Can I remove an automatically created mask on an adjustment layer?

[Molotok]

Total beginner here ... so I made a pixel selection in an image and then was going to add a new adjustment layer and then a mask attached to this adjustment layer based on my selection. But when I add the adjustment layer Affinity automatically creates a mask within this adjustment layer based on the selection (see screenshot). I don't want the mask baked into the adjustment layer though but attached to it so that I can use it for multiple adjustment layers and alter it if I need to.

Is there a way to remove this mask from the adjustment layer? And can I prevent Affinity from automatically masking adjustment layers? There is an entry in Preferences under "Assistant" that says: "Adding adjustment layer to selection". There are two options: "Add adjustment based on selection" and "Add adjustment as new layer".  Does that have anything to to with my issue? I've selected the second option.

[R C-R]

Adjustment layers have builtin masks so there is no way to remove them. You can paint over them with a black Paint brush or a black Flood Fill to remove any unmasked parts like the figure shape in your screenshot. ("Black reveals; white conceals.")

AFAIK, there is no way to prevent applying a mask based on a 'marching ants' pixel selection, but if there is one hopefully someone else will mention it.

EDIT: It is a workaround of sorts but what you can do if you have a 'marching ants' pixel selection you want save & reuse later, before you create the adjustment layer, use Select > Save Selection > As Spare Channel & then deselect it, then add your adjustment. To get the  'marching ants' pixel selection back, in the Channels panel locate the spare channel you made, right-click on it, & from ythe popup menu choose Load to Pixel Selection.

[nickbatz]

Put in different words: that's how the program works. If you have a selection active, adjustments (and painting, etc.) apply to it only. Deselect and make another selection to the same pixel layer, and the adjustments you add apply to it only without affecting the first ones.

If you want to re-use a selection on another layer, command-click (Mac, ctrl-click on Windows)) on an adjustment layer that applies to the selection and it'll come back. It'll be active for any layer you apply it to.

[smadell]

If you’ve created an adjustment layer with an active selection, the mask will be created as per the selection. That’s unavoidable. If you’d rather have an attached layer mask (rather than a mask intrinsic to the adjustment) you can avoid the Spare Channel thing by:

1) If the selection is still active, immediately create a layer mask. If the selection is not active, hold down Command (or Control) key and click on the adjustment layer, which will reinstate the selection. Then create the layer mask.

2) Click on the adjustment layer and choose Fill… from the Edit menu. Fill the adjustment with White (which will effectively get rid of the mask). If your Foreground color is White already, you can alternatively choose Fill with Primary Color, also from the Edit menu.

[NotMyFault]

19 hours ago, Molotok said:

Is there a way to remove this mask from the adjustment layer?

All the prior replies are correct in principle, but have some disadvantages or restrictions:

the most straightforward way to remove a mask from an adjustment layer (working on Desktop, iPad, V1 and V2):

1. use channels panel
2. click on the „adjustment layer alpha“ icon, and choose „fill“ from the menu choices.

this works in all cases, e.g. no matter if your selection is still active or not. All other methods like using fill depend on deactivating the selection, choosing white as fill color, and would not correct masks that are rotated or skewed.

PS: others posted that this function is now directly available in layer stack, as a shortcut since V2.5. The method I recommend works in lil versions and platforms, including V1 and iPad.

[user_0815]

To save a selection I click on the mask icon to create a mask and deactivate it. Usually I give it a name like "backup selection xyz" With a cmd-click (ctrl-click on win?) the seletion will be there again. I find this much easier than fiddling around with channels.

To "remove" a.k.a. fill a built-in mask I do a cmd-backspace and cmd-i which fills it black and inverts it back to white. It will then disappear. 

So my workflow is to save selections as a mask layer before moving on adding further adjustment layers that I want to apply on the entire image.

[Molotok]

Thank you all for your replies! Very helpful. Everyone's doing it a bit differently but I was able to learn something from every post. Problem solved.

[smadell]

I like your use of filling the Alpha channel, @NotMyFault. I tend to forget that as a choice!

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

the most straightforward way to remove a mask from an adjustment layer:

That works very well, but technically it does not actually remove the mask that is built into all adjustment layers; it just fills it.

[lepr]

In Layers panel, right-click the Adjustment's mask thumbnail and pick Fill Mask.

(Not available in v2.4.2 and earlier.)

 

[user_0815]

5 minutes ago, lepr said:

In Layers panel, right-click the Adjustment's mask thumbnail and pick Fill Mask.

(Not available in v2.4.2 and earlier.)

 Totally missed that one!

[NotMyFault]

The forum software tends to not show all replies unless you enforce a refresh manually. So please bear with us mortals that we sometimes miss your genial replies and start to wonder later why you replace them by a dot.

 

[R C-R]

FWIW, the right-click Fill Mask option makes it clear that the built-in mask cannot actually be removed.

[lepr]

9 minutes ago, R C-R said:

FWIW, the right-click Fill Mask option makes it clear that the built-in mask cannot actually be removed.

It is unsafe to assume the internal mechanisms of the app from words in the UI.

[Old Bruce]

Just my 2¢ (Canadian, so worth even less than you'd expect). I really like the automatic built in mask feature and am constantly amazed at how many people want to use separate masks. 

[NotMyFault]

4 hours ago, R C-R said:

That works very well, but technically it does not actually remove the mask that is built into all adjustment layers; it just fills it.

Ok as personal opinion from your side. 
I don’t agree, but further discussion of terminology serves no good purpose except wasting bytes and time.

[sfriedberg]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

I really like the automatic built in mask feature and am constantly amazed at how many people want to use separate masks. 

A long, long time ago, I was an enthusiastic user of "channel operations" to build, manually, effects like drop shadows, embossing, and lots of things that today are expected to be included in the list of built-in effects.  This is tremendously easier to do when you can freely switch back and forth between treating a layer as grey-scale pixels and treating it as a mask.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, lepr said:

It is unsafe to assume the internal mechanisms of the app from words in the UI.

I am not assuming anything other than if one can fill (or clear or invert) a mask then it must exist! Nothing else makes sense!

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Ok as personal opinion from your side. 
I don’t agree, but further discussion of terminology serves no good purpose except wasting bytes and time.

It isn't simply about terminology, it is about understanding that it is simply a fact that one cannot remove the mask from an adjustment layer. It is a built-in property of that layer type, always there, never removable. If one does not understand this then it can easily lead to confusion, like if one accidentally uses a pixel brush when an adjustment layer is accidentally selected instead of the desired layer.

[lepr]

4 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I am not assuming anything other than if one can fill (or clear or invert) a mask then it must exist! Nothing else makes sense!

Now you demonstrate that you’ve completely failed to understand my message.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, lepr said:

Now you demonstrate that you’ve completely failed to understand my message.

As I think you have mine. I am considering the context of the title of the topic:

Can I remove an automatically created mask on an adjustment layer?

How much clearer can it be that the answer to that question is "no."

[nickbatz]

Assuming the goal here is to extend an adjustment you made to a selected area to the entire pixel layer, here's another way:

Without an active selection, insert another of the same adjustment layer want to extend, enter the same settings, and then delete the original.

If you want to get astonishingly sophisticated, scribble down the settings on a piece of paper so you don't have to remember them.

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, R C-R said:

I am not assuming anything other than if one can fill (or clear or invert) a mask then it must exist! Nothing else makes sense!

["The sun must be able to move up and down for sunrise and sunset. Nothing else makes sense!" ]

An adjustment layer created without a pixel selection has no selection/bounding box in the layout window. It has no mask you could select with the Move Tool.

If you select an adjustment layer in the Layers panel with the Move Tool and apply White with the Flood Fill Tool it still has no selection/bounding box - different to fill colours other than white (e.g. Black, Gray…), which do create a selection/bounding box for the adjustment layer which is the mask that can get selected.

[nickbatz]

Can we back up, please?

What is the goal? No one seems to know, so this thread has turned into an overly complicated free-for-all about everything in the program!

[steday]

 

On 4/27/2025 at 10:54 PM, Molotok said:

Is there a way to remove this mask from the adjustment layer? 

Hello

You can remove a mask from an adjustment layer :

• Click on the built-in mask
• Fill it with white (Edition > Fill) - so the mask as no effect
• Now it is erratic : sometime AP delete the mask immediately, sometimes you have to make an operation on the layer panel to refresh the panel and see that the mask has been deleted

At least that's how it work on AP 2.6.2 MAC