Layer mask questions

[Laverda3c]

Hello,

 With Affinity Photo is there anyway to Dodge and Burn on a layer mask? I've tried the dodging and burning tool but it has no effect.
 Also, can the density of a layer mask be adjusted? With a layer mask selected the opacity slider adjusts the opacity of the whole image, not the selection on the mask.

Thanks

[Lee D]

Hi Laverda3c,

Welcome to the forums.

 

The Dodge and Burn tools don't work on layer mask, it's something that has been requested already and may be a feature added in the future. Have you tried using the Paint Brush with opacity or greys & hardness set? If you want to have a mask with a partial opacity, use a shade of grey.

[redbaron]

Hello Lee D,

 

I am a newbie in AP. I got some further Questions about layer masks.

 

In my oppinion the Mode of the brushes dont work on a mask. I tried black an white with overlay mode, and it seems to be a bug in den Program, because black is painting in white as normal settings. And white colour does paint in black.

 

To get clear black an white for a mask I tried also gradian tool layer an tonal gradiant correction. It doesn't work for the mask. Also a Bug?

 

How to get clear b/W in a Mask whe to much shades of grey are present?

 

I am very frustrated. All things I know about Mask and layers will not work in AP for me.

 

Thanks

[kaffeeundsalz]

Hello redbaron,

 

In my oppinion the Mode of the brushes dont work on a mask. I tried black an white with overlay mode, and it seems to be a bug in den Program, because black is painting in white as normal settings. And white colour does paint in black.

 

That's correct. Blend Modes of the Paint Brush Tool get ignored when used on a mask.

 

 

To get clear black an white for a mask I tried also gradian tool layer an tonal gradiant correction. It doesn't work for the mask. Also a Bug?

 

You can use any Pixel or Fill Layer's contents as a mask, but you have to convert it to a Mask Layer first. To do so, use Layer > Rasterize To Mask. Also, since I'm not sure what you're referring to: It is possible to use the Gradient Tool on a mask. Most other pixel manipulation tools (Flood Fill, Smudge etc.) do work on masks, too.

 

 

How to get clear b/W in a Mask whe to much shades of grey are present?

 

Increase the contrast of the mask by using an Adjustment Layer that supports manipulating individual channels, e.g. Curves or Levels. In the adjustment dialog, select 'Alpha' from the channel dropdown menu. You have to make sure the adjustment affects the correct mask. If you have a mask nested inside a Pixel Layer, you want to have the Adjustment Layer nested, too and placed directly below the Mask Layer.

[redbaron]

Hello kaffeundsalz,

,

 

thanks for your answers. I tried it. And yes it works as, but for the result it makes me mad. As simple example these red flower in a blue sky. complentary contrast, very easy. yust click on the red channel below. make a reserve channel, load up pixels. raster a mask as you wrote. lay a gradiant tool above and nothing. After it get nested the gray comes again. So I put a mask on top for the result I want to have. These mask would be copied from an other tool into AP.

 

Please help me to discover to create these mask via channel to Alpha to get a perfect mask layer with full B/W settings.

 

Thanks from Westerwald

simple_Flower.afphoto

[kaffeeundsalz]

Hi redbaron,

 

for the image you provided, channels wouldn't even be my first idea on how to quickly mask the flower. In this case, it's as easy as using the Selection Brush Tool to roughly paint over the flower. Or you could use the Flood Select Tool on the blue sky, add the remaining branches from the trees and then go Select > Invert Pixel Selection. In either case, you'll want to use the Refine function to tweak the edges of your selection a bit.

 

Using channels to create your mask can be useful here to improve masking the fine hair of the flower stem, but even then I would go for the blue rather than the red channel since you'll want the contrast between sky and hair as high as possible.

 

I edited your image and gave you three different masks, each one created with a different method. I was even able to create a viable mask from your first attempt with the red channel by using a Curves Adjustment on the alpha channel (which I mentioned in my first post). But then of course, you'll still have to paint in the missing parts from inside the flower by using a white brush on the Mask Layer.

 

Of course, the masks in the example are far from perfect, but I just wanted to create some quick examples.

simple_Flower.afphoto

[redbaron]

the head is round,

 

Kaffeundsalz shared some spirit to me. After these I tryed get quick and simple. Please beg pardon it's my first tut.

 

What I did.

 

Copy Backround twice.

first Image convert to B/W > push red and yellow channel for red an yellow colour information, blue and cyan drop down. so a clear mask will generated.  After these I woul flatten to a rastered mask. but the resuilt is a grey not even a black mask.

Nested die BWLayer to the picture > lyers > rastered to mask and it works. After these I nested to ne 2nd copy of backround. an make some correction with the black paint tool.

 

thats it. all in all not more than 3 minutes.

 

 

 

good light.

simple_Flower2.afphoto

[Laverda3c]

Thanks for the help, I hope a future version has the Dodge/Burn and transparency options for the layer masks. It helps refining certain selections a lot. I'm still liking the program and haven't used PS since.

[FrankStahl]

I have the same problems, and this for me is one of the reasons why Affinity Photo is so extremely tedious, tiresome and frustrating to use – and exactly the reason why I (although I do own Affinity Photo) still use Photoshop, because I know exactly that at some point in my workflows inevitably there will be a point where I have to switch to Photoshop anyway because such simple things as these discussed here are just not possible in Affinity. And most of the things making Affinity Photo so frustrating are very easy to implement just as for instance mask density; there simply is no reason not to have it. And these "may be a feature added in the future"!? Congratulations and thank you very much.