Cannot Distinguish Between Clipped Layers, Groups, or Masks

[Doren Sorell]

I just began working with the 10 day free trial of Affinity Photo. I am a professional  photographer who uses Capture One Pro – formally used Lightroom — and have been using Photoshop for the past five years. I’m very fluent in Photoshop but I’m sick of Adobe and I’m very impressed with Affinity so far after just a couple of days. 

This might be a somewhat ignorant question, but the way the layers are laid out, the way Affinity has them viewed, confuses me. 

I cannot tell a group from a clipped layer from a mask from a clipped mask, if that’s even a thing. They all look exactly alike to me, even though I know there is a certain way to do it by dragging and dropping in a certain area of the layer or underneath to the left or to the right, but it’s all very confusing — yet I do see the blue bars that change positions: just not sure what they mean exactly. 

But even when I start to understand where to drag and drop to do a clipping (child) or put in a group or put underneath or above another layer, once it’s done I cannot tell if that layer is actually clipped or not. In Photoshop of course there’s that crooked arrow pointing at the layer that it’s clipped too. I really wish Affinity would have each look more different, maybe with icons, etc...

 If anyone can explain and demonstrate, maybe in a video or screenshots,  how all the above actually works, that would be great. 

 I have attached a screenshot where I have a Group on top, and then a levels adjustment that I put in there as a blue vertical line, then I have another levels adjustment that was an automatic child layer, and then I have a masked layer at the bottom. I know the mask says mask, and the group says group, but they all look so similar I’m not sure just by looking at them, if I were not to read what it says in the text, how would I know which is which? 

Thank you.  

Edited July 15, 2019 by Doren Sorell
Changed some of my wording to be more clear

[R C-R]

Adjustment layers are 'badged' with a small, half-filled circle in the lower right corner of the thumbnail image in the Layers panel. Likewise masks are 'badged' with a circle in a square, & indented farther if applied to another layer.

[Doren Sorell]

Thank you for your response. 

Ok ... so that’s a little clearer. I still don’t think visually it’s clear enough, but a little better understood. 

How about a clipped layer? How can I visually distinguish that? 

And when moving layers what is the difference between a small blue vertical line right by the thumbnail as opposed to a horizontal smaller blue line right underneath a layer?

[R C-R]

If you watch the Ordering video tutorial, paying particular attention beginning at about the 1:30 point, how all this works should be clearer to you.

[Doren Sorell]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

If you watch the Ordering video tutorial, paying particular attention beginning at about the 1:30 point, how all this works should be clearer to you.

Got it. And that does help. 

Yet -- there is no indication that a layer is clipped/child to another layer. Yes, I know can see and understand that an Adjustment Layer has an Adjustment Badge, and same goes for the visible Mask Badge (which is great to now know), but how do I visually distinguish a Clipped Layer? And which "blue line" -- the vertical small one that comes up right beside a layer's thumbnail or the shorter blue horizontal line that shows up beneath and to the right of the layer -- is a clipped layer? And if one of those blue lines indicates a clipped layer, what does the other indicate? 

 

Sorry if I'm utterly lost. I'm sure the answer is quite easy. I am just trying to wrap my head around it ASAP before my trial is over, because I am leaning toward buying the software and leaving Adobe. :)