The selection tool is driving me insane

[carl123]

There are many types of layers in the Affinity products.

Image layers and Pixel layers are just 2 of them and they are different. Both with advantages and disadvantages over the other depending on what you want to do with them.

Certain tools will not work directly on image layers but there are still ways to do things such as...

"Selecting" just a piece of an image layer

"Deleting" just a piece of an image layer

...without having to rasterise the layer

For certain functions Affinity users just need to learn and use the right "tools" when dealing with image layers.

Image layers must never be routinely converted to Pixel layers in the Affinity products just because people don't understand them. 

They exist for a reason

[Jowday]

It is just such an obvious case of bad usability. 

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, Jeremy Bohn said:

There is almost no way to tell the difference in the layer types ...

Not true. In addition to the Layers panel, the History panel shows "Add Image" whenever an image layer is added to a document. That might not be noticed, but when an image layer is selected, the context toolbar provides some obvious indications that something is different. For one thing, it shows the pixel dimensions & DPI of the image layer, & now there is also in 1.7 a popup for that with several options:

That, plus the "Replace Image" button & the other context toolbar options should make it clear that an image layer keeps its native pixel resolution & is treated as a vector-like object, quite unlike pixel layers. The updated Affinity Photo 1.7 Place Images help topic in the <ahem> Getting Started section also provides this info, so it not as if users new to the software have to figure this out on their own.

The bottom line is the Affinity apps are not clones of Adobe's or anybody else's apps, nor are they intended to be. It may take some time to get used to that, but there is nothing dumb about Affinity's image layers or how they differ from other layer types.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Jowday said:

It is just such an obvious case of bad usability. 

The usability of image layers is indeed different from what some users new to the software are familiar with, but there is nothing inherently bad about that. They are particularly useful in workflows when it is desirable to minimize the number of destructive operations.

[Fixx]

4 hours ago, carl123 said:

Certain tools will not work directly on image layers but there are still ways to do things such as...

"Selecting" just a piece of an image layer

"Deleting" just a piece of an image layer

...without having to rasterise the layer

I would prefer these would happen as expected, behind the scenes, so that you could copy or cut a selection from image layer. Now, should the result be in document dpi or layer dpi? Layer dpi I would think..

[eobet]

58 minutes ago, Fixx said:

I would prefer these would happen as expected, behind the scenes, so that you could copy or cut a selection from image layer. Now, should the result be in document dpi or layer dpi? Layer dpi I would think..

Same here. Saying and doing nothing makes the user believe that the program isn't working correctly.

• I see zero reason why selecting a piece of an image layer for copying and pasting wouldn't work. Just rasterize the result.
• Deleting a piece of an image layer should just automatically create a mask with that piece masked out.

That would not only do what the user expected it to do, but it will also implicitly teach the user about the difference between an image and a pixel layer (and remind an experienced user who might forget in a hurry, because the label is very small)!

[carl123]

1 hour ago, eobet said:

I see zero reason why selecting a piece of an image layer for copying and pasting wouldn't work. Just rasterize the result.

You are missing the point, there are times when you want an Image layer to remain an image layer, " just rasterizing the result" is the last thing you would want the program to do in those situations.

If you draw a shape (e.g. rectangle) and use the selection tools try to copy a selection or delete a selection, from the shape, you also cant do that.

Would you expect the program to just rasterise those shapes for you as well?

A shape layer is different from a pixel layer in the same way an image layer is different from a pixel layer

You may never have need of an Image layer in the work you use APhoto for but one day you just might find out how useful they can be due to their unique characteristics which pixel layers do not have.

 

[Alfred]

24 minutes ago, carl123 said:

You are missing the point, there are times when you want an Image layer to remain an image layer, " just rasterizing the result" is the last thing you would want the program to do in those situations.

I understand @eobet to be suggesting that the original Image layer should remain an Image layer, but if you use the ‘Copy’ command when a selection marquee is active, the new copy should be rasterized in the background so that the user is left with only the selected region on the clipboard (or on the new layer if you use ‘Duplicate’ instead of ‘Copy’).

[carl123]

1 minute ago, Alfred said:

I understand @eobet to be suggesting that the original Image layer should remain an Image layer, but if you use the ‘Copy’ command when a selection marquee is active, the new copy should be rasterized in the background so that the user is left with only the selected region on the clipboard (or on the new layer if you use ‘Duplicate’ instead of ‘Copy’). 

Then you would have an Image layer with a part of it (on a new layer being a raster layer) that has to be more awkward to work with than just using one type of layer for the same image

Why not just make your selection on the image layer (duplicated or not as required) and then hit the mask button in the Layers panel, that way everything remains as image layers

[Jowday]

How would the average user - and the Affinity target audience is pretty average, many have little experience with advanced editing - understand the difference between image and pixel layers and actually utilize this feature? A feature is next to useless if not usable or easy to understand.

The user interface offers ZERO help or clues, and I don't see it explained at all in the help:

https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/index.html

The best we have is perhaps the explanation the good sport @MEB shared with us:

Quote

An Image layer keeps all the original image data intact and Affinity use it when you export your document (contrary to a Pixel layer which becomes detached from the original data).

Embedded document layers are a different thing. They can contain an entire document - not just images - , but shapes, text, layers etc depending on the type of document you are embedding. If you double click an embedded document object/layer on canvas, Affinity will open it in a new document tab with all different objects it contains available for editing. If you change/edit them, the embedded document object/layer you double-clicked in the original document will be updated accordingly.

You can embed several types of files/documents, from PDF, PSD, SVG's etc. all usually containing several objects types (text, shapes other layers etc).

But bottom line: the discussion here and the widespread confusion about what the difference is means... hire a user experience designer, Serif.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Fixx said:

I would prefer these would happen as expected, behind the scenes, so that you could copy or cut a selection from image layer. Now, should the result be in document dpi or layer dpi? Layer dpi I would think..

The issue I see with that is a marching ants selection encloses an area defined in document pixels, not image pixels. Since the two could be very different, this would create a substantial uncertainty in what actually would be copied or cut from the image layer, regardless of how the image layer was rasterized behind the scenes to make the cut or copy.

This means there could be no simple, straightforward "as expected" result -- very often a great many more or fewer pixels than expected would be copied or cut, which I suspect would cause even more confusion & complaints about the software not working as desired.

[R C-R]

21 minutes ago, Jowday said:

The user interface offers ZERO help or clues, and I don't see it explained at all in the help:

Did you maybe overlook the Place Images help topic at https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/pages/GetStarted/placeImages.html? It is the 7th topic in the Getting Started section.

Even if users skip reading the Getting Started help topics, I think the items on the context toolbar when an image layer is selected should be more than enough of a clue that image layers have different properties from pixel layers, including the very useful ones of retaining their pixel dimensions & DPIs so they can be reset at any time to their original values (something quite a few users have been requesting for years) & a simple, easy to use replacement feature.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, carl123 said:

Why not just make your selection on the image layer (duplicated or not as required) and then hit the mask button in the Layers panel, that way everything remains as image layers

Because I didn't think of doing that?  

But now that I have tried it, I am impressed by all the things I can do with it, like locking children on the parent image layer to control how the mask child layer behaves if the image layer is resized, & using the new Cycle Selection Box feature with the Transform Origin feature to rotate, shear, or resize the mask layer, either on canvas or with the Transform panel.

The best part about it is it is all completely non-destructive so I can play around with it without worrying about messing anything up in the original image. Very cool! 

[Jeremy Bohn]

8 hours ago, R C-R said:

Not true. In addition to the Layers panel, the History panel shows "Add Image" whenever an image layer is added to a document. That might not be noticed, but when an image layer is selected, the context toolbar provides some obvious indications that something is different. For one thing, it shows the pixel dimensions & DPI of the image layer, & now there is also in 1.7 a popup for that with several options:

That, plus the "Replace Image" button & the other context toolbar options should make it clear that an image layer keeps its native pixel resolution & is treated as a vector-like object, quite unlike pixel layers. The updated Affinity Photo 1.7 Place Images help topic in the <ahem> Getting Started section also provides this info, so it not as if users new to the software have to figure this out on their own.

The bottom line is the Affinity apps are not clones of Adobe's or anybody else's apps, nor are they intended to be. It may take some time to get used to that, but there is nothing dumb about Affinity's image layers or how they differ from other layer types.

To clarify, I mean in the Layers panel there isn't anything that's very helpful. I never would have thought to look elsewhere for this information. Over time, a person can learn to tell the difference. I can see the difference now, but when I was a new user I had no idea and was frustrated to the point of no longer using the app. And even now that I know, I often forget about the differences. And that's my point R C-R - you keep trying to justify why things work the way they do and I'm telling you it's too confusing for a lot of new users. I'm not saying they need to change the layer types but need to do more to explain the 2 types (image/pixel) because they look almost exactly the same. The fact that the online Help does not mention the layer types where it needs to (for instance, my Flood Select example) highlights the fact that Serif is only thinking from an experienced position, and not the new user or Photoshop user, and frustrated users might give up and Serif loses a customer.

P.S. side note: I also don't understand why it's called "Rasterize" in the Layers panel. This is because an image is already raster information. I think Rasterize is the wrong term. Also, after I've rasterized a layer, why is the command still available? The command should be dimmed out once I've already used it on a particular layer. I know, I know, this is a whole other topic but this all just adds to the confusion.

[Jeremy Bohn]

6 hours ago, eobet said:

Same here. Saying and doing nothing makes the user believe that the program isn't working correctly.

• I see zero reason why selecting a piece of an image layer for copying and pasting wouldn't work. Just rasterize the result.
• Deleting a piece of an image layer should just automatically create a mask with that piece masked out.

That would not only do what the user expected it to do, but it will also implicitly teach the user about the difference between an image and a pixel layer (and remind an experienced user who might forget in a hurry, because the label is very small)!

Exactly, and this happened to me.

[R C-R]

18 minutes ago, Jeremy Bohn said:

To clarify, I mean in the Layers panel there isn't anything that's very helpful.

Do you mean apart from the different parenthetical suffixes? I can't speak for anyone but myself, but for me it was one of the first things I noticed when I was trying out Affinity Designer back when it was first released. Likewise, I noticed there was a 'Replace' button on the context toolbar when an image layer was selected, but not for other layer types. Same thing when I started checking out the History panel.

I don't think this was because I am super observant or anything like that, just that I did not expect everything to be the same as in other software. So when something looked or worked differently, I wanted to find out why.

I try (not always successfully) to do that with every app that is new to me, including for updates, because for me it avoids a lot of needless frustration.

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, ErrkaPetti said:

Yeah, great tip!

I think so, too. It is a good example of the Affinity apps' emphasis on flexible, non-destructive editing.

I also think @carl123 deserves a lot of "likes" for that tip. <hint, hint> 

 

[carl123]

32 minutes ago, ErrkaPetti said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

Then you have an outcut in an non pixellayer...

Not sure what you mean by that

But if you want to erase/delete part of an Image layer

Make a selection of what you want to erase, invert the selection and hit the Mask button in the layers panel

The Image layer remains an Image layer and again it's non-destructive

[kamiC]

On 7/25/2019 at 4:42 AM, Jeremy Bohn said:

make the app tell you that the tool will have no affect when you click on the layer? Something like "The currently selected tool will not work with the current layer until it's converted to pixels" and then offer to convert it.

I agree with you Jeremy. I have experienced the same perplexing problem and took me a long while to find the answer to learn what was going on. I eventually came upon a video that explained the difference between layer types. Although the layer itself displays the kind of layer it is, it did not help my confusion when the tool was not working as I expected it. Jeremy 's suggested prompt would have been very helpful. I hope Serif will do something about it.

[Jeremy Bohn]

I just encountered a similar thing at work using Photoshop. I had a smart layer, basically the same as Affinity Photo's image layer, and I tried to select part of it and delete it. When I pressed the delete key, Photoshop alerted me that I can't do that to the current layer. Affinity Photo should do that!

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bohn said:

When I pressed the delete key, Photoshop alerted me that I can do that to the current layer.

Are you sure that is what you meant to write?

[Jeremy Bohn]

Fixed typo.