Cut out selection

[Sempervivum]

Dear Affinity experts,

probobly a simple problem but I can't get it done: I selected a region in my image and want to cut it out, so that it get's transparent. In Photoshop Elements I do it like this:

Create layer from background

Press "Delete"

How can I get this done in affinity? I found no way to make a layer from the background.

Watched this tutorial:

but can't find the meny item that puts the selection onto a new layer.

Any help is appreciated.

Best regards - Ulrich

[Sempervivum]

Sorry should have researched a bit more before asking: What I was after I found at "Layer - Create New Mask Layer".

Problem solved.

[walt.farrell]

I would have expected the answer to be that you need to first ensure that you've set your document to have a transparent background, then rasterize the background layer, and then make your selection and press the Delete key.

While masking can certainly provide a solution to your question, it's not what I would think of normally for what you asked

[Sempervivum]

Hallo Walt, thanks for this hint. Obviously it's much easier than I assumed: Simply make the selection and press "Delete"; no need for converting the BG to a layer as is necessary in PSE.

Quote

ensure that you've set your document to have a transparent background

How to do this? It seems to me that this is the case by default?

[toltec]

56 minutes ago, Sempervivum said:

Hallo Walt, thanks for this hint. Obviously it's much easier than I assumed: Simply make the selection and press "Delete"; no need for converting the BG to a layer as is necessary in PSE.

How to do this? It seems to me that this is the case by default?

 

If you watch the video again, about 3:10 it shows you what to do.

 

In Output: Click on New Layer

 

That does everything for you. Putting the selection on a new layer with a transparent background. A one click solution 

 

 

[Emfiliane]

I'm getting so pissed off trying to do simple little things like this in Photo. I select part of a layer, press delete, and it deletes the whole friggin layer, instead. There's no context menu on the canvas, so there's no way to know what it is that you are supposed to do. If you have multiple layers, it seems that Affinity's only option is to scrub a goddam eraser across the entire selected area, since it wants to delete whole layers willy-nilly.

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, Emfiliane said:

I'm getting so pissed off trying to do simple little things like this in Photo. I select part of a layer, press delete, and it deletes the whole friggin layer, instead. There's no context menu on the canvas, so there's no way to know what it is that you are supposed to do. If you have multiple layers, it seems that Affinity's only option is to scrub a goddam eraser across the entire selected area, since it wants to delete whole layers willy-nilly.

It sounds like you may have Placed an image into your document, or copy/pasted or drag/dropped one. That would give you a new layer that is a kind of vector layer (shown as an (Image) layer in the Layers panel) rather than a raster layer (shown as (Pixel) in the Layers panel).

To operate on its pixels you need to rasterize it first. You can right-click on the layer in the Layers panel and choose Rasterize... or use Layer > Rasterize... from the main menu.