Beginner challenge

[Brad Evans]

I am new to the app and have started by following along with the video tutorial step-by-step.  Things started easily enough with making basic layer adjustments.  But now I've become hung up at the in-painting tool and trying to 'erase' unwanted subject from the background of the photo.  I choose the tool and adjust the width, but when I go to select/hold to mark the area to be removed, nothing happens.  I have a 2015 MacBook and have tried with the trackpad and with a wireless mouse.  What could I be doing wrong?

[Madame]

If your layer is a background layer, it's locked and the inpaint brush won't work.
You can copy the layer (cmd/ctrl. J) or unlock it.
If the layer is a picture layer you can rightclick and choose rasterize.
 

[Madame]

You also need to check what layer you are working on.
Maybe you have to check this current layer and below in the context toolbar?

[lepr]

.

[Alfred]

28 minutes ago, >|< said:

Locking does not prevent editing of layer content In Affinity.

Locking does, however, prevent selection of the layer on the canvas. I’d like to see an option to make locked objects selectable by (say) right-clicking, so that you can unlock them without having to find them in the Layers panel.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

I’d like to see an option to make locked objects selectable by (say) right-clicking, so that you can unlock them without having to find them in the Layers panel.

How would you know which one(s) you wanted to unlock if there were many locked layers under the pointer?

[Alfred]

34 minutes ago, R C-R said:

How would you know which one(s) you wanted to unlock if there were many locked layers under the pointer?

How do you know which one you want to select when there are many unlocked layers under the pointer? In complex cases you have to Alt-click (or whatever) to cycle through the stack, and you’d probably refer to the Layers panel for verification purposes (so you might as well make the selection there) but I’m talking about situations where you have many layers which are mostly not completely overlapping, where it would be easy to click on something on the canvas but tedious to find it it the Layers panel.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

... I’m talking about situations where you have many layers which are mostly not completely overlapping, where it would be easy to click on something on the canvas but tedious to find it it the Layers panel.

I wonder if that situation would occur often enough to make it worth implementing, particularly considering that it may not be obvious where to click to select  just the desired locked layer(s) or determine which one(s) should be unlocked without referring to the Layers panel. That could be difficult if some or all of these layers did not have unique custom names, had transparent areas, etc.

Maybe it would work better as some kind of 'Show Locked Only" option that temporarily hid all the unlocked layers & made the locked ones selectable as if they were not locked?

[Alfred]

28 minutes ago, R C-R said:

it may not be obvious where to click to select  just the desired locked layer(s)

It may not be obvious where to click to select an unlocked layer, but that hasn’t resulted in the user being prevented from doing it! My argument is that locking already allows the user to edit the layer content, so why not take things a step further and optionally allow the user to select the layer on the canvas? Then locking will prevent accidental movement or deletion of the layer, but nothing more.

[R C-R]

20 minutes ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

My argument is that locking already allows the user to edit the layer content, so why not take things a step further and optionally allow the user to select the layer on the canvas? 

Maybe because often it will not be obvious where to alt-click to select the desired locked layer(s), or because often it would be difficult to determine which one(s) to unlock?