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Thank you! That was just to show what colour paint was being used. Realistically, though, that wouldn't happen.

Empty masks used to be called black masks then, starting with version 2, they were renamed to empty masks. I think it's better to it a black mask. Anyway, black and empty do the same thing: they make something invisible.

First select the figure you want to place in front of the rectangle. Once you've completed your selection click the "Refine..." button on the context toolbar at the top of the screen. At the bottom of the Refine Selection dialog you'll see "Output." By default it's set to 'Selection.' Change it to 'New layer with mask' and click apply. The selected figure will be placed by itself onto a new layer. You can now create your rectangle which will be on its own pixel layer. Now you can simply move the rectangle's pixel layer under the layer containing the selected figure from your photo. Hope this helps.

Ha ha! They changed the interface. Now if you hold down the option key and click on the icon you'll get the little menu like in the video.

@@billblakely Thanks.

The UI has changed since the video was made. You now have to hold the option key down to access the drop down menu.

@@billblakely Thank you Bill. While I'm here, I'd like to point out that I tried to recreate your white mask example at 2.22 approx. but haven't been able to..... I'm a bit of a noob and have been struggling a bit with black masks/white masks and have gone over that example many times but still don't understand how we get different results. I could not replicate the black line over the pink background, what I get is simply a white line right through both the pink square and the yellow circle; I tried setting the background to transparent and then I get a line showing the checkered background through both... is there some setting to do with layers or masks that I'm getting wrong? Also, when I apply an empty mask, I just get a white screen, unlike your pink background... I'm hoping it's easily resolved! Thanks.

My apologies. The first part of the video is a graphical representation to help explain how masks work. The black line you speak of is there simply to show the colour paint being used. In reality you wouldn't see that; you would see what you're getting. Sorry for the confusion. But the good news is that the masks are working as they should and you're doing everything right. If you only want to make the circle invisible you can do it two ways: 1. Put the circle on a separate layer all by itself and apply an empty mask to that layer 2. Leave everything on one layer and apply a mask and paint black over the circle to make it invisible or apply an empty mask and paint white around the circle so everything but the circle is visible. Of course you have to paint on the mask layer. Hope this helped.

@@billblakely Thanks Bill, I feel so much better knowing it's not me just being thick! Well, I've just come down with the flu, but apart from that... I'll try out your example later. Much appreciate you getting back to me ☺

I agree. White masks and empty (black) masks are one and the same. They're just masks: one is painted white and the other black. It does confuse things. But having a mask that is automatically painted all white or black for you is handy. Maybe calling them "White Painted" and "Black Painted" would be clearer and more straightforward. I don't know why Serif calls a black mask an Empty Mask. I don't care for it. But, alll in all, this is pretty minor stuff.

Having given it further thought, I think having white and black masks helps make them easier to understand. Masks have no counterpart in the physical world.Whether you paint a clear pane of glass white, black or any shade of grey, it will become opaque. You won't be able to see through it. So masks are completely abstract. And having white and black masks doesn't really complicate anything. It's a good way to think about them: white is transparent, black is opaque, and shades of grey are somewhere in between. But calling a black mask an empty mask adds needless confusion and breaks the colour metaphor. That was a really bad idea.

I understand how you feel. The problem with masks is that they're completely abstract. There's nothing like them in the real world. Why not experiment with them? Load a jpeg into Affinity. You'll just have a single image layer. Apply a mask to it and paint on it with white, black and grey brushes and observe the different effects each brush colour has. Just keep doing that until you figure it out. It's actually pretty simple. I'm sure you'll get it.

@@billblakely Thank you for your kind reply. What I would like to achieve is to slectively sharpen, say, parts of a landscape scene, whilst protecting the rest. Is this done using masks? Would it be an empty mask on top of a pixel layer that has had a sharpening adjustment layer applied first; then a white brush to reveal the parts you want to show has been sharpened? I am just blind to the process lol. You are right though, I need to keep trying them out in Affinity Photo. Thanks again.

​@@billblakely Its not 8am here, yet and I'm sat putting my idea in to practice and it has worked. Then I reversed the process using a 'white' mask and black brush to hide specific parts of the sharpened image; and it worked too lol. I am seeing some light. Your video actually did the trick for me more than I had initially realised - the principles you shared. Thank you again 👍 I just need to persevere.

Wow! That's great. You're well on the way. Congratulations! Thanks for sharing.

@@billblakely Thanks for your encouragement, Bill.

Thanks for the feedback. I was wondering about this. I do enhance the bass in my audio. Sometimes it is the sound system one's using. I know if I watch one person's videos on my TV his bassy voice blends into the background and I can't make out a word, but on my computer he sounds just fine. I don't have a problem with my own videos but, of course, I already know what I'm saying. I will see what I can do about this for future videos. In the meantime, if it helps, you can turn on captioning. It works quite well. Thanks again.

@@billblakely This was on my computer where everything is normally crystal clear

Okay, this is helpful. Thank you.

Your voice was perfect. Change nothing...

Thanks for the feedback! Sorry for the late reply. Just saw this.