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Macro will not record layer selections


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I was trying to follow the tutorial from @MikaG on How to: Sharpening with Edge Masks from January 14th, 2016. This worked OK on a couple of trial images. I then tried to record his procedureas a macro. This involved merging three layers, the modified background layer and two adjustment layers. This worked fine in my macro-free trial, but would not work when recording as a macro. The message I get when trying to select one of these layers is quite opaque. I get the same message with each of the layers I seek to merge.

Is selecting a layer in such circumstances a proscribed operation when recording macros? I note that @MikaG comments that: "Once the function of Actions is added to Affinity Photo it will become a task even faster".

 

John

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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You might have to be probably more specific here, aka directly on the initial background layer or a copy of that, what sort of adjustment layers, did you renamed all layers before trying to apply a selection and merge operation, are the adjustments placed as child-layers, or instead above as own layers and what message do you get (?) etc. - I for my part, can not follow/reproduce the above said or even understand it this way without more concrete info (...and honestly I'm also too lazy to follow that referenced thread there step for step, it's too long).

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When I get back to my desktop, I will see if I can take some screenshots both with and withour macro recording.

John

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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I first duplicate the Background layer, then convert this new layer using Filter > Detect > Edges. I then add two adjustment layers, HSL to reduce the saturation to zero, then Levels to set the black and white points to 10% and 55%.

This image is of the layers panel at this point:Capture1NoMac.png.5f42642dfd8cd40c16a6c9b11b44cfe3.png

I then shift-click to select the top three layers: Capture2NoMac.png.d0582e320ce8df56e0af81b1114d3c79.png

I then merge the three layers with Ctrl-Shift-E: Capture3NoMac.png.988589210330a674bccd325777af8203.png

Repeating this process with Macro Recording on, the first step looks the same:Capture1WithMac.png.dded985289694a1552994f0f42d14ef1.png

But when I try and select one of the other layers, I get: Capture2WithMac.png.3649516b11432422e9bed28f4b8cca93.png

Depending on which layer is already selected, one of these options may not be greyed-out. As I said before, these options are opaque to me (whether greyed-out or not)!

John

 

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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After duplicating the background layer, delete it as it is no longer needed

Then do your stuff and at the very end....

Select > Select all Layers
Layer > Merge Selected

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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It even works for me if the initial background layer is still there, since "Select All Layers" doesn't include the initial locked background one here. Then merge those three it selected.

BTW sometimes it works all better when you name the layers, even the HSL and Level adjustment layers.

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Well spotted

When I tested my background layer was not locked which is why I had to delete it

But if the background layer is locked (or you lock it from within the macro) then you can keep it.

 

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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4 hours ago, John Rostron said:

Depending on which layer is already selected, one of these options may not be greyed-out. As I said before, these options are opaque to me (whether greyed-out or not)!

The first time you described this as "opaque" I did not know if you meant opaque to your understanding or in a more literal sense, like appearing as an all black overlay or something. I confess I was too lazy to ask about that then, but now that it is clear what you meant from the screenshot (& I am slightly less lazy), maybe this will help:

 

The macro recorder can only select a layer by reference, like by name or by position in the Layers panel relative to the currently selected layer or relative to its parent, child, or a sibling layer. The macro recorder's "Select Layer" window is telling you that it cannot select another layer by any of these references: the top level adjustment layer is unnamed, is not a parent or child of any other layer, & since it is not a child layer it has no siblings.

 

As @v_kyr mentioned, a possible way to resolve this is to name the relevant layers as part of the macro. Do that & the first option in the "Select Layer" window will offer to select a layer by its name. The main drawback with this is if you run the macro on a file that already has named layers, they will be changed by the macro, which could play havoc with a carefully named layer hierarchy. I also imagine that it would not work correctly or at all unless each named layer has a unique name.

 

Depending on the layer structure, what if any layer is currently selected when the macro is run, & the layer you want to select, one of the other references may work, but by name is usually the most "universal" & reliable one if it makes sense for what you want the macro to do.

 

It would be great if the macro function provided a method to select layers explicitly by some definable set of properties, to iteratively go through the layer hierarchy looking for those layers, & to run other macros or branch within the macro to process them, but I think such things would only really be practical with a substantially more complex scripting language.

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Thanks to @carl123, @v_kyr and @R C-R. I shall work my way through this advice and let you know how it goes.

Just to confirm, by 'opaque', I meant 'opaque to my understanding'. Once I had @R C-R's explanations it all became pellucid!

John

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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11 minutes ago, John Rostron said:

Once I had @R C-R's explanations it all became pellucid!

Thank you for expanding my vocabulary by one new-to-me word! :)

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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@carl123's suggestions worked, even without deleting the background layer as @v_kyr said.

However I have now run into what is probably an unsurmountable problem. The procedure later continues with adding a live USM layer. This gets added to the current layer, but I need to move it. I am told by a pop-up that the macro recorder cannot record moves. I have looked to see if there are menu items that would help, but no luck there. I think that if I want to implement this edge mask - unsharp mask process, I shall have to do it manually. I was actually getting quite slick at it!

John

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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Use the Assistant and change the setting where filter layers should occur/be placed (as child or own above layers). You can also switch these settings during macro recording. I've done so for one two macros where I had similar movement problems, there I've then used a mixture of child-layers and place-above-layers during recording by switching with that Assistant in order to overcome such movement problems. - Also when using the place above layers setting, in order to place something completely on top of all others here (as a new layer then) you have to use that top menu accessable deselect all layers menu entry first, so no layer is selected at all before the next step creates a layer (see the one of the macro video tuts about layers which show this).

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Thanks, @v_kyr. I looked in various menus, but never thought to look in Assistant. I have never used it to date, but have read about it in these forums. The capability of Affinity (and the forum members) never ceases to amaze me. But you do need to know where to look!

John

 

 

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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@John Rostron Thus those macro tutorials are helpful to get a rough idea about the base things here. Though there are still a bunch of things you always have to discover yourself, since not everything works always the way one would usually think here or they might not be implemented at all yet.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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