Color Picker acting weird - or am I doing something wrong?

[RoopeB]

I’m a new user migrating from Adobe and trying to get the hang of Affinity Photo's color picker (also noticing something odd in Designer's picker, but that’s for another time). I’m having trouble with the color picker in Photo and wondering if I’m using it incorrectly or if something is off.

Here’s a link to a YouTube video showing the issue.

When I try to pick a color, the entire layer or image gets colored. At first, I thought it might be the "Apply to Selection" setting, but disabling it stops the picker from working altogether. Changing the source to "Global" or "Current Layer" doesn’t seem to help either.

Am I missing something, or is this how it’s supposed to function?

I’m on an Apple M1 with macOS Monterey 12.7.5, running Affinity Photo 2.5.6.

Thanks in advance for any help or guidance!

Edited December 10, 2024 by RoopeB

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, RoopeB said:

At first, I thought it might be the "Apply to Selection" setting, but disabling it stops the picker from working altogether.

If Apply to Selection is not enabled, it just 'picks' the color to the small well in the Color panel (the one to the left of the eyedropper there). If it is enabled & your layer is an Image (not a Pixel) layer, the color the color picked will be applied to the entire layer. Otherwise, if it is a Pixel layer it will have no effect.

Edited December 10, 2024 by R C-R
Corrected bad info

[RoopeB]

8 hours ago, R C-R said:

If Apply to Selection is not enabled, it just 'picks' the color to the small well in the Color panel (the one to the left of the eyedropper there). If it is enabled & your layer is an Image (not a Pixel) layer, the color the color picked will be applied to the entire layer. Otherwise, if it is a Pixel layer it will have no effect.

Thank you for the clear and good explanation!

To be honest, the way the color picker works feels quite unintuitive and clunky to me at the moment (both in Photo and Designer), but I suppose that’s just how it’s designed (for what ever reason) to function, so it is what it is and that's that.

Is there a setting to make the picker function simply as a color sampler, without automatically applying the picked color to a layer by default?

I really appreciate your quick and helpful response—thanks again!

Edited December 11, 2024 by RoopeB

[Pšenda]

https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_clrpicker.html

[RoopeB]

I think I’ve found the solution I needed! By simply de-selecting everything and ensuring no layer or object is selected, the picker appears to function as I was hoping.

A big thanks to everyone for your replies and assistance.

Cheers!