Troubleshooting 3rd Party Brushes not working in Photo's pixel layers

[ArtBee]

I've searched for this topic using different terms so guess I'm the 1st to bring this up:

When testing brushes like the Lightning pack & DAUB in Photo, I noticed they only worked when applied to layers that had pixel art in them.  But they frustratingly didn't work on any of the above empty pixel layers people normally use when wanting to do transforms, adjustments, etc non-destructively to the art/photo layers below.

The Photo/pixel layers these brushes should work in are selected, visible, 80-100 opacity, Blend mode Normal, their brush icon is on & the layers in question are of course unlocked. There is no parent layer above that is locked or impeding the child layers from working in any obvious way. The loaded 3rd party brushes are selectable in the Brushes menu, but when applied to a new layer, one only can see & scale the brushes, but they don't exhibit the selected colors & don't make any strokes at all.

Not sure if this is a bug or if I'm (most likely) overlooking something. I'm using the main Brush tool. I asked one of the makers but unsure if & when they'll get back to me. Figured this is a question Affinity Photo experts should be able to answer. I use a PC windows desktop. Thanks & hope to hear from someone soon.

 

[carl123]

With the Paint Tool selected make sure you do not have Protect Alpha set in the context toolbar on your empty pixel layer 

If that is not the problem, please upload a full-screen screenshot with the Paint Tool selected, a pixel layer selected and the Colour and Layers panel showing

[ArtBee]

Thanks Carl123, I'll check that out & get back to you. What does the Protect Alpha icon/setting look like?    <---newbie

[carl123]

12 hours ago, ArtBee said:

What does the Protect Alpha icon/setting look like? 

It's a check box on the context toolbar with the words Protect Alpha next to it

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, carl123 said:

It's a check box on the context toolbar with the words Protect Alpha next to it

But I think that it may be hidden behind a >> icon at the right side of the Context Toolbar in some cases, depending on the screen size and monitor configurations.

[ArtBee]

Thanks Carl & Walt.  When you say context toolbar, is that the toolset to the left or the toolbar on the top? Yeah, I'm that newbie.

Yes Walt, I think it's hiding from me the way you said. I even tried looking for it in the Affinity Help but of course it doesn't have any accompanying pictures which would've been helpful. Their Help could use a lot more instructive pictures in general. But I'm glad they have it in a non-online format.

[walt.farrell]

On 12/19/2024 at 4:49 PM, ArtBee said:

Yes Walt, I think it's hiding from me the way you said. I even tried looking for it in the Affinity Help but of course it doesn't have any accompanying pictures which would've been helpful. Their Help could use a lot more instructive pictures in general. But I'm glad they have it in a non-online format.

A screenshot of the complete application window would let us see if that's it.

On 12/19/2024 at 4:49 PM, ArtBee said:

When you say context toolbar, is that the toolset to the left or the toolbar on the top? Yeah, I'm that newbie.

I suggest starting at the top of the Help, which is good for "that" newbie, especially the Interface Visual Reference, https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/Workspace/interface.html