How to show red overlay when masking

[ZufDraw]

me too!

[harrym]

And me !

fwiw

[Guenter Diel]

me too!

[Invictus]

Yes please as a new user layers are confusing as it is ! Thank you.

[brntoki]

To be honest, Adobe must be quite happy that AP has yet to incorporate such a stupidly easy, basic and necessary function. It's borderline criminal that AP cannot do such a simple thing. In the meantime, literally, Adobe is getting $10 a month from me because AP hasn't taken the (virtual) 5 minutes necessary to add what should have been present from the beginning. There are workarounds, but it so angers me that such a basic function is missing, I have a piece of software, meant to replace Adobe, sitting unused while I actually do use Adobe. Ridiculous.

Edited December 11, 2020 by brntoki
grammar/readability fixes

[MxHeppa]

also chaning its colour for some pics needs (very red i image with red mask is hard) etc. i think i talekd earlier to me is silly is not possible change colour.

[MEB]

Hi @brntoki, @Invictus, everyone,
We are aware that masking could do with some improvements. V1.9 (currently in Beta) already introduced a few changes/improvements but there's still work to do. It doesn't seem fair to me comparing Affinity Photo to other apps that were on the market/being developed for two decades no matter how basic same features may seem - not so much because we can't implement them, but because there's a lot of "basic" features to consider depending on user's point of view/interests, because we are also developing the whole suite in parallel (features introduced in Photo must be also supported and used in the other apps) but mostly because the resources we have are far from being comparable to those that Adobe has available. We are doing our best to develop/expand the apps as fast as we can, taking user's feedback in consideration whenever is possible but it takes time to get there. I've filled an improvement request for this in the hope it gets added along with other masking improvements for the next version but it's up to management/development to decide if/when to implement it. Thanks all for your feedback and understanding.

[cgidesign]

me to

[Jowday]

Doing it the wrong way from the very beginning - when starting from scratch on new tech and architecture - without user experience designers is surely not the right thing to do for a small company.  It is the biggest chance missed ever.

Photoshop. Easy peasy to use and understand:

VS Photo:

Ehm... Lets watch a bunch of Serif tutorials to understand what the engineers made. Lets hope we can remember it the day after this time:

 

[tjones1897]

Did this get fixed yet?

I just switched to AP today and felt literally blind trying to mask something. Several ours of searching and I come across this feed. 

Bring out the red overlay for masking please.

Have to keep my copy of PS CS5 till then.

[Djoule]

I'm waiting for this feature too.

[loukash]

On 12/11/2020 at 1:17 PM, MEB said:

V1.9 […] already introduced a few […]

… new bugs making me stay with the whole v1.8.4 suite until they're fixed …

On 12/11/2020 at 1:17 PM, MEB said:

[…] but there's still work to do.

Yep: a red overlay to edit existing masks.

Thanks in advance!

[Hansha]

What the hell is wrong with those devs — they are not fixing perhaps the single most important task a serious editor must master. 

One can do curves and colours in every iPad app. Crazy — open Adobe PS

[atomic101]

Surely this comes under "standard feature" and should have been from v1.1

[ocelotito]

Not yet? I can't believe it.

[Clau_S]

I add myself to the list of those who think it's a fundamental feature

[Chrronos]

Really important feature semitransparent overlay masks gets my upvote as well.

Making a pixel selection or shape a vector form is the other important missing feature but thats not a basic feature.

[vanLoo]

After three weeks of testing :

Considering the fundamental lack concerning the overlay mask, in addition to the destructive raw-development, which, once done, you can´t get back to, affinity is not usable for me. I mean, everybody whose profession is  working with images, will miss at least both features and I fear, there will be some more surprises. The fact, that people are complaining about both issues since years, doesn´t give me much hope for soon improvement. That´s why I won´t invest any further time in getting into it.

At first I was quite thrilled about the application, it´s complexity, the many very good pro-features and, last but not least, the prize, but finally I have to realize, that it is kind of only semi-professional. For those, who have fun with playing around with pictures, it is an incredible app, with many more possibilities, than they will ever use - but for me it`s not satisfying. So, at the end, I will purchase an AP license for my son and continue with Photoshop ...

 

 

[AlainP]

Nobody ever tried the "Q" key..... for a red overlay in masks....

@vanLoo.... there is no destruction at all on RAW files, just no side car file, but the RAW file remains untouched.... AP licence for your son... why don't I belive that?

[Clau_S]

2 minutes ago, vanLoo said:

After three weeks of testing :

Considering the fundamental lack concerning the overlay mask, in addition to the destructive raw-development, which, once done, you can´t get back to, affinity is not usable for me. I mean, everybody whose profession is  working with images, will miss at least both features and I fear, there will be some more surprises. The fact, that people are complaining about both issues since years, doesn´t give me much hope for soon improvement. That´s why I won´t invest any further time in getting into it.

At first I was quite thrilled about the application, it´s complexity, the many very good pro-features and, last but not least, the prize, but finally I have to realize, that it is kind of only semi-professional. For those, who have fun with playing around with pictures, it is an incredible app, with many more possibilities, than they will ever use - but for me it`s not satisfying. So, at the end, I will purchase an AP license for my son and continue with Photoshop ...

 

 

There are even more very basic features lacking or that need a complex approach (for something that PS would accomplish with a single slider or button) or require you to workaround a bit (or a lot). Obviously to each its own and professionals cannot waste their time. Regarding raw development, a possible workaround for a non destructive editing is to use an external developer (Capture One, RawTherapee and so on) and place the image as a linked document. Should you decide to change something in the original development, you'd do in the external app, replace the exported file and update AP document.

[Clau_S]

3 hours ago, AlainP said:

Nobody ever tried the "Q" key..... for a red overlay in masks....

Well... probably nobody thought that quick mask and the requested mask overlay are the same... 'cause actually they are not.

Q toggles the Quick mask that, despite the name, is a quick selection edit, not a mask edit. You can't just select the mask (or the adjustment layer with the mask drawn) and press Q. You have first to make a selection out of the mask and then you can press Q to have the red overlay matching the mask. But, at this point, any edit you do will affect the selection, not the mask. To apply it to the mask, well, you'd better create a new one from the actual selection than paint in with your brush 'cause you may have both parts to add and to remove and you will need to invert the selection, but brushing more times on transparent parts will mess them.

So the Quick mask is not the solution but rather the usual time consuming workaround. It is no coincidence that PS has both the quick edit and the red mask overlay. Two different things for different purposes.

[AlainP]

Ah.... you're talking about the "Quick Mask" function that Adobe took over 30 years to come out with.... Well of Phtoshop is so good why wasting your time here...

 

[loukash]

To have an editable overlay mask à la Quick Mask or the Refine mode:

1. create a Pixel layer, fill it with solid color, e.g. full red
2. Layer > Duplicate Linked
3. Link panel > unlink all but Pixel Content
4. crop the bottom linked layer to your image
5. set opacity of your top linked layer to your liking
6. use the Eraser tool to mask on the top linked layer
7. voilà

You can do many variations on this trick, like enabling and disabling either linked layers depending on what you want or don't want to see, adding a color overlay effect (e.g. using a black fill set to 0% but with a red color overlay on the top layer), blend modes etc. Works with adjustments, filters, nested within multiple nested layers, you name it.

Works with other types of layers as well, e.g. if you need easily editable Gradient Fill layers as crop masks (use opacity values to mask).

Be aware that it can become a CPU hog while editing though.

[Clau_S]

24 minutes ago, AlainP said:

Ah.... you're talking about the "Quick Mask" function that Adobe took over 30 years to come out with.... Well of Phtoshop is so good why wasting your time here...

 

And if you just need to be sarcastic, out of point and not constructive why wasting your time here?

I don't care how many years Adobe have taken to come out with it. Other programs have it and it's simply a useful tool (at least for me and all the others that are requesting it). If you don't need it or believe otherwise, move on. There's no need to mark territory. Your workflow won't change if Affinity will add something that other users need.

Also, if I'm wasting my time here, is because I think that Affinity Photo is a very good program (and it's almost one year that I've left PS for it), but needs some improvements nonetheless. There are basic features that are  a standard (for a reason!) over editing apps and, as you could see by reading my very few posts, you will notice that all of them are to ask features that will improve Photo and/or try to share workarounds in the meanwhile. So I'm here because I'm a proactive and helpful user. Are you too?

[AlainP]

I'm not sarcastic at all but serious. Sorry... I have something else to do...