Subtraction

[jackamus]

Is there any reason why I cannot Subtract a circle from this image in the attached file?

Subtraction.afdesign

[firstdefence]

Use a mask, a mask must have a fill to work.

• Fill the ellipse with black
• right click on the Ellipse layer and select Mask to Below

The benefits of using a mask are, you can reposition the mask, you can scale the mask, you can apply effects to the mask. 

[jackamus]

LOL I've never used Pixel Persona before! Interesting - I might use this again some time!

Thanks for the tip.

What, in a nutshell, would be an overall reason to use this persona?

[firstdefence]

Mixing vectors and raster, pixel persona allows you to edit raster objects within Affinity Designer.

[jackamus]

11 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Use a mask, a mask must have a fill to work.

• Fill the ellipse with black
• right click on the circle and select Mask to Below

The benefits of using a mask are, you can reposition the mask, you can scale the mask, you can apply effects to the mask. 

Thanks also for this method. Once again this is a first for me as I have never used masking before!

[jackamus]

2 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Mixing vectors and raster, pixel persona allows you to edit raster objects within Affinity Designer.

When in the Pixel Persona the drawing tools are not visible or could they be or does it mean jumping from one Persons to another?

[firstdefence]

You jump from one to the other, they are kind of mini apps within a larger app.

[jackamus]

3 minutes ago, jackamus said:

 

 

16 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Use a mask, a mask must have a fill to work.

• Fill the ellipse with black
• right click on the circle and select Mask to Below

The benefits of using a mask are, you can reposition the mask, you can scale the mask, you can apply effects to the mask. 

When I right click there is no option to 'Mask to Below' only 'Rasterise to Mask"is the nearest option!

[firstdefence]

1 hour ago, jackamus said:

 

When I right click there is no option to 'Mask to Below' only 'Rasterise to Mask"is the nearest option!

You click on the ellipse layer not the object in the workspace, my wording should have been better, apologises. I've edited the instructions to be clearer.

[jackamus]

Sorry! I was clicking on actual image rather than the layer.

This is a very useful feature especially that I can apply effects to it as well.

[Alfred]

4 hours ago, jackamus said:

When I right click there is no option to 'Mask to Below'

You can also effect masking by dragging the circle (or whatever) in the Layers panel and dropping it onto the thumbnail of the target layer.

Masking is just another name for cropping, as in ‘Crop to Shape’ in DrawPlus. If you look closely at the mask thumbnail in the Layers panel, you should see a cropping icon there.

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, jackamus said:

Is there any reason why I cannot Subtract a circle from this image in the attached file?

Subtraction.afdesign

Since the image is an "(Image)" layer, in the Designer Persona the Layer menu > Convert to Curves option is available. Choose that, select both objects, & Subtract should work. Subtraction via convert to curves.afdesign includes the history, including an extra last step to change the document's background to transparent to show that the circle is subtracted.