maintaining layer transparency?

[colindun]

In Photoshop, there is a 'lock transparent pixels' tick box for each layer so that when you fill the layer with a new colour it only fills the opaque areas. Is there an equivalent in Affinity Photo?

I've looked through the Help, done a search on the forum, and also on Google, but can't find this anywhere. Very puzzling.

Thanks for the help.

[Alfred]

In Affinity Photo it’s called ‘protect alpha’.

[MEB]

Hi colindun,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
As Alfred said the equivalent option in Affinity is Protect Alpha. You will find this option in the context toolbar when you have the Paint Brush Tool selected (not in the Layers panel as in Photoshop).

[colindun]

Thanks both. I can see that when I have the paintbrush tool selected. However, if I use the 'fill' shortcut that option doesn't show in the contextual bar. Is it not possible to specify alpha when just filling an object in this way? If not, that seems a very odd omission.

There's much I like about Affinity Photo, but I'm _really_ struggling with the filling functionality - the lack of keyboard shortcuts to fill a shape with foreground or background colours (something I use dozens of times a day in Photoshop) it's going to be an uphill battle to switch from Photoshop. Thanks for the help so far, though.

C

[lepr]

.

[colindun]

Thanks. That works, but what a clunky way to do it. Deary me.

I like Photo, but today has been a saga of frustration today. On the horns of dilemma, as I'm being forced to either upgrade to Photoshop CC from my old trsuty CS4 that I've been happy with for years, or bite the bullet and jump to Photo. Apparent lacks like this are making the latter choice a harder one ;(

 

C

[- S -]

On ‎7‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 12:38 PM, colindun said:

In Photoshop, there is a 'lock transparent pixels' tick box for each layer so that when you fill the layer with a new colour it only fills the opaque areas. Is there an equivalent in Affinity Photo?

You haven’t mentioned what you’re trying to do exactly, but if it’s something simple like changing the colour of sketch lines or applying flat colours, then you can try these:

To change the colour of sketch lines, for example to make it easier to ink over the top of them, you can click on ‘FX’ in the Layers panel to open the Layer Effects panel and apply a colour overlay to the layer.

 

If you want to apply flat colours to an opaque shape(s), you can clip either a new pixel layer or a new fill layer to the opaque shape layer (I.E. Layer > New Layer or Layer > New Fill Layer) and these will be clipped to that top layer. You can also clip further layers to the opaque shape layer for example to add separate layers for highlights/shadows, texture, etc.. 

To clip a layer, use the long horizontal blue line rather then the short blue vertical mask line (click this link to see the two different blue lines).

[Polygonius]

Is there anything like the opposite of "preserve alfa"? Lets say i brush some texture or so with splatter-brushes in diverse opacity-settings. Sometimes i want protect the "half alfa" areas, for not getting this unwanted "add oppacity" buy "double-brsuh" near by the old brush-"strokes".