How to preserve transparency with fill in Photo

[inspiringdesign]

It was very easy to preserve the transparency of a layer in PSD. But in Affinity Photo, I cannot figure it out.

 

I have a semi transparent layer with black art in it in varying degrees of transparency. I want to fill the layer but preserve the transparency in oder to change the colour of the art.

 

Cannot figure that out. Thought it would be very simple.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Rob

[kaffeeundsalz]

Before you fill the layer, select it in the Layers Panel and go to Select > Selection From Layer.

[inspiringdesign]

Hi, and thank you for your help. Unfortunately, your method did not give the desired results.

 

I have attached 2 screenshots.

 

One of them has the original transparent layer (Black) on the yellow background.

 

The other has the new transparent layer with white fill using the method you described.

 

You can see that many of the pixels, instead of being varying degrees of white transparency became gray. That shouldn't happen.

 

Any other suggestions? Thank you.

[inspiringdesign]

I found a work-around. I followed your steps as described. But prior to the fill, I made a new layer while maintaining the selection, then I filled that.

[kaffeeundsalz]

Hi! The workaround you described will of course do the trick, but you should be able to fill the layer directly. Your second screenshot looks odd; it seems that there's something wrong either with your fill options or with the layer itself. If you provide the .afphoto file, I can take a look and might be able to figure out what went wrong on your first attempt if you're interested.

[inspiringdesign]

Thank you. I didn't save the original file, but I rebuilt it again (and got the same results). I have attached it here.

 

Much appreciated.

 

Rob

icon-colour.afphoto

[JimmyJack]

How about....

 

1) on the original degrees-of-black art, go to FX and add a color overlay.

 

or

 

2) draw a shape that encompasses the art layer, give it a fill color and nest it under the art layer.

 

 

icon-colour jj.afphoto

[kaffeeundsalz]

@JimmyJack, both methods you suggest should work very well in AP and give the desired results. I can however reproduce the trouble @inspiringdesign had with the sample image he/she provided. Cmd+click the layer, go to Edit > Fill and see the outline pixels not being properly filled with the new color. This is especially noticeable when the original color and the fill color have a large difference in brightness, like black and white as an extreme example here.

 

It all makes sense when you think about it: Loading the layer's alpha channel to the selection, some pixels will get only partially selected because they don't have full opacity. Thus, the color fill will not fully cover the original color where the selection is semi-transparent. This means that my initial recommendation is in fact a silly one.

 

What I really miss in this context is a transparency lock feature for layers in Affinity Photo.

[JimmyJack]

You don't need to mess with a marquee selection at all (in this case).

Make a copy of the black art and use the fill directly on that.... with your desired tolerance.

 

(oh and btw, some tools do have a protect alpha tick box..... not the fill though as you've discovered.

I feel ya though.....I too miss a global tick box in the layers section.)

[swilson]

Maybe 2 years too late but better late than never!

You can change Fill through Layer Effects - fx

Have a look at this video.