Eraser feather

[OJ.]

Hi,

I've been looking for a way to increase the hardness of the eraser tool so there is no feather at all (so I can remove individual pixels without affecting surround ones), but I'm currently at a loss how to get it done (I've gone through the built in help).

I attached an image showing the tool together with the hardness at a 100% and it's still showing some feathering. I have a feeling I'm overlooking an option or a toggle, but so far it hasn't been entirely intuitive? Coming from PS I would expect 100% hardness to do it, or have a separate pencil eraser tool, that only works on pixel basis and doesn't do anything to the surrounding pixels. Or is it behaviour of the underlying image itself, considering it adds feathering after rasterizing the shape?

Can somebody help out and correct my possible incompetence?

Edited June 24, 2019 by OJ.

[OJ.]

So, I'm going to partially answer my own question, as I found an earlier topic from 2017 with basically the same question:

 

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I see. The edges of brushes will have an anti-aliasing effect to them (blurred out), so when using the smallest width size (1 PX), the brush itself will appear transparent like in your case. It sounds like you are looking for something similar to Photoshop's Pencil mode in their Eraser Tool, something with aliasing erasing (sharp cuts). There is currently no aliasing erasing feature in Photo, but if you create a mask on your layer, you can use the Pixel Tool as an eraser. It is hidden under the Paint Brush Tool. With the mask thumbnail selected, just have the color set to black, and you can erase parts of your image. Have it set to white, and you can bring them back. This, however, only puts the regions in a mask, so you are not actually erasing.

and

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On 12/14/2017 at 9:50 PM, Bri-Toon said:

It sounds like you are looking for something similar to Photoshop's Pencil mode in their Eraser Tool, something with aliasing erasing (sharp cuts).

The Affinity Photo Pixel Tool is (more or less) the equivalent of the PS Pencil mode. When selected, the AP Pixel Tool has an "Alternate" option on the Context toolbar. Set that to "Erase" (or "Background Color"). This changes the effect of the tool when the 'alternate' key is held down.

 

A bit confusingly, on a Mac the 'alternate' key is not alt/option but CMD. However, the Status bar at the bottom of the window should tell users which key invokes the 'alternate' action, so it is not too bad if you refer to that.

 

Anyway, with appropriate Opacity, Flow, Blend mode, Alternate mode, etc. set in the Context toolbar, the Pixel Tool with the appropriate keyboard key held down should produce hard-edged, aliased erasures.

Source topic

 

So with some digging around I found the answer, though as a piece of feedback for the devs: I did not find it entirely intuitive to find this under the pixel tool. I might be because I'm just getting accustomed to a new workflow, but I don't think it would be entirely intuitive for complete newcomers either.

I think adding a reference in the erasing section of the help would at lease give a hint that the pixel tool also has erasing features?

 

In the image below the desired effect (you activate alt mode by holding ctrl)

Edited June 24, 2019 by OJ.
Clarity

[Bri-Toon]

First of all, welcome to the Affinity forum!

On 6/24/2019 at 9:57 AM, OJ. said:

So with some digging around I found the answer, though as a piece of feedback for the devs: I did not find it entirely intuitive to find this under the pixel tool. I might be because I'm just getting accustomed to a new workflow, but I don't think it would be entirely intuitive for complete newcomers either.

I can see why this would be confusing for newcomers. I don't think too many new users would think to use the Pixel Tool as an eraser. I mean I can't compare to most, but I have to agree that this would be confusing. I mean a lot of key commands are shortcuts for other tools, whereas the Pixel Tool's erase mode is on its own.

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think adding a reference in the erasing section of the help would at lease give a hint that the pixel tool also has erasing features?

Or even a pixel mode for the Eraser Tool.