af photo workbook chapter 5, #2 Puregold

[LLM]

I am gradually working my way through the Affinity Photo workbook and it's been challenging me to learning new ways of doing things. No complaints, I'm enjoying the learning.

On the Pure Gold chapter, I have a couple questions Page 391 opens the file aMH1_3032.jpg and begins cutting out the skater.  On page393, step 4, the instruction is to Unlock and select the background layer (not previously mentioned). No background layer left, only skater on transparent background.

I saved the skater selection and then opened the background file again and placed it below selected skater layer (in one instance I rasterized.  In another I tried treating the skater as a child),   When I moved the skater, I was left with a double image (another try got me transparent pixels). 

Finally, to move on, I wiped the skater from the background with the Inpainting Brush and then put the loaded selection layer under Smudge layer as a child layer.

puregold (2).pdf

What am I missing from the instructions?

 

[R C-R]

If you are using the Affinity Photo defaults as suggested early in the workbook, the jpeg file should open with a single layer named "Background" & it should be locked. In step 3 on page 393 if you set the Output to "Mask" before clicking the "apply" button, the mask will be applied to this "Background" layer, masking (hiding) everything besides the skater. If you perform the Layer > Rasterize step (on the "Background" layer) as suggested, everything besides the skater will be eliminated (erased). But the layer should still be named "Background" unless you changed it to something else yourself.

[LLM]

Thanks.  My main problem wasn't that I did it wrong, it was that I didn't know what it was supposed to look like. 

I was thinking the background of the rink should still have been there. I worked through the whole chapter and realized that the rink was only replaced (placed) near the end.  I had the right idea of using the  Inpainting Brush to remove the original skater but following the hierarchy makes it work effortlessly.

I don't remember changing the preferences but I reset everything just in case.