Much appreciated! :)

Hope to do some more! Thanks for watching

Thanks for the feedback!

I will be doing soon with the subtract operator for hair selection

Glad it was helpful. Yes it does need practice but such is Affinity!

Glad it was helpful!

Many thanks!

Glad it was helpful!

Glad it helped!😃 Thanks!

Thanks for the great feedback. Yes it takes a while to remember the steps!

Many thanks!

Please do!

Thanks for watching!

Yes a lot of people (including myself) have been clamoring for an AI based selection system. They are truly laggards in this. I've heard from some commenters Affinity will have the functionality soon although not generative AI. Their non destructive masking is indeed good I was surprised photoshop was behind them in this. Never heard of substance painter. Must be one of the obscure apps of Adobe!

@@takebetterphotos8132 I feel like a software doesn't need generative Ai to be powerful... I just want more control on the user end/artist's hand... Even still to this day, Photoshop doesn't support OCIO configs for color management natively. (It is a standard for film and Television industry) There are third party plugins for this but it's kinda half baked.. Substance Painter is again a industry standard in the gaming industry, used for Texturing 3D assets and it's part of Adobe's Substance 3d suit, which they acquired from Allegorithmic...

"I feel like a software doesn't need generative Ai to be powerful". I agree although to compete with photoshop--which they are trying to do---some of the generative AI stuff---i.e. remove large objects, replace objects---are actually very useful so may they can consider it too.

Agree 💯 best bang for the buck. Quick selections in affinity were not great. Live masks are so much more accurate!

You mean darktable has compound masks as well? Is that where Affinity got the idea? Hmmm!🙂

@@takebetterphotos8132 Maybe they did (I guess they preceded ACR and Lightroom), but at some point boolean operators become a rather obvious extension to the initial combinations of masks. We can even find a Liquify module in Darktable (I tried it lately and it solved my problem). DT is a rather well equipped and fairly stable software for a free raw manager.

Have to look at DT again. See if second time is the charm 🙂

@@takebetterphotos8132 Many people say that the learning curve is steep - which means a high amount of learning stuff in a short time - but actually there's nothing to fear. It is more a matter of staying sane when confronted with the whole basket of modules - Where should I begin? In reality we only need to know a handful of the modules to make any fairly well exposed raw file look pleasant - as if it had been opened in Lightroom, ACR, AP2, PhotoLab 6, etc. I am sure you are familiar with the fact that Adobe and other raw editor designers manipulate the raw file in the background before it's even opened. Actually in AP2 there's an option to choose between the default and a flat opening curve. This common initial make-up doesn't exist in DT, and that I think is the primary reason for the aborted attempts. It can be a demotivating factor to see ones beauty open and look like a pale ghost. It's a good idea to limit the number of modules shown during the editing. There's a feature for that, and it doesn't exclude anything - all other modules are only a click away, when you want them. The masking system is extended - without offering a traditional brush, but I have been able to mask 95 percent of the tasks in DT. When you exceed 30 drawn masks the system slows down. Also modules with iteration sliders can slow down the constant updating of the pipe line. Finally, raw information out of gamma has to be handled in severe cases, but most of the time the Filmic RGB module works fine behind the scene. I have compared the severe cases with e.g. AP2 and PhotoLab 6, which both offers a good initial 'repair' behind the scene - but not better than what I can obtain with DT, after a bit concentrated editing. My general impression is that I can do more with my raw files in DT - and of course - my first motivator was to avoid the subscription models. DT is mine when I have downloaded it.

Good questions. They should be doing some AI stuff like photoshop. Hopefully they can pull it off.

Compound mask is used to improve the mask by combining the mask with another through some operation (default is ADD). If the mask you have is already suitable, no need to use the compound mask.

I have a few videos on using compound masks. Do check it out to get an idea.

The whole point with the Compound Mask tool is to be able to combine the results from more than one mask. This can be done by way of four different Modes of operations; Add, Subtract etc. The modes gives wildly different results and the best way is to experiment with each one to understand how they work. You access them by way of right-clicking on the mask icon. on the left in the layers panel. It is also possible to use a combination of masks generated by way of different mask tools such as Colour Range Mask with a Luminosity Range mask tool to get very precise selections.

Yes I know what you mean. I think by design it is that way but with regards to the reasoning have to spend time understanding it because it is a weird ommission.

I believe you can rasterize the mask into a black and white image that you can work on with both black and white brushes, if you want. When you’re satisfied with your paint job you can save it to Channels and use it as a mask by right-clicking on it in the Channels panel.

In your compound mask: you can add a secondary mask (empty) with an add operator. Paint white to get rid of any black or gray elements

Yes I agree Affinity has not updated Develop Persona in quite a while. It's starting to feel quite ancient with all the new raw editors like photomator coming out.

The reason for the compound mask is to allow for a more precise mask. For example you can add two luminosity range masks to create a better mask than any single mask. The combination can be done through add, subtract, multiply, or xor operator..

@@takebetterphotos8132 cool thank you !

Let me check it out

Thanks for checking

I have now A.P. 2.2 and it work not for me. Is samting change?