Khaluna Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 Good evening, I've been struggling to find the alredy repeatedly mentioned button to convert a curve created with the pen tool into a selection. It is said that this button should be shown in the context toolbar, but I fail to find it. I've wondered if it has been removed with a previous update, since the posts I've been reading on this topic dated back to 2015.I tried to look around in the right-click menu and other places but I did not manage to solve the problem. Please help :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted January 31, 2017 Staff Share Posted January 31, 2017 Hi niikage, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) Those buttons to convert a path to a selection or to a mask are only available in Affinity Photo (context toolbar), not Designer. A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaluna Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 Hi niikage, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) Those buttons to convert a path to a selection or to a mask are only available in Affinity Photo (context toolbar), not Designer. Hello and thank you for the welcome aswell as the quick reply :) So is there no way to do this in Designer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 (edited) In Affinity Designer on Windows you can create a selection by going to the Layers panel and Ctrl-clicking on the thumbnail of a pixel layer; I presume you can do the same on a Mac by Cmd-clicking. As this only works on pixel layers, it follows that you would need to rasterize a stroke created with the Pen Tool before you could create a selection from it. Edited February 1, 2017 by Alfred Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted February 1, 2017 Staff Share Posted February 1, 2017 Hi niikage, In Designer just ⌘ (cmd) + click the layer's thumbnail to create a selection from it. There's no need to rasterise the layer first. @Alfred It works for all type of layers (vector, pixel layers, even groups). A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaluna Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 Hi niikage, In Designer just ⌘ (cmd) + click the layer's thumbnail to create a selection from it. There's no need to rasterise the layer first. @Alfred It works for all type of layers (vector, pixel layers, even groups). The Ctrl + click works on all my layers, except on the curve I need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted February 1, 2017 Staff Share Posted February 1, 2017 It is an open curve? Does it have a stroke applied? A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaluna Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 It is a closed curve with the basic stroke applied to it, I just drew it without chaning anything on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 In Designer just ⌘ (cmd) + click the layer's thumbnail to create a selection from it. There's no need to rasterise the layer first. Thanks, Miguel. That's how I thought it should work, but when I tested it before posting I didn't get the 'marching ants'. I think I must have clicked on a layer where the visibility checkbox wasn't checked. By the way, marching ants don't display correctly here if I select a diamond shape. As you can see from the attached screenshot, some of the lines flash between solid and invisible instead of toggling between two dashed states. Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted February 1, 2017 Staff Share Posted February 1, 2017 Hi niikage, You must ⌘ (cmd) + click the layer's thumbnail in the Layers panel. Can you please attach a sample file with only that curve? Here's how to attach a file/image. A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaluna Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 That's what I did. After all, it worked perfectly fine on my other layers. I now removed the outline, stroke and everything trying to make it work. Probably unnecessary. Curve.afdesign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted February 1, 2017 Staff Share Posted February 1, 2017 You can't select it because it has no fill or stroke applied (it's only a vector path) - there's no pixel data to select. Fill it with any color and you will be able to select it as described (you can then remove the fill colour again). A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaluna Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 Thank you, it worked :)Can I now use this selection to apply it to another layer and cut that part out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 As MEB has indicated, you need to have pixel data to work with, so if your other layer is a vector layer you could rasterize it (or a copy of it) and use it that way. However, if you started by creating a selection from a vector layer and your target layer is also a vector layer, you might want to investigate the 'Combine' and 'Divide' boolean operations. Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrevorW Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 Pen tool selection: it is my preferred way of making the basic selection...but can you tell me why the selection is bleeding both into the subject and surroundings? The pen tool for selection is supposed to avoid this - or at least did in PS. I have tried refine edge but to no avail. I also did as I always do and switched into Q to paint in and out to refine (in this case the bleeding). But I cannot fathom why I have the problem at all. A path cannot bleed... even when converted into a selection, I guess??? Very annoying - please advise. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted March 10, 2017 Staff Share Posted March 10, 2017 Hi Trevor, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) It shouldn't. Do you have an FX or Live Filter Blur directly applied or affecting the path (placed above it in the layers stack in the Layers panel)? Without seeing the file it's difficult to guess what's going on.... A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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