Cutting a hole in a layer with paths?

[Nicholas Jainschigg]

I'm trying to use paths to cut a hole in a layer (pixel or shape) in such a way as it becomes a free floating mask, revealing all the layers below the hole. This is trivial in Designer, but I can't seem to find a way to do it in Photo. All of the masking and clipping things I've tried end up with creating things that are either linked to the layer (revealing the photo or shape in the thing I'd like as a hole, or leaving everything outside the shape intended as a hole as transparent. Any suggestions much appreciated. In order to make this clearer I've attached an image of whast I'm looking for.

 

[firstdefence]

 

1. Create your shape or path
2. Set the shapes layer blend mode to erase
3. Make the shape a child of the image, this localises the effect of the Erase blend mode preventing it from affecting any layers below. 

 

[Nicholas Jainschigg]

Thank you! That works beautifully and would never have occurred to me. I'm switching to AP from 20 years of Photoshop and it's amazing how much Adobe's thinking has twisted my brain

[Lorox]

Same for me! Coming from Photoshop as well I really struggled for some time with this. You just don't have the concept of that "Erase" blend mode in Photoshop so I fooled around around with multiple clipping and masking layers (in "Normal" blend mode") always getting something not really being what I wanted... (or the result becoming so complicated that on the next day I didn't understand anymore what I exactly did the day before...)

It's easy, though, doing the trick with a pixel layer having a hole in it which you then just place above the picture. But then again shapes can be so easily and exactly modified that you rather want to use them instead of pixels...

Apart from that:

if there was some sort of "rectangular donut" shape in our box of tools, this would be easy, too! I imagine that I would have significantly more uses for such a shape (i.e. a rectangle with a rectangular hole in the middle) than I have for e.g. a heart shape.

[h_d]

28 minutes ago, Lorox said:

if there was some sort of "rectangular donut" shape in our box of tools, this would be easy, too!

You can make bake your own. Draw two rectangles, the lower one for the "doughnut" and the upper one for the "hole". Select both in the Layers panel, then go to the Layers menu - Geometry - Subtract.

Save it as an Asset for future square nomming.

[Lorox]

1 hour ago, h_d said:

You can make bake your own. Draw two rectangles, the lower one for the "doughnut" and the upper one for the "hole". Select both in the Layers panel, then go to the Layers menu - Geometry - Subtract.

Ah, thanks a lot! Again, coming from Photoshop, I wouldn't have thought of looking there... Probably because I was just thinking more in terms of the shapes themselves and not so much in terms of the layers they're on.