What is "read only?"

[enjaye1]

I'm new to Affinity  but I've used PSE for many years prior. 

1.  Recently I've noticed that the names of my files (pictures) say, "READ ONLY." I don't know how or why this happened. This prevents me from using them for the purpose I had in mind. How do I rectify this?

2. When I am finished working on a file do the layers have to be flattened or merged?

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks in advance

 

Enjoy

[firstdefence]

Read Only generally means just that, the file can be read/opened but not edited, there could be a lot of reasons for this but it would help if you could tell us what your Operating System is, which Affinity app you are using and where you are accessing the files from? (USB, local folder i.e Documents, from a camera, from the cloud i.e. Dropbox, Mega etc) 

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, firstdefence said:

but not edited,

This is not exactly accurate - you can edited data from this file, but you can not write it back. However, you can write to another file.

[enjaye1]

Thanks for your reply.

I am using Sierra 10.12.6 on my iMac with Affinity Photo. The files I am using are on iPhoto and were taken with my camera. 

I've been using Affinity Photo occasionally for 6 months but  have not had this problem before. (I have to admit I am still learning the software). When I try to export the files I get a window that says the file is missing although I have the picture on the computer. I'm not sure what I am doing differently at this time to cause this.

 

Thanks for your reply,

enjoy

[enjaye1]

Error: My name is enjaye not enjoy. The laugh is on me.

[ianrb]

Interesting topic -- something I have not seen in Win10

[Gabe]

HI @enjaye1,

Welcome to the forums. 

14 hours ago, enjaye1 said:

1.  Recently I've noticed that the names of my files (pictures) say, "READ ONLY." I don't know how or why this happened. This prevents me from using them for the purpose I had in mind. How do I rectify this?

2. When I am finished working on a file do the layers have to be flattened or merged?

1. Is that the end product exported from Affinity or the files already present on your disk?

2. That really depends on what you want to do with your file in the future and how you plan to use it. 

6 hours ago, enjaye1 said:

When I try to export the files I get a window that says the file is missing although I have the picture on the computer. I'm not sure what I am doing differently at this time to cause this.

Can you attach a screenshot of the error message? 

Thanks,

Gabe.