New from clipboard or new artboard, neither seems streamlined

[Patrick Bell]

I am having trouble figuring the correct workflow in Affinity Designer. I often need to work with an existing image and use "new from clipboard" with a jpg loaded. This is fine to work with but I cannot work outside the image to add text etc and "convert object to artboard" is greyed out.  So how should I do this? I want to work with the jpg in its best resolution and since initially I may not know what size to create a new artboard it can be a fiddle.

What is the "correct" approach for this common task?

[R C-R]

27 minutes ago, Patrick Bell said:

This is fine to work with but I cannot work outside the image to add text etc and "convert object to artboard" is greyed out. 

1. Select the Artboard Tool from the Tools panel.
2. On the context toolbar, leave "Size:" on the default "Document" setting & click "Insert Artboard."

EDIT: If you can't find the Artboard Tool, by default it is accessed from the fly-out on the Move Tool. Fly-out tool options are indicated by a small triangle in the lower right corner of the tool icon. If you use this tool frequently, you can customize the Tools panel so the Move & Artboard tools each have a separate icon on the panel. You can also assign a custom keyboard shortcut for the Artboard Tool in Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts > Tools if you want.

[Patrick Bell]

Great that is nice and straightforward. So, I now have a logo jpg with a white background with text underneath with no background. I want all the background to be transparent in a png. In corel I would just select the colour I wanted transparent during export - what the best way to do it here? Export without background saves the opaque white background of the logo.

[R C-R]

27 minutes ago, Patrick Bell said:

I want all the background to be transparent in a png.

If it isn't set already, set the Affinity document to have a transparent background from the File > Document Setup > Color tab. Exporting to png should preserve the transparency.

[Patrick Bell]

Already set. Do I have to convert the original jpg somehow? SInce, of course, there will be no transparency to that at the outset.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Patrick Bell said:

Do I have to convert the original jpg somehow? SInce, of course, there will be no transparency to that at the outset.

I thought you just wanted the area outside the jpg image to be transparent so you could add text etc. to that area. If you want to erase anything within the jpg image you will need to do that separately.

[Patrick Bell]

its a logo with a white background. I can't just set the white to be the transparent colour in a png?

No... but it seems I can i Photo FILTERS > COLOURS > ERASE WHITE PAPER works for me.

Thanks for your help though,I should have mentioned I also had Photo