reading my question, I'm going to try exporting just this image and importing it into the Sources panel that way.

But I have to eat dinner now.

[walt.farrell]

It's just a normal floating (not docked) Studio panel. To move it you would just grab the top bar with your mouse or stylus and drag it wherever you want.

Or, as you're working in the same image, you should be able to just Close that panel. You shouldn't need it in that case.

[nickbatz]

6 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

It's just a normal floating (not docked) Studio panel. To move it you would just grab the top bar with your mouse or stylus and drag it wherever you want.

Of course, but my question is how to make the picture in that panel full size inside the panel and available as a source.

The problem: when I click (or double-click, I forget) on it to make it full size, it appears in its place in the main picture. I want to clone parts of it in different places, which requires that it remain in the panel.

 

[walt.farrell]

31 minutes ago, nickbatz said:

The problem: when I click (or double-click, I forget) on it to make it full size, it appears in its place in the main picture. I want to clone parts of it in different places, which requires that it remain in the panel

You don't need a Global Source for that at all. 

You just follow the Clone Brush Tool instructions in the Help or on the Status Bar, which for a Mac are probably to Opt+click on the spot you want to clone from, then paint on the target area in the image.

[nickbatz]

I know I don't *need* a global source for that, I just want one and am trying to figure out this feature!

Believe me, I use the Clone Brush more than a tooth brush.

[walt.farrell]

To use a Global source, as I recall from the last time I did it, you: 

1. Have multiple documents open.

2. In one document tab you set a Clone source and mark it Global.

3. In another document tab that is the cloning target, you use the Sources panel to select the document tab you want to use as the Source. 

4. Then you clone.

It (Global source) is not something you can do with just a single document.

[nickbatz]

Okay, it looks like my second post is the answer - I need to export that layer as a document and then set it as a global source.

Thanks.

[Old Bruce]

16 hours ago, nickbatz said:

... - I need to export that layer as a document and then set it as a global source. ...

From my very own Department of Redundancy Department:

You will also need to have it (the document you exported) open in Photo in order to set it and use as a Global Source.

[nickbatz]

Okay, someone please talk me through this.

First, am I right that the point of the Sources panel/feature is so you can put files in it and use them to clone brush (and possibly other things) into different pictures, right?

So here's what I'm doing:

1. Open the file I want to use as a source and add it to the Sources window.

2. Switch over to the destination picture. The file is still in the Sources window.

3. Swear at the computer because it doesn't freaking work any differently from how I described above.

What am I missing? There must be something, because what I see has very little to do with what it says when I RTFM.

TIA

 

[Done]

.

[nickbatz]

Okay, thanks.

I guess the problem is that it isn't much use for the way i want to use it.

What I'd expect is for the source to open up full size in a window. ready to access with the clone brush (or to can cut/paste selected parts of it, etc.) as if it were part of the picture you're working on.