How to show red overlay when masking

[Hansha]

There is a workaround for achieving rubylith I just thought of:

• Make a folder with an adjustment
• On top of that, adjustment put another adjustment that will simulate colour overlay. You can use lens filter, gradient map or recolour - any you like best
• Apply masks to the group

Now you can toggle the fake rubylith adjustment on and off, change its colour and opacity. It will also show while editing.

See here:

 

[jimh12345]

I'm not normally a complainer, and after using AP for a while I'm very impressed. But today I hit a masking problem, I need to refine a previously created mask.  I thought, no problem - just Google "Affinity photo show mask".    And found this thread.

Sorry, but I have to say, this is just an astounding omission.  The smart selection brush works pretty well, but it's extremely difficult to fine tune it without being able to see the mask.

Surely there is some workaround, some way to display the mask as a translucent overly and edit it.  Come on. There has to be!  

 

[Lisbon]

33 minutes ago, jimh12345 said:

Surely there is some workaround, some way to display the mask as a translucent overly and edit it.  Come on. There has to be! 

I use this a lot whenever I have a masked pixel layer.

[tudor]

I found that editing masks with the "Show brush previews" option enabled in Preferences/User Interface is even better than the red overlay from Photoshop.

[jimh12345]

"Brush previews" is very helpful, but sometimes I just need to see the whole mask.  That tiny thumbnail isn't enough.

[Mark Koolen]

On 6/18/2022 at 5:16 PM, Hansha said:

There is a workaround for achieving rubylith I just thought of:

• Make a folder with an adjustment
• On top of that, adjustment put another adjustment that will simulate colour overlay. You can use lens filter, gradient map or recolour - any you like best
• Apply masks to the group

Now you can toggle the fake rubylith adjustment on and off, change its colour and opacity. It will also show while editing.

See here:

 

Thank you but for me as a fulltime professional with a lot of edit work and masking this is time killing. I really hope that the team makes a instant toggle key just like adobe. Otherwise AP is way to slow in workflow for me.

[RichardMH]

Refine Mask?

[jimh12345]

On 6/18/2022 at 10:16 AM, Hansha said:

There is a workaround for achieving rubylith I just thought of:

• Make a folder with an adjustment
• On top of that, adjustment put another adjustment that will simulate colour overlay. You can use lens filter, gradient map or recolour - any you like best
• Apply masks to the group

Now you can toggle the fake rubylith adjustment on and off, change its colour and opacity. It will also show while editing.

See here:

 

 

Wow, that's clever, and a pretty good workaround - thanks!   

[Mark Koolen]

On 9/7/2022 at 1:26 PM, RichardMH said:

Refine Mask?

No that gives not the option of brushing the mask in and out.

is somebody experimenting with AP2?
hope that version has the ability to adjust the mask with a brush

[loukash]

Perhaps it's about time to relink my workaround again:

[danlei]

Any news on this? I hope it was fixed in v2.

[cgidesign]

Not fixed - and no roadmap to let us know if it will ever be implemented.

[MEB]

Hi @Mark Koolen, @danlei, @cgidesign, everyone,
We have this logged as an improvement but its pending approval from Management/Dev.
I've bumped/updated the existing report and passed your feedback along to dev to bring this up to their attention again.
Thank you for your support.

[atomic101]

I think management need to pay more attention.

This has been a much spoken about basic need for many, many months now.

I'm wondering how quick it would get in there if everyone in need of it posted and tagged affinity with an instagram (or other media) highlighting the absence, and simply asking "when?"

[MEB]

Hi @atomic101,
Management is paying attention (and actually following and replying on these same forums directly when required). We can't simply implement everything each one of you think are basic needs at once, as these vary wildly between users. As stated several times, we are a relatively small company with a limited number of resources, launching a suite of apps on three different platforms. It takes some time to fulfil everyones needs - even basic ones since the apps are still relatively new and a lot of work has been done on building its foundations (integration/StudioLink, hardware acceleration, backend for accounts/data sync etc) during V1 lifecycle. Hopefully there will be more progress/focus on app's features from V2 on. It's not so much a question of listening, it's mostly a question of having the time and resources to do it in a timely/proper manner.
We are doing the best we can with the resources we have. Thanks for understanding.

[atomic101]

MEB, I am not "understanding". This is a basic need that should have been in V1. Not finding it in the latest version was pretty insulting as a user where we have been voicing that one need as priority for so, so long.

I think that the product and the alternative to Adobe is great and very much needed. I only want to see it succeed (and rule supreme). But not having this from the start is like selling ladders where the first rung is missing. You can still use them, they might work great. But that first rung would be better there than not, and certainly make the whole experience a more rounded and efficient experience.

What do we do in a photo editing app. Some small processing things that are no great shakes. Image manipulation. Photocompositing where masks and layers are bread and butter. Come on?

Best

J

[InigoRotaetxe]

9 minutes ago, atomic101 said:

MEB, I am not "understanding". This is a basic need that should have been in V1. Not finding it in the latest version was pretty insulting as a user where we have been voicing that one need as priority for so, so long.

I think that the product and the alternative to Adobe is great and very much needed. I only want to see it succeed (and rule supreme). But not having this from the start is like selling ladders where the first rung is missing. You can still use them, they might work great. But that first rung would be better there than not, and certainly make the whole experience a more rounded and efficient experience.

What do we do in a photo editing app. Some small processing things that are no great shakes. Image manipulation. Photocompositing where masks and layers are bread and butter. Come on?

Best

J

I totally agree with your response, and also there is a body of users who are using it -like me and some colleagues, for matte paint work, vfx, ilustration etc.

Affinity Photo is great because it allows us to work with 32bit files in Aces. BUT it is a hell of a nightmare missing this fundamental feature, and not having it makes our work a lot longer, harder and more complicated.
I do too feel really disappointed with v2 not having this fundamental feature, it’s come a surprise reading it here, and I guess I’ll try the new app, but right now I do not feel seduced by the launch of the new versions, this feature I expected, a basic one.

best

ñgo

[atomic101]

Just to add: I think that a great deal of the new features in V2 (which I have paid for the suite already) are fanciful and can be well lived without, or possible never needed by most in a day to day agency/studio.

But Masks are an everyday task, need.

This is probably why I (as well as others) feel so strongly about this.

V2 is perhaps the Lamborghini version with the gear knob missing.

[jimh12345]

Having worked in software development, I know the complexities of the "feature list" and the release cycle.  I'm in AP for the long haul.

So I'll just say that yes, being able to see the mask is a bedrock feature that I miss every time I use AP. 

 

 

[Tor]

Hello,

On 11/19/2022 at 12:04 AM, loukash said:

Perhaps it's about time to relink my workaround again:

[...]

thanks to share your workaround. Such workaround can be helpful if you have one mask only or a simple use case. But working in a professional context with dozens of layers and several masks such workaround is not acceptable and disturbing the workflow. It is only a workaround and this cannot replace a basic function.

I have already bought the Affinity V2 Universal Licence to support Serif for their great Affinity suite and to support the development of an alternative to Adobe's "abonnement-only-products".

Nevertheless, it is really frustrating to see that this basic function is still also not included in Affinity Photo V2. Especially due to the fact that this discussion is already running since in 2017 and the functionality for the overlay is already existing for the "Refine Mask" function. 
Why it is not possible to implement the overlay view as well for the "Edit Mask" function?

Still hopping this function will be soon higher prioritized in Serif's development & implementation backlog.

Best regards,
Tor
 

[Mark Koolen]

Exactly what all the users say above me!
It's not hate from us, we just really want to use AP in a professional workplace with whole day editing, we don't want to burn Serif down, we just want to se that we can finally ditch Adobe and use AP all day long, but je layer mask is key for me and my team. 

[Mark Koolen]

On 11/23/2022 at 11:36 AM, MEB said:

Hi @Mark Koolen, @danlei, @cgidesign, everyone,
We have this logged as an improvement but its pending approval from Management/Dev.
I've bumped/updated the existing report and passed your feedback along to dev to bring this up to their attention again.
Thank you for your support.

Thank you for bumping this, AP is really on the verge of kicking Adobe out for me and a lot of editors in my network. But je layer mask thing is just THE thing why we can't use it as professionals. So Keep on bumping the feature, and if management doesn't understand the importance they are not the right person/team for it. 

[wgphoto]

Bumping, although this topic seems to be as active as the live cursor size topic.

[debraspicher]

+1 on this request. I use masks. A lot. I tried the "Refine" Mask method recently combined with Flood Select to do things a bit differently and it seems sometimes the overlay becomes "unsummoned" by easily clicking out someplace and I either lose some or all of the work I've done. May just be me. I usually do OK without an overlay, but when working with very tiny details, it's very helpful to have the ability to adjust the mask this way.

On 11/23/2022 at 5:28 AM, MEB said:

Hi @atomic101,
Management is paying attention (and actually following and replying on these same forums directly when required). We can't simply implement everything each one of you think are basic needs at once, as these vary wildly between users. As stated several times, we are a relatively small company with a limited number of resources, launching a suite of apps on three different platforms. It takes some time to fulfil everyones needs - even basic ones since the apps are still relatively new and a lot of work has been done on building its foundations (integration/StudioLink, hardware acceleration, backend for accounts/data sync etc) during V1 lifecycle. Hopefully there will be more progress/focus on app's features from V2 on. It's not so much a question of listening, it's mostly a question of having the time and resources to do it in a timely/proper manner.
We are doing the best we can with the resources we have. Thanks for understanding.

I wanted to highlight this as well. These posts are very helpful for its openness. Thank you, @MEB. Here's hoping the coming period is smooth for you all development-wise so that you can hit the ground running soon with an optimized process. Less stressful would be nice as well and obviously that we start to see long-awaited features knocked out (and generally bug free).

[wgphoto]

On 8/24/2021 at 10:54 AM, smadell said:

Although it would be nicer for Serif to implement something official, this solution has been available for the past 2 years. It is a free download, and I encourage everyone to see if it will work for them.

 

As always, thanks @smadell for your contributions to this community. For me, the first 2 macros would be most useful in my workflow. There is one change I'd ask you to consider though. Instead of the mask overlay filling the whole image (red), would it be possible to do the inverse, where image has red overlay only where brushed in? This is more similar to how masking works in Capture One. I know most are PS users, so I'll use what's available. Thanks again.