Hello everyone who will come back I'm your host Elias Sarantopoulos.
In this Affinity Designer for iPad tutorial you will learn how to add a Layer Mask and
use that to hide portions of a layer and reveal contents below.
We will use black and white color to see the effects of layer masking as well as using
a gradient to control transparency and work non-destructively.
All that in your iPad with Affinity Designer!
And so inside Affinity Designer I have opened up a document with a bunch of horizontal lines
a file that I am providing for you below the video description if you wish to follow along.
OK, so I'm going to tap on the Layer Studio and I'm going to toggle off the visibility
of these horizontal lines and let's go ahead and type a word here.
So I'm going to tap on the Artistic Text tool, I am going to type Mask and as you can see
I'm using a bold typeface, I am going to center this and the same time I'm going to increase
the stroke width here.
So under the Stroke Studio just bring up the width of it like so and under the Advanced
Options and under the Align tap on the Center alignment.
OK, alright now I know that I'm going to be using this mask layer again in the near future
so I'm just going to tap on the Edit menu and Duplicate that layer.
OK, all right now we need to actually separate the Fill from the Stroke so we're going to
tap on the Edit menu again and then tap on the Convert to Curves option and if you look
inside the group now we have four vector curves so target those, select those then tap back
on the Edit menu and then tap on the Expand Stroke option as you can see we have curves
with only the Stroke and curves with only Fill.
Now I'm going to group those curves so tap on the Group icon and then just target the
curves with just the Fill and group those as well.
At this point I am just going to rename so under the Layer Options rename this to Stroke
if you wish and then on this other group can rename this to Fill, like so.
OK, and one more thing I would like to do is actually take those two groups outside
the group itself so Select those two, tap and hold and bring those outside the group
so we are more flexible so this group is empty, you can just delete that.
And for the next part we're going to actually start adding some layer masks.
For this next step the goal is to use this shape layer as a mask over the horizontal
lines which will be cropped to that shape's outline so in other words those horizontal
lines will be inside the word mask and specifically inside the fill part.
Now a layer mask allows us to control a layer's level of transparency and we are masking based
on color which means black color conceals white color reveals.
In other words, white color in a layer mask means a hundred percent visible and black
color in a layer mask means a hundred percent transparent.
So let me go ahead and demonstrate this for you.
So I'm going to target this Fill layer and instead of red I am going to use black a color
and then I'm going to add a layer mask to it.
So tap on the Merge and Rasterize icon.
At the bottom of the list we have this option the Rasterize to Mask option that will rasterize
the selected vector layer as a mask layer.
So tap on that and now we have a layer mask.
Now whichever layer is beneath the layer mask, in this case those horizontal lines, they
will be cropped to the masked layer so go ahead and toggle on the visibility of those
horizontal lines, as you can see we cannot see anything and that's because the fill layer
was filled with black color and black color hides contents inside a mask.
So we're going to undo this and change the color from black to white, add a layer mask
and then toggle on the visibility of those horizontal lines.
As you can see because we used white color for the layer it means a hundred percent visible
which shows contents inside a layer mask.
Another idea here is to actually add another layer mask and make this a bit more interesting
so I'm going to target the first layer, going to make a duplicate out of it because I will
probably need it down the road and then I'm going top tap and hold it, bring this all
the way at the bottom of the layer stack, like so.
Now what you see it's very normal because we have a layer mask so whatever is underneath
shows up but for the moment let me go ahead and tap on those horizontal lines and with
the Move tool just going to rotate slightly like so and then instead of a black stroke
I actually use another color.
Just make sure that you have the Group Stroke is also active and then for this bottom layer
I'm going to make another duplicate and for this one I'm going to change its colors, well
you guessed it, instead of red, white because I'm going to add a layer mask to it so tap
on the Merge and Rasterize icon and use the Rasterize to Mask option and now we have a layer mask.
Now I would like to blend that layer mask with the text layer below using partial transparency,
represented by various shades of grey.
So for that I'm going to show you something new, I'm going to use the Fill tool and I'm
going to tap and drag to create a gradient.
Now this gradient right now has two stops, I'm going to add one more in the center and
that one will have a black color which means it will hide the contents of the mask and
as for the other ones we'll have a white color, like so.
OK, all right now what I'm going to do is actually group all those layers but the top one.
I am going to show you why.
First I'm going to group them, I'm going to deselect and then I'm going to add a background
but if I add a background to this group it will actually be clipped inside the mask so
that's why I had to go outside that group.
So tap and drag like so, let's change the color and then tap and hold and bring this
up the very bottom on the stack.
OK, which in this case I'm going to select those two and actually lock them because I
don't want to move them accidentally.
As for this one, the extra layer I have here, I am going to tap and drag this, tap and hold
and drag it in between those two layers.
OK, and what I am going to do is I'm you can actually slightly offset it, no need for stroke,
OK, just bring the text a bit closer and perhaps we can use a shadow on the outside.
So go to the Layer FX Studio and add an Outer Shadow and I can set its opacity to 100% let's
say and I can actually drag this around and position it interactively.
Layer masks offer great control over transparency to hide portions of a layer and reveal layers below.
They open doors to creative projects and possibilities by working non-destructively.
Thank you for spending time with me, let me know if you have any questions below the comments
section and don't forget to subscribe to my channel and share the knowledge.
Elias Sarantopoulos.