Why do nested/clipped adjustments not affect (Color) Fill layers?

[SloCan]

For me, nested/clipped adjustments added to (Color) Fill layers don't work, whereas nested/clipped adjustments added to pixel layers do. If I pull the adjustment layer out of the nested/clipped position and place it over the (Color) Fill layer, it works, but affects the whole document below it, which is not desirable.

I just don't get it.

Either this is something I'm not doing correctly, or I'm missing steps in the process, or it's in AP by design (I hope not), or it's a bug.

So what gives here?

[firstdefence]

@SloCan Rasterise the fill layer and then have the adjustment layer as a child of the rasterised fill layer, probably not what you want to do but its the only way I got it to work.

[carl123]

Not sure exactly what it is you are trying to achieve

But you can group the Fill layer on it's own then add your adjustment(s) to the group

[SloCan]

@firstdefence : rasterizing is definitely not the way to go if one wants to still be able to change the fill color on the fly.

@carl123: I tested your suggestion by adding the adjustment to the group instead of to the fill layer (or separate mask), and got it to work.

If I've understood this all correctly with the little amount of testing I did, this means that I'll need a new group for every fill layer I add where I need an adjustment applied to it. This also means that when you already have a number of layers grouped into a certain category you're focusing on (like for editing skin or hair, for example), you will now have groups within groups. It may be a bit convoluted, and I have no idea how it affects file size or performance in the long run, but if that's the only way, then that's the only way. It works, and that's what matters.

At least this is one way to achieve what I wanted to, which is, specifically, to be able to change a fill layer color's saturation accurately and on the fly using a slider or directly entering the percentage in HSL, and also to still be able to change the fill layer color on the fly if required.

It would be great if it was a one step process to quickly allow the adjustment to affect the fill layer directly and nothing else like it can be done in PS, or like it can be done with layers other than fill layers in AP (if I'm not mistaken).

 

Thanks for the suggestions and the help. Much appreciated.

[MEB]

Hi SloCan,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

Unless there's some technical reason for this behaviour this seems a bug to me. I'm logging it and raising the issue with the dev team to check what's going on.

[SloCan]

@MEBObrigado!

If it is a bug that can be remedied, that would be great! In the meantime, at least I have carl123's workaround.

 

[kaffeeundsalz]

By the way, I've been working with Fill Layers a lot and this has never worked before. It was one of the first things I memorised when I learned Affinity Photo: If you want an adjustment to affect a Fill Layer, don't nest it. Up until now, I assumed it doesn't work for the same reason you can't nest Adjustment Layers inside Adjustment Layers (technically, you can, but it won't do anything), so I thought this was by design. If it's not - cool thing! I'd really love to see this limitation go away.

[R C-R]

Personally, I have only used Fill layers when I want a layer that will automatically resize to fill the canvas if I change its size. Until I read this topic, I never thought about doing anything else with their color property besides maybe applying a gradient fill to them. But now that this topic has inspired me to experiment with them a bit more, I have noticed that even a Fill layer with a gradient fill does not scale the gradient if the canvas is resized, & there are some other oddities apparent if for example the Erase Tool or Paint Brush Tool is used on a Fill layer.

 

See for example Fill layer weirdness.afphoto -- Compare what is selected on the canvas if this file's Fill layer is select on the Layers panel vs. what is selected for an ordinary Fill layer with no brush strokes or erasures. The former selects the area bounded by the extent of the brush and/or erasure; the latter would select nothing. (You can verify this with the Edit > Copy command with the Fill layer selected & then selecting File > New from Clipboard.)

 

So ... what could all this possibly mean besides that there is a bug in how the app "sees" Fill layers?

[MEB]

R C-R,

These are not oddities. What you are seeing is the result of the built-in mask. Create a new Fill layer and fill it with red. Go to menu Document and tick Transparent Background. Change to the Paint Brush Tool and paint with black - you should see the transparent background appearing. Paint it with white - the fill colour you have chosen for the Fill layer (red in this case) will be revealed again.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, MEB said:

These are not oddities. What you are seeing is the result of the built-in mask.

OK, but why is it that when the mask is altered as in my Fill layer Weirdness file, selecting the Fill layer on the layers panel & copying the layer to the clipboard only copies the area where the mask has been altered, like in this Fill layer new from clipboard.afphoto file derived from that file?

 

When the mask is unaltered (all white) & covers the entire canvas, copying the layer (which the app does not object to doing) & then trying "New From Clipboard" from the File menu results in this:

 

It is as if altering the mask somehow gives the Fill layer a physical size property, at least for copy/paste operations.