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Layer opacity vs. fill


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Serif has acknowledged to me via the support site that the layer fill does not exist.  I feel that is absolutely needed   here is my explanation that I gave them:
Special blend modes:  
in short opacity affects all aspects of a layer: styles, brightness , contrast, color etc etc.  Layer Fill does NOT affect layer styles AT ALL.  This is an important distinction.
There are 8 blend modes that behave differently when layer Fill is adjusted, compared to when standard Opacity is adjusted. The blend modes that aren’t members of this Special 8 group react the same to both Fill and Opacity changes,  In Affinity Photo they they react only to opacity as there is no layer fill capability so they are basically useless and it would be interesting why they were even included. With these Special 8 blend modes, 40% Opacity will look different than 40% Fill, or 30% Opacity will look different than 3 0% Fill, etc. For all of the other blend modes (the modes that aren’t part of the Special 8), 40% Opacity looks the same as 40% Fill, or 20% Opacity looks the same as 20% Fill, etc. This is an important concept to understand, because it can extend the capabilities of these blend modes. For example, the Hard Mix blend mode usually doesn’t look all that great, but when you adjust the Fill  for this mode, you can get some great results.  In the hard mix blend mode the Layer fill  will add more colors when you reduce the fill as shown in in the video Link I attached.  
 
here is one for color dodge and burn blend modes:
 There is a fill opacity slider in the Affinity Photo Effects panel. It does not work as a layer fill slider should. Affinity is lacking an actual "fill" slider. It becomes painfully apparent if you try to use one of the 8 special blend modes. Then you can see a great difference between a “fill" slider and "opacity" slider. in photoshop  Serif need to rename their "fill opacity" slider to a plain opacity slider because that is all it is -- an opacity slider. It is really important to a number of folks on the forum including myself who have been asking for this for years. Affinity Photo really needs this capability or many folks wont be able to drop Photoshop like myself for instance simply because this is missing.
The blend modes that are members of this Special 8 group are Color Burn, Linear Burn, Color Dodge, Linear Dodge (Add), Vivid Light, Linear Light, Hard Mix, and Difference. 
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48 minutes ago, hanshab said:
There is a fill opacity slider in the Affinity Photo Effects panel. It does not work as a layer fill slider should. Affinity is lacking an actual "fill" slider. It becomes painfully apparent if you try to use one of the 8 special blend modes. Then you can see a great difference between a “fill" slider and "opacity" slider. in photoshop  Serif need to rename their "fill opacity" slider to a plain opacity slider because that is all it is -- an opacity slider. It is really important to a number of folks on the forum including myself who have been asking for this for years. Affinity Photo really needs this capability or many folks wont be able to drop Photoshop like myself for instance simply because this is missing.
The blend modes that are members of this Special 8 group are Color Burn, Linear Burn, Color Dodge, Linear Dodge (Add), Vivid Light, Linear Light, Hard Mix, and Difference. 

Yep, Their using the wrong nomenclature has resulted in several who have never used a real fill slider to question whether we have seen that "fill slider" in the effects.

It isn't, and I thank MEB for saying so in this forum a few days ago.

My main use for the fill slider is color grading, and opacity just doesn't cut it when you need to adjust fill.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have never used something like this before, and I haven't read this whole thread, only watched the aforelinked video, so please pardon my ignorance.
But isn't it something that you can also control with Blend Options?

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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1 hour ago, loukash said:

I have never used something like this before, and I haven't read this whole thread, only watched the aforelinked video, so please pardon my ignorance.
But isn't it something that you can also control with Blend Options?

Absolutely,   and in  Phtotoshop too  without any fancy blending modes, i.e years before they appeared in Photoshop itself .

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1 hour ago, loukash said:

But isn't it something that you can also control with Blend Options?

No, some effects can be emulated with a combination of methods. Layer fill is a separate function that is needed particularly with the special 8 blend modes. Affinity has these modes but they are not able to be fully utilised until the layer fill is introduced.

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4 minutes ago, kirk23 said:

Absolutely

2 minutes ago, Murfee said:

No

Uh-huh.
So…
What now?
Make up your minds, folks. :D

 

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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1 hour ago, loukash said:

Blend Options

Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing: the cog button right next to the Blend Modes popup menu.
Confusingly enough, the tooltip says "Blend Ranges" whereas the following floating window is titled "Blend Options".
So much for UI consistency, huh, Serif?

2 minutes ago, Murfee said:

If you are familiar with some of the uses then you know they are missing in Affinity 😀

Frankly, I've always been more of the typography and vector guy. So I'm more at home in APu & ADe, and before that (in order of appearance) in PageMaker, Freehand, XPress, InDesign & Illustrator, rather than APh, Photoshop & co.

11 minutes ago, Murfee said:

some effects can be emulated with a combination of methods

That applies to many Affinity workflows.
As I have already posted elsewhere a few times recently, the best approach for not to get too crazy during the transition is trying to get rid of the Schmadobe Mindset™ and start afresh.

Sometimes, it doesn't help though… :/

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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2 minutes ago, loukash said:

As I have already posted elsewhere a few times recently, the best approach for not to get too crazy during the transition is trying to get rid of the Schmadobe Mindset™ and start afresh.

My mindset is firmly with Affinity and has been for a number of years. My transition was complete a long time ago, I did start ‘afresh’ but as a professional photographer that only sells limited editions through high end galleries I know what I need.

It is not needed for all images but some definitely benefit from higher end editing that is not currently possible in Affinity. I am not kicking up a fuss and the team know that I fully support them.

 

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Well. I have just tested it with color dodge  OP example   out of curiosity     and in Photoshop  I easily replicate  what the "fill" makes   by splitting and tweaking "Blend IF" sliders.  

So my guess with  APhoto curves in Blend Ranges  it' would be  even more precise

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3 minutes ago, kirk23 said:

Well. I have just tested it with color dodge  OP example   out of curiosity     and in Photoshop  I easily replicate  what the "fill" makes   by splitting and tweaking "Blend IF" sliders.  

So my guess with  APhoto curves in Blend Ranges  it' would be  even more precise

Which method have you tested? Have you explored all of the use cases for Layer Fill?

Some effects can be almost achieved but not all of them. I am a very experienced Affinity user and know about blend ranges. Colour Dodge & Colour Burn are the easiest to almost replicate for some effects. I have not looked at the latest video posted in this thread.

If you need the layer fill then you would understand that some effects can not be achieved to a high enough standard without it.

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10 minutes ago, Murfee said:

as a professional photographer that only sells limited editions through high end galleries I know what I need.

I'm not questioning that at all. :)
In many other instances I also know exactly what I need but can't get it directly. But mostly there are workarounds that can bring me to same results.

Now if only Affinity apps were scriptable

Sigh.

7 minutes ago, kirk23 said:

I have just tested it with color dodge  OP example

I see that I will have to dive a bit deeper into this. It is a pretty new territory for me to explore. A lot of stuff to discover, so I'm already overwhelmed by features that I can do in APh. Even though I've been using Photoshop since the mid-1990s, without ever even knowing what else it can do, resorting to minor retouches and CMYK conversion of photos needed for my layouts.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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30 minutes ago, Murfee said:

Which method have you tested? Have you explored all of the use cases for Layer Fill?

Some effects can be almost achieved but not all of them. I am a very experienced Affinity user and know about blend ranges. Colour Dodge & Colour Burn are the easiest to almost replicate for some effects. I have not looked at the latest video posted in this thread.

If you need the layer fill then you would understand that some effects can not be achieved to a high enough standard without it.

I have copy/pasted  the thread original poster image example in Photoshop .  Can't have an access to APhoto right now.    

And yeah  dodge and burn are easy cases.   Vivid light  requires a bit of a stack  with multiply and  add   blending + blend if tweaking,     Still it's no problem at all  to recreate same look.   

 

   After all  the math is same everywhere and both  programs do  just  not very complicated math operations over  pixel values , nothing magical.  Basic arithmetic in fact .    And if  one of them  does some kind of trigonometry function over pixels it still could be recreated by a curve  editor in blend options

I agree it might be more convenient probably  with a single fill slider in Pshop    but  it doesn't mean it's unreachable .   It's nothing fundamentally impossible   like getting rid of dark halo of masking   within 8bit image   in both Psh and APh

image.png.0a5711e1e5b062e444db685964ad17be.png

 

 

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I just played with the Fill slider in PS CS5.1. I actually knew it was there but never really understood what the difference to Opacity is.
For some blend modes, there seems to be no difference.
For stuff like Linear Light though, it behaves differently, and I couldn't replicate it (yet) with Blend Ranges/Options.
It feels more as if it would apply a Tint value to the pixels.

So perhaps it could be replicable with an additional adjustment layer for the Linear Light layer?

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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17 minutes ago, kirk23 said:

After all  the math is same everywhere and both  programs do  just  not very complicated math operations over  pixel values , nothing magical.  Basic arithmetic in fact .    And if  one of them  does some kind of trigonometry function over pixels it still could be recreated by a curve  editor in blend options

I agree it might be more convenient probably  with a single fill slider in Pshop    but  it doesn't mean it's unreachable .   It's nothing fundamentally impossible   like getting rid of dark halo of masking   within 8bit image   in both Psh and APh

We don't all have the time to explore the equations needed, perhaps you could share your knowledge for users that need this functionality.

It's all very well saying it can be done, perhaps a tutorial in how to achieve a high quality colour grade using hard mix blend mode would be appreciated. There are other use cases in this thread, maybe a full and clear explanation how to achieve them would be useful.

As for dark halos in masking 8bit images...never had that problem, never work in such a low bitrate.

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I couldn't share an exact, precise way.   Need to study actual math those blending modes doing  to figure it out .   Never had to.

   I am just saying that something like   basic  add/ subtract/ max(lighter) /darker/ multiply and divide   in different combination  paired  with "blend If"  could recreate a look of whatever you  may  wish in my experience.

As of dark halos   Phtoshop and Aphoto do for  translucent mask pixels    it  exists in 16 bit per channel  bit depth too and doesn't  exist  in  floating point  32-bit per channel images only . { bit rate is something from music  area etc.)     Kind of one of the reasons  why 32 bit  exr files are used for 2d compositing in  CGI .   But usually yes,  it's hardly noticeable except with vivid colors. 

Saying all this I  can say I have nothing  against having "Fill" in APh .  It's just something I could perfectly cope without

 

 

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11 minutes ago, kirk23 said:

Saying all this I  can say I have nothing  against having "Fill" in APh .  It's just something I could perfectly cope without

 

Glad to hear it. 

To achieve similar effects is not really good enough for some images, not to mention the extra layers & blending involved. If you need to do this multiple times for an intricately masked image then it is just too time consuming and leaves your file massively over complicated.

If you can cope without then you probably never really needed the layer fill. We all know that Affinity is the land of workarounds, sometimes this is fine and you can achieve the desired result, other times it just doesn’t work as intended or desired.

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12 minutes ago, Murfee said:

If you can cope without then you probably never really needed the layer fill

I do use  "fill" a lot in Photoshop , but rather  group's "fill"   since it's  part of having  "clipping groups"  . A Photoshop way  to keep  non-destructive  masking  with a "mask" own  layers, shared  masks, smart objects as masks etc.    And  honestly I find  APhoto somewhat  more convenient with that  after  they introduced layer linking

I do miss other staff from Photoshop a lot . Like transform links and layer composition 

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2 hours ago, Murfee said:

Which method have you tested? Have you explored all of the use cases for Layer Fill?

Some effects can be almost achieved but not all of them. I am a very experienced Affinity user and know about blend ranges. Colour Dodge & Colour Burn are the easiest to almost replicate for some effects. I have not looked at the latest video posted in this thread.

If you need the layer fill then you would understand that some effects can not be achieved to a high enough standard without it.

The latest video in this post uses the fill opacity on a shape with a shadow. He makes the shape disappear and the shadow remain.

Of course, we all know a battle ready M1 Abrams tank is exactly the same thing as a daisy growing in a field.

By getting the nomenclature wrong on the FX panels, it causes a lot of confusion as to exactly what "layer fill" actually is.

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2 hours ago, kirk23 said:

I have copy/pasted  the thread original poster image example in Photoshop .  Can't have an access to APhoto right now.    

And yeah  dodge and burn are easy cases.   Vivid light  requires a bit of a stack  with multiply and  add   blending + blend if tweaking,     Still it's no problem at all  to recreate same look.   

 

   After all  the math is same everywhere and both  programs do  just  not very complicated math operations over  pixel values , nothing magical.  Basic arithmetic in fact .    And if  one of them  does some kind of trigonometry function over pixels it still could be recreated by a curve  editor in blend options

I agree it might be more convenient probably  with a single fill slider in Pshop    but  it doesn't mean it's unreachable .   It's nothing fundamentally impossible   like getting rid of dark halo of masking   within 8bit image   in both Psh and APh

image.png.0a5711e1e5b062e444db685964ad17be.png

 

 

One click and adjust a slider to the correct level for your image  . . . or one hour of trying to match the results by playing with blendif,  and then the resulting frustration of little or no success. 

I know first hand because I had an image that opacity just would not give me the desired results and I had this brainstorm 6 months ago to try blendif to get there. It don't work

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27 minutes ago, kirk23 said:

I do use  "fill" a lot in Photoshop , but rather  group's "fill"   since it's  part of having  "clipping groups"  . A Photoshop way  to keep  non-destructive  masking  with a "mask" own  layers, shared  masks, smart objects as masks etc.    And  honestly I find  APhoto somewhat  more convenient with that  after  they introduced layer linking

Hi kirk23, could you please confirm what you mean by fill or groups fill. This sounds like you are using a fill layer  (where you add a fill to the layer) rather than the layer fill which works in a similar way to opacity, the difference is the way the layer fill works with the underlying pixels when a special 8 blend mode is used, in brief the layer fill that is being requested in this post acts more on colour projection, with a fill layer set to one of the special 8 blend modes.

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