Copy and Paste Without Creating New Layers

[Ken Harstine]

In Affinity Photo2:

I want the group of layers that I copy and paste to still be in the same layers as the original.  Now new layers should be created.

How do I do this?

It seems that no matter what I do I get a proliferation of layers.

[ashf]

You mean pasting copied content of layers to each by itself at once?
I don't think that's possible.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Ken Harstine said:

I want the group of layers that I copy and paste to still be in the same layers as the original. 

Do you mean you are copying a Group layer (one of the container layer types in Affinity) or something else?

[Ken Harstine]

I have a stack up of layers that must remain in registration.  Each layer represents a color.  The colors are then printed one at a time on the same decal film in a printer.

So I need to copy a group of layers and then fill the page with copies that I will then print one color at a time.  All the green parts of all of the copies needs to be on the same layer.  The same is true for the other colors.

I don't know about groups.  Would it help to group the stack before I copy it?

[R C-R]

21 minutes ago, Ken Harstine said:

I don't know about groups. 

Then click on th link in my reply above, the one that says "Group layer."

[walt.farrell]

24 minutes ago, Ken Harstine said:

All the green parts of all of the copies needs to be on the same layer.

Why do they need to be on the same layer?

What are these "layers" that you need to copy/paste?

Can you provide a sample .afphoto document?

[Ken Harstine]

Each layer is another print process.  It is the difference between having six

processes per page and forty print processes per page.  Each process has three steps. A mistake on any part will ruin the entire print.

[walt.farrell]

Again, what are the layers? And can you provide a sample?

[Ken Harstine]

See attached.  The background layer is the original.  The other layers represent each color that needs to be printed separately on the same decal sheet.

This process uses a now antique Alps color transfer printer.  The printer is not capable of shading the color intensity and so any attempt at straight up color printing results in a badly pixelated print.

The attached red layer requires me to print that layer twice in magenta and once in yellow to get close to the desired color result.

The Alps printer is one of the few printers that can print white.  It is essential to print the white background color before printing anything else on top of it.

Best,

Ken Harstine

Texaco Rev E.afphoto

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Ken Harstine said:

See attached.  The background layer is the original.  The other layers represent each color that needs to be printed separately on the same decal sheet.

Thanks.

I have a method that should work for you, but it requires that you also have Designer. And, actually, it probably works easiest if you have all three Affinity applications. But I'll describe it using the Designer and Photo applications.

1. In either Photo or Designer, copy all the existing named pixel layers (except Background, I think), and Paste them as many times as you need and move them where you need them. They will all be separate layers.
2. If you're in Photo, Save the file (for safety) and then use File > Edit in Designer....
3. In Designer, in the Designer Persona, you can select one of the named color layers (Green, Gold, etc.) and then you can use Select > Select Same > Name. That will select, for example, all the layers named Green.
4. Once you have all the Green (or Gold, etc.) layers selected, you can Group them (Layer > Group)
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each of the named color layers. You will end up with 1 group per named color, or 8 groups in total.
6. Save the file (for safety) and then use File > Edit in Photo....
7. In Photo, pick a group and click the arrow in the Layers panel to expand the group.
8. Click on the first pixel layer within the group, and Ctrl-Click (in Windows; probably Cmd-Click in macOS) on the last pixel layer in the group. All the layers in the group are now selected.
9. Right-click on one of the selected layers in the Layers panel, and choose Merge Selected.
10. Repeat steps 7-9 for each of the other groups.
11. When done, you have 8 groups, each containing 1 merged layer for the color represented by that group, which I think will do what you want. But if you don't want the groups, you can Right-click on each of them and choose Ungroup.

[Ken Harstine]

I am selecting all of the layers I want to have common and doing a merge.

This seems as good as is possible.

[walt.farrell]

I believe it is, yes.

[NotMyFault]

I‘m sure the process can be simplified, using designer only. But it will require some advanced methods. Basic idea:

• use Designer, and create one artboard per color. 
• Create slices from artboards
• edit the individual content per artboard, use as many layers as you like.
• When finished editing, use export persona to export all slices as tiff or png
• create another document, where you place the exported files (linked) as layers in the desired sequence.

ideally, you need to setup those 2 documents only once. You can activate continuous export, and the 2nd file should update the layers automatically. Exporting as png will flatten the layers, no need for manual merging, grouping etc.