how to undo erase mistake not noticed immediately

[mur_phy]

In another post about re-cropping a completed project which I have given more detail to but still unable to find a solution, I mentioned there was another problem in working with the layers and removal of background material from around an added layer image to the composite being created.

 

First, I have been unable to find information about how to undo a mistake that is not noticed to begin with if more of the background is removed, ie taking material from the object being left on the canvas so that a CTRL +Z is not an option as that would just remove the last operation but not the operation where the problem was created.

 

It is easy to add to the removal with the eraser but not the opposite which is quite easy with ON 1 and was hoping there was a solution in AP.

 

Second the thing that might help would be to have a means to set the operation so that the erase could not slide into the area not desired to be removed which again ON 1 does well. It may be that neither item is possible but hope that there is a solution.

 

I am attaching the image in rather a rough form as I did not take the original photo but done by a friend using my equipment just so viewer can get the idea as to what I desire to accomplish. I have tried using selection tools but found I had problems getting the selection just right, especially to include the shadow. Finding how the erase worked compared to what I had been used to helped getting to this stage but a bit more info would be of great value. Unfortunately, the help file just did not give the answer.

 

The first image is the attempt at 6 x 4 in AP while the other on is done in DIP and is what I would expect for a 6 x 4 photo.

 

I did find some info in Help related to resizing and was able to get the 6 x 4 with empty space around and followed the instructions related to clipping the canvas but only one side was removed or if the anchor point was changed, again not all the empty space was removed.

 

So I tried simply cropping off the excess but not sure if that is the correct thing to do because

when checking the image compared to the image of 6 x 4 in DIgital Image Pro 2006 cropping to 6 x 4, the resulting image is quite different.

 

Of course I have to have a solution that will work for all different sizes that I might desire. Anyone having some solutions to these issues, please do a reply.

 

It is likely that there are better methods of doing what I am trying to accomplish but so far this is the best I have been able to glean from AP.

 

TIA

 

 

[Alfred]

First, I have been unable to find information about how to undo a mistake that is not noticed to begin with if more of the background is removed, ie taking material from the object being left on the canvas so that a CTRL +Z is not an option as that would just remove the last operation but not the operation where the problem was created.

 

It is easy to add to the removal with the eraser but not the opposite which is quite easy with ON 1 and was hoping there was a solution in AP.

 

The Undo Brush Tool enables you to restore the pixels under the cursor to their original state (or to a previously saved snapshot state) without affecting the rest of the image.

 

Second the thing that might help would be to have a means to set the operation so that the erase could not slide into the area not desired to be removed which again ON 1 does well. It may be that neither item is possible but hope that there is a solution.

 

If you make a selection around one or more parts of the image, anything you do with the Erase Brush Tool will be limited to the selected region.

[mur_phy]

Thanks for the response. I tried the undo brush but will try again. To test I deliberately did something to the object with the Eraser and then tried the undo brush and was not successful. I have done this more than once so maybe I am missing something. It would be nice if the erase was able to have the option to paint out or paint in and use a simple X shortcut to change the option. I have tried X plus using either of CTRL or ALT with X and that does not work. 

 

Yes I understand that if I make a selection that the erase tool will be limited but then come the problem of creating a very very good selection whereas I found that I had a much easier time removing the background with the Erase Tool and with it was able to stay away from the shadow of the object with relative ease. I did some of what you say over the past few days with doing the selection and then an invert to remove the background but just did not find the result I liked as much as with the Erase tool.

[Alfred]

Thanks for the response. I tried the undo brush but will try again. To test I deliberately did something to the object with the Eraser and then tried the undo brush and was not successful. I have done this more than once so maybe I am missing something. It would be nice if the erase was able to have the option to paint out or paint in and use a simple X shortcut to change the option. I have tried X plus using either of CTRL or ALT with X and that does not work.

 

X is the default shortcut for swapping the foreground and background colours. If you're using the eraser and you want to switch to the paint brush, press B (for 'Brush') and then press B again to go back to the previous tool.

 

Yes I understand that if I make a selection that the erase tool will be limited but then come the problem of creating a very very good selection whereas I found that I had a much easier time removing the background with the Erase Tool and with it was able to stay away from the shadow of the object with relative ease. I did some of what you say over the past few days with doing the selection and then an invert to remove the background but just did not find the result I liked as much as with the Erase tool.

 

I'm guessing that what you liked about the Erase Brush Tool is the softer edge that most brushes give you. If that's the case, you can soften the edges of a selection via the 'Feather...' option on the Select menu.

[R C-R]

To test I deliberately did something to the object with the Eraser and then tried the undo brush and was not successful. I have done this more than once so maybe I am missing something.

From the Undo Brush Tool help topic:

To paint from history or a saved snapshot:

Display the History or Snapshot panel.

Click the Undo Brush Source camera icon on the history state or snapshot you want to paint back to.

Begin painting with the Undo Brush Tool.

 

The Undo Brush 'paints' from whichever source has a highlighted Camera icon, which may or may not be the same history state or snapshot selected in the respective panel. It is very easy to overlook this little UI detail, have the wrong source selected, resulting in the Undo Brush not do what you expect.

[mur_phy]

Ok, I will save all this info related to the undo from history, but in the case to which I refer, I am dealing with a current operation on an open document that has never been saved. Because the document I attached had been saved, I thought that maybe there might be a difference with it from a non saved document but did not expect there to be but that may be my misunderstanding of how AP works.

 

So, rather than beat that horse, I simply opened to out of camera images and then did my copy and paste and began the Erase process but deliberately erased an area that I did not wish to be removed and then tried the Undo paint Brush and that did not work.

 

So, again I figured I would try the Paint Brush as mentioned so B -- unfortunately all I got there was a black area over the area that had mistakenly been removed and of course it would paint black anywhere on the image so that is not what is desired.

 

I checked History and going to either Undo Brush or Eraser cameras produced nothing either which if undo brush  did not work in the first place, it would not be expected to work later on.

 

I have learned now about the undo history in this regard and will add that to my notes but unfortunately, I still am unable to actually fix the mistake made initially while the document is an open document that has not even been saved.

 

Also, I wonder why Undo Brush does not have a shortcut key? I thought maybe I could add one but in Preferences>Undo Brush, the only options are to change the brush size which can already be done with the [ ] keys.

 

All the assistance is greatly appreciated and any further ideas would be great or maybe and explanation of where I may not be doing something correctly. The concept seems like it should work but just is not doing so.

 

TIA

[R C-R]

Also, I wonder why Undo Brush does not have a shortcut key? I thought maybe I could add one but in Preferences>Undo Brush, the only options are to change the brush size which can already be done with the [ ] keys.

In Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts > Photo > Tools the tools are listed alphabetically. The Undo Brush Tool is near the end, between the Twirl Tool & the Unsharp Mask Tool.

[mur_phy]

HI RCR  -- actually, the shortcut area for tools is under File on my version and I have set a key ( K ) as some I might have selected are already in use or there would be a warning signal so I tried different options. Unfortunately, even after adding another image to the new test composite and simply removing a small section of background and then using K which brings up the Undo Brush, the brush still did nothing as far as bringing back any of the removed area. 

 

Now, what I have noticed is that when working from the background toward the object to be kept, as long as the color is not similar then the erase brush does not seem to take anything away although it will remove some of the shadow simply due to it being of similar tone. However, it is not possible to get back that area unless I notice it immediately and use CTRL + Z and that is not what is really needed.

 

I have found that I can cover up a bit of that mistake by using the blur brush and sometimes, even by using the dodge tool the shadow can be fixed not too badly but this is not ideal but is workable.

 

However, I do wish that there was a method of simply fixing any area at any time with a tool such as the undo brush. The concept makes sense but for me there is an issue with the execution.

 

This is the same type of situation I am having with the re-crop of a finished project when I may wish to have a variety of crops available to me and while I use unconstrained to begin the project, often I will want 9 x 6, 6 x 4 and 8 x 10 with 6 x 4 most often and while DIP will do this without an issue, I have not been able to get AP to do this.

 

So, I do have a lot of questions and am slowly getting some answers, the total picture is not coming into focus.

 

It would also be nice if there was more info in HELP that explains when, where and why various tools are used and then having a link to a video about each tool and area on the UI. Lots can be learned from other videos but just a basic video and lets not worry about length -- long is just fine or o/w a series of shorter ones about each tool and when and why to use it. 

 

Maybe the moderators are reading and might pass this idea along to whomever is doing HELP and Video Tutorials.

 

I suspect that there may be many areas of AP that I may never use but I certainly want to learn enough to be able to conveniently and easily use the program for my own uses which might be different from others usage so maybe I have questions that others don't have.

 

Thanks again for your info. 

 

Maybe you and others will have additional input or try what I have been doing and see if it works for you and present your work flow and the images used to create your composite and the final result using the tools as mentioned and I will try to replicate that.

 

TIA

[R C-R]

I am surprised that the shortcut area for the Undo Brush is not the same for you as for me, unless maybe this is a Mac vs. Windows difference. I assume you have double-checked that your shortcut actually does select the Undo Brush, right? (I only ask because the low contrast of the Tools panel can make it difficult to tell which tool is selected.)

 

As for why it doesn't work, one thing to check is to make sure a pixel layer is selected when you use it. Something else you might try is to create a few snapshots (see the Affinity Photo - Snapshots video tutorial for some info about doing that) & try highlighting the camera icon (not the snapshot line itself) for different ones instead of using the History panel to experiment with how it works.

 

If nothing else, there should always be an initial snapshot created, so at worst you should be able to selectively restore parts of your document to its last saved state.

[Alfred]

the shortcut area for tools is under File on my version

 

 

I am surprised that the shortcut area for the Undo Brush is not the same for you as for me, unless maybe this is a Mac vs. Windows difference.

 

No, it isn't a Mac vs. Windows difference. I'm on Windows, and the shortcut area for the Undo Brush Tool is the same as on a Mac.

 

I wonder if 'mur_phy' is referring to the fact that (whichever persona you choose from the first dropdown list) the second dropdown list is populated with a range of options, the first of which is "File", with "Help" and "Tools" under (i.e. underneath/below) that.

[mur_phy]

Alfred  -- ok, let me give my step by step in finding the undo brush shortcut list.

 

1. CTRL + ,

2. Click on Keyboard Shortcuts icon

3. From the new Window that opens Two options are available -- Photo & List each with a drop down arrow for the contents of which under Photo there are a few and many more including Tools under List

4. Select Tools

5. Scroll to Undo Brush 

6. in the area to put the shortcut key type K (my choice)

7. Close the window

8. check to see if the shortcut actually works -- yes it does -- but as RCR says, the dang icons are hard to notice but it does show up as being selected

9. Open a couple of images and go thru the process of placing one image on top of another

10. Use Eraser to remove some background.

11. Attempt to add back the area just removed from the top layer which is now showing the lower layer (background base layer with an image on it from the camera. FAILURE unfortunately.

 

I understand about the idea of snapshots I think but while that might allow me to go back to a certain stage before the problem was noticed, I would think that it does not get back to a specific stroke which took out too much of the foreground image and thus allowing the base image to show when that is not desired.

 

It just seems strange that AP does not have a means to correct the situation at anytime on the layer where the work was done.

 

I know that I can move layers later if I prefer them to be in a different position and even above or below by dragging the image in the stack so not sure why there is no method of making a reversal of what a tool has done at anytime.

 

I really appreciate the suggestions from everyone and hope that maybe either I have not been clear or that someone from AP will contribute to this discussion.

 

Also if anyone has any ideas about changing cropping as I have written about to get the result I desire, that would be great too.

 

TIA

[R C-R]

I do not understand what you mean by this:

11. Attempt to add back the area just removed from the top layer which is now showing the lower layer (background base layer with an image on it from the camera.

 

In the Layers panel you have to select the layer that in step 10 you erased something from to use the Undo Brush on it. If you have no layer selected or one you have not erased anything from, the brush won't add back anything you erased from the unselected layer.

 

Also, do you understand about selecting an undo source from either the History or Snapshot panel? In one or the other, is there a listed item with a white camera icon on its left side?

[mur_phy]

RCR -- Maybe I am not interpreting the History or Snapshot but would not undoing something from either not remove any work done at that point in time? Lets say that I am doing Erase on a layer which is pasted to my background/base layer which in the case of the image above would be either the fully opened knife or the fully closed knife as the one partially open is my base image from the camera. The other two are from camera but not the full image as when making the selection I made it of only the knife to have less removal to be done. Also that allows for less size adjustment to fit it to the base image area that I left open when I made the initial image in camera.

 

Assume that in order to do the removal, I used eg a dozen strokes but at stroke eg 4 I went too much into the shadow area and then wanted to fix that up by what I would use ON 1's terminology "paint-in" with AP it seems one should use the Undo Brush as of course one would not want to use CTRL +Z and then have to do steps 5-12 all over again. In this case, I have not been able to get the UB to do anything at all. 

 

What I then tried was to not do the above to test things but created a new composite using completely different images of the same knife (and I could do many different knives as I have hundreds of images including over 200 knives of my own). After adding the second image to the base image via selection>copy>paste>move/resize/rotate I then used Eraser to just remove a small area no wheres near the knife itself which under normal circumstances would be totally removed so the underlying background would show. 

 

Then as a test, I tried to use UB and get back to a position where the pasted layer/image which of course is selected in the layer stack as that is what I was working on, and the result was no effect at all.

 

Of course CTRL + Z would get me back to the beginning but that is simply because I had only done one step. If this same type of mistake would be made after more than one stroke was done that would not work except by removing all the work done after the error. Not the idea.

 

I hope I am clear enough with this explanation. I know that if I continue to add more images via copy/paste. I have one knife where I have done 9 images on one canvas. If I did this in AP, I would be able to select any one of the images and then go to the layer with the image to be adjusted and then if I wanted to restore something, I would hope to use UB but as of now, I simply can't get UB to do anything at all. Once I figure out with the folks on the forum's assistance, I will be one step closer to solving some of the issues I am having in using AP.

 

TIA

[R C-R]

Again, I can only repeat that you must select the layer that you want to selectively undo something from. I can't tell from your last post if that is what you are doing or not. This is not the same as painting, erasing, or removing; it is selectively restoring something to a previous state, which is determined by what you use as the undo source in the History or Snapshot panel. That is not the same thing as selecting a snapshot or history state, which would affect everything in the document.

 

To keep things simple, it might be best to start with a photo opened in AP. Don't add any other layers to it. Erase a part of the layer, paint a bit of color somewhere on it with the Paint Brush tool, & so on. Then make sure the layer is still selected in the Layers panel & in the History panel click on the camera icon (important!) on one of the steps shown, not on the step itself. Note what can & can't be restored using the Undo Brush & repeat that after selecting another camera icon (which changes the undo source).

[mur_phy]

RCR -- as far as I can tell I have the correct layer selected as it is the same layer as I would be working on to Erase and when I look at the stack, it is the correct layer in blue (background as I have not renamed it at the moment just for testing purposes).

 

I tried what you suggested with just a single image and both Erase and Undo work fine. Erase gives an invisible background and the Undo replaces what was removed.

 

However, when I paste a second image onto the first image and then want to have the original background show through I have been trying to do this with the Erase Tool as someone else suggested. The Erase works fine but if by chance I make a small error and Erase something I don't want to erase then it simply does not allow me to do so.

 

Next, I again tried the suggestion and making sure that the correct layer was selected (blue) and as you said be sure to click on the camera icon which then turns from being grayed to white on one of the Erase steps and UB did nothing once more and so I selected a second Erase (I had done two as I did not go as far as I wanted to with the first erase) and the same result after clicking the camera icon and using UB.

 

I tried this multiple times and of course in history I get a line showing the use of Unbrush Tool but nothing changed on the image and I made sure that it was quite clear what image I was working on by turning the image before doing any work and making sure the pasted image covered both the blade of the knife and some of the base background of the camera created image upon which the second image was pasted.

 

Even trying a double click makes no difference. I also have tried this concept with different images from the camera on different knives and get the same result.

 

Now I don't know if an .afphoto image can be opened by forum readers but if you or someone can let me know I could save the current image as .afphoto and attach it and someone or yourself might be able to look at the image to get an idea of what I have in mind. 

 

BTW -- I want to put back after the mistake exactly what was removed accidentally and not try to clone from elsewhere if that is the concept behind "undo source".

 

TIA

[Alfred]

Now I don't know if an .afphoto image can be opened by forum readers but if you or someone can let me know I could save the current image as .afphoto and attach it and someone or yourself might be able to look at the image to get an idea of what I have in mind. 

 

Yes, you can share your .afphoto file here and anyone with version 1.5 of an Affinity app installed will be able to open it. If you choose 'Save History With Document' from the File menu before saving the file, we'll even be able to rewind through the history and see exactly what steps you used to get to the end result.

[mur_phy]

Thanks for that info Alfred. I am going to attach the last start at a composite. This is of the photos mentioned in my previous post and I have not place the image where it will find its final resting ground as I wanted anyone to be able to see when I have removed background of the pasted image to show both the blade and the background of the base image which is another camera created image. I could have started with either image as the base image in this case but this shows the concept.

 

If someone is able to put back that which has been removed into the pasted image, keeping in mind that I did two Erasures please post the exact steps taken and then I will try to recreate what is done. 

 

I really appreciate the efforts everyone has done to try to assist me in this endeavor.

 

TIA

burkehunterDSCN2476.afphoto