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Hi,

You've created a fantastic photo editing software

I do industrial photography
so i do cutouts of large products precisely using paths > selection > layer masks
and then replace the background (usually to white)

Typically I've been using and saving paths using the pen tool in photoshop
to do the layer masking and edit / precisely fine-tune  them later when i save it as a psd file.

What would be the equivalent for something like that in Affinity photo,

I tried it in Affinity but i was unable to to comeback to the editable path / mask to do the refinement later

I didn't come across this help in any of your video tutorials either, hence this query please help.

Thanks

Manoj Sudhakaran

 

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Hi Manoj Sudhakaran,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

You have two ways to do this, through layer masking or using layer clipping.

 

Layer Masking (using the path as a vector mask):

1- draw the path using the Pen Tool

2 - fill it with a solid colour (you have to do this because its the fill that generated the masking)

3- drag the path over the image's thumbnail until a small verticall line appears in the Layers panel, then release the mouse.

If you need to edit the path, click on the small arrow near the image's thumbnail in the Lyers panel to expand the layer and click over the path's thumbnail to select just the path. You can then edit it using the Node Tool. For more info on Layer Masking check menu Help ▸ Affinity Photo Help ▸ Layers ▸ Layer Masks

 

 

Layer Clipping (using the path as a clipping path):

1- draw the path using the Pen Tool (no fill needed here)

2 - drag the image layer over the path's layer (not over its thumbnail but over the area on the right) until an horizontal blue line appears, then release the mouse.

If you need to edit the path, select it in the Layers panel and edit as usual with the Node Tool.

For more information on Layer Clipping check Help ▸ Affinity Photo Help ▸ Layers operations ▸ Clipping

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MEB, please provide some more detail on clipping, nesting, child layers. Are these all synonymous? What is the significance of the two different levels of indented layers? What types of layers can these operations be used with?

 

Experimenting, I found I could nest a mask in a pixel layer. When I nested the pixel layer in the mask, a cropping icon appeared in the pixel layer and I could not reverse the nesting. The effect of these operations is not clear, even trying to visualize them one at a time..

 

I have read and will read again your suggested Help topics, but I find they lack detail I need at my (near novice) level. Are there commonalities between AP and Photoshop that would allow one to draw on the extensive written PS literature? I prefer it to videos.

 

Sorry this is so long, but I am frequently getting stuck and have difficulty progressing.

AP 1.7.3, MacOS 10.14.6 (usually latest of each, but not going to Catalina until more issues are resolved)

Mac Mini, Late 2012, 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB; HD replaced with SSD

 

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