Easy way to combine masks

[mr.burns]

Hi,

 

I have two masks in my project. Each mask selects different parts of my image.

Now I want to combine them to a new mask (add operation).

Currently I only can do this by CTRL-selecting first mask and create a spare channel of it.

Then select the other mask, go to channels, right click the previously created spare channel and choose 'Add to pixel selection' and then click the 'Mask layer' icon.

 

These are many steps to just combine two masks.  :(

 

Why there is no way to just select multiple masks and by right click providing a feature to combine them as add/substract/exor?

 

Will this feature be added in the future?

Thanks...

[Tom Schülke]

You are absolutely right..  

 

If you only deal with small projects and a few immage improvements..  the aktual workflow does work ..  

 

But when you work for example for architectural companies relying on renderings,  you need to deal with sometime dozenz ond dozens of seperated masks and immage areas you need to tackle all at once..

 

 copying them one after another to a sparechannel and later addig them to the aktual mask is..    sorry to say a real pain ..   especial when you know photoshops easy shortcuts in layers to add masks ore to substrackt them..

 

So please please dear serif people add this smal but on a professional level totaly nessesair shortcuts to your next feature update

[AYBC]

Tom , thanks for your answer.

 

We do in-house Archviz for a practice and we have just adopted AFP 1.6.5 (replacing PS CC in DEC 2018) the lack of being able to quickly combine and subtract marks is really making existing workflows so much slower, nevermind how slow AFP is.

[AFluffyOrangutan]

Bump

[carl123]

2 hours ago, AFluffyOrangutan said:

Bump

Try CTRL+SHIFT and clicking on the mask layers' icons to add the selections

[ErnieAd]

Hi!   I'm just a newcomer and I am just getting into Affinity Photo (have taken a couple of courses).

I've tried many times to duplicate Mr. Burns procedure above to combine the two masks but to no avail.

 

I initially have the object 1 mask selected, then place it in a spare channel. Next I select the mask object #2, right click on the Spare Channel and click on "Add to the Pixel Selection".

I then make a mask of the pixel selection in the channels.

Nothing happens.

Can someone tell me where I'm going wrong?  Also, if there is a video expaining this, I'm confident I could follow it.

 

Thanks lots for your help!!!

ErnieAd

 

 

[kirk23]

You can use a group of layers . A huge stack of them with add or whatever blending  + making the group black pixels transparent in Blend ranges.  And use that group   as a mask to something by "mask to below".     Or use group erase blending mode on top of a target thing + same blend ranges    if you don't want to "realease" mask  each time you want to edit the mask stack.

If you need  auto updating clones of  same mask  you could have a stack of layers saved as embedded doc,   put it somewhere  in the bottom to be ever accessible   and use its duplicates as masks for other layers or use  "pixel content"  linking in between layers in masking groups.

If you have Designer too you can do a  symbol from a group of layers  and use it as a mask in Photo.     And if you want one of symbols having some of its layer be unique   do pixel content linking  to something other.     

In fact Affinity Photo offers  a few different ways to do mask stacks  or dynamically calculating  masks  . They are just not very elegant and makes you layer system too complicated  vs Photoshop for example where "smart masks" are done through group clipping .

And contrary to Photoshop and even Krita   there are few limitations:     you don't have Photoshop styled chain links  and there is no transform linking in Link panel.   My guess  Serif wants us to buy Designer  since symbols provide this transform linking  but add one more level of complexity to your layer stack at the same time.

"Pixel content" link  works only with a single rasterized layer source.  Contrary to Krita  "clone" layers for example   which also inherit transforms of a master  and could be uniquely edited , even over-painted through added filters.    Or vs Photoshop where you could use layercomps  inside smart objects  to make your clipping group / mask  use different versions of same smart object.

 

in a word Apinity Photo allows you to do  huge masking stacks with add or whatever blending inside  but still has unfortunate limitations  that makes even free open source Krita looks  more advanced.          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[telemax]

18 hours ago, ErnieAd said:

Can someone tell me where I'm going wrong?  Also, if there is a video expaining this, I'm confident I could follow it.

 

[ErnieAd]

Thanks very much, both of you, for taking the time to explain this to me.  I understand enough now to combine them easily!!

I appreciate it lots! 

ErnieAd