this is the fifth in a series of videos designed to help you learn photo editing with affinity
photo desktop in this video we're taking an in-depth look at layers i'll be focusing on the
most important features to help you understand and use them better after all layers are an essential
part of affinity photo but they can quickly become confusing especially if you're new to affinity
you'll also be learning a few powerful but simple tricks you can use with layers to create
impressive effects let's begin to understand layers with this image of a man on a pier
except that it isn't really a photo of a man on a pier the man and peer were photographed separately
and the shadow is made up from a copy of the man the image you see is a composite of these three
elements each on a separate layer but to know that and see the layers you need to look in the
layers studio panel the layers studio panel is an essential part of photo editing an affinity photo
if you can't see it you can make it visible in the view menu come down to the studio section when you
click a studio panel in the list it toggles the visibility on and off then when i click the tick
box to the right of a layer we can toggle that layer visibility off and on it's a combination
of these three layers that produces the image that we see the three layers in this image are examples
of what we call pixel layers you can see this displayed in the brackets after the layer name
there are several other types of layers supported infinity photo which we'll come back to in a
moment what's important to understand about the pixel layer is that it's made up of pixels as the
name suggests in our example image the background layer covers the entire visible area of the photo
document which we discussed in the first video of this course if we turn that layer off you can see
the pixels in the other layers only cover a small area of the document the rest of those layers
are empty making them transparent the transparent areas are indicated by the gray check pattern
it's these transparent areas that allow the lower layers in the image to be seen it's only where you
see the pixels of the man and the shadow that they prevent you from seeing the lower layers
let's move the background layer now to be the top layer by clicking and dragging it without mouse
now its pixels hide the other two layers let's switch to a different image now so we can do some
editing with layers a moment ago i said that affinity photo supports other types of layers
as well as pixel layers possibly the most useful of these in photo editing is the adjustment layer
you can add these to an image by clicking the new adjustment layer icon at the bottom
of the layers panel currently there are 22 of these adjustment layers which appear as a list
each has a different purpose but most of them apply some sort of change to the appearance of
an image for example we can add a black and white adjustment layer to convert this image
from colour to black and white what we then see is a dialogue we can use to control how the black and
white image is produced by making colours lighter or darker but all an adjustment layer is doing
is applying a mathematical calculation to the layer below it that's what makes the image
appear black and white it also means that we can turn the effect off by hiding the layer we can do
this because the pixels of the lower layer haven't been directly affected or changed by the black and
white layer another type of layer we can add is a text layer affinity photo automatically creates a
text layer when we add text to an image using the artistic text tool you can see the new layer in
the layers studio panel and we can hide or show it just like the other layers and because this
layer is on top in the layers panel it isn't being affected by the black and white layer but when i
drag the black and white adjustment layer to the top it turns the text light gray now i want you to
hold on to the idea that the order of layers is important because we'll need to return to
it later first though i want to show you a useful technique for making non-destructive image repairs
first i'll hide the two layers we just added so that they don't interfere with the example
let's say that we want to remove some of the branches of the tree using the affinity photo
in painting brush many affinity photo users are tempted to work directly onto the image
to remove the branches instead start by adding a new empty pixel layer using the layers menu
because this layer is empty it's completely transparent and we can see any layers below
it next i'll set the in painting brush tool to sample the current layer and below when making its
repair this means it's going to sample from the layer i have selected in the layer studio panel
and any layers below that now i can paint over the branches that i want to remove to make my repair
whilst the impainting brush is sampling all the layers to make the repair
the repair is actually being made onto the layer i have selected which means i can turn it off and on
it also means that i don't damage the original background layer where the image is this is an
example of non-destructive editing which is one reason layers are so useful in photo editing
if the impainting brush was applied to the background layer i'd only be able to use the
undo command to remove it also it would only be possible to do this while i had the image open
once the image is closed and editing history lost you wouldn't be able to undo the changes if you
opened it again instead by using layers if i save the image in a file format that supports those
layers next time i open the image i can still remove the repair it's therefore a good idea to
save the images you're editing using the affinity photo format as i explained in an earlier video
now there is a problem when you're using lots of layers in an image which is it can become
confusing the way to avoid this is with a few simple steps first when you add a new layer
to the image give it a meaningful name you can double click on the layer type or the name in
the layers panel to open a dialog to rename it so i might call this image layer repair
if you want to remove a layer from an image you could delete it by clicking the dustbin
icon in the layers panel or you can just hide it it's also possible to put layers into groups
which can help to organize them select the layers that you want to group by clicking on them whilst
holding down the command key on your keyboard if you're using a windows pc that's the control key
you can then click the group icon at the bottom of the layers studio panel and just like with
layers you can rename the groups to indicate their purpose do remember though groups are
not just like folders and their behavior can become confusing which i'll explain in a moment
now earlier i said that the order of the layers was important and that we needed to discuss this
further to demonstrate let's remove the two layers from the group we created we've already seen that
the black and white adjustment layer acts on the layers below it in the studio panel but because
the repair layer we added is above it the repair is still in color this happened even though we set
the in painting brush to sample the lower layers when making its repair that's because the other
layers weren't visible at the time the repair was made so the repair is in color to convert
the repair layer to black and white we just need to change the order of the layers so the black and
white layer is on top but if we move the black and white layer to the bottom it doesn't affect
any of the layers in the image move it up one and it only affects the background the text and
the repair are still in color but let's imagine we want to convert the text layer to black and white
we could move the text to the bottom and then put the black and white layer above it
the text is then black and white but it's now being hidden from the image so you don't see it
if we still want to see the text and only convert that to black and white we need to do something
special we'll start by positioning the black and white adjustment layer but the text layer that
we want to apply it to now we can right click on the black and white layer and select the option
mask to below in the pop-up menu now the black and white conversion is only being applied to the text
you can see that it's been repositioned below and slightly indented in the layers panel
we can also collapse and expand this collection of layers if you want to undo this you can click
and drag the black and white layer to drop it in another position and that's also another way to
mask a layer to another so that it only affects that layer when i drag the black and white layer
over the text layer thumbnail you can see a blue highlight appear to the right you then see
a preview of what will happen when you drop the layer in that position before you actually release
the mouse button let's undo this though because there is another way to achieve something similar
to demonstrate i'll group the text and black and white layers together with the black and
white layer on top now the black and white layer only affects the layers below it in that group if
i switch the order of the two layers so that the text is on top it's then in color again a lot of
people find this behavior confusing especially if they're used to photoshop where groups are treated
slightly differently in affinity photo groups work in a hierarchy where the order of the layer
in that group is important it's then the result of combining those layers in the group together that
is displayed in the image you can also turn the group visibility off to hide all the layers inside
now let's look at a few powerful features that you can use for photo editing with layers
each layer and layer group has an opacity setting which is set at the top of the
layer studio when that layer is selected by default it's set to 100 when you add a layer
but if i reduce the opacity you can see the layer becomes transparent one way you can use this is
when editing with the adjustment layers let's add a curves adjustment as the top layer in this image
i'll then use this to increase the image contrast by applying what we call an s-curve
the problem though is that it can be difficult to get the adjustment just right
sometimes we make an adjustment like this and it's too strong and sometimes it's not strong enough
typically you look away for a couple of minutes and when you come back you notice that it's not
right it then becomes very fiddly trying to refine the curves adjustment a better way is
to start with the adjustment layer opacity set at around 60 percent now we can apply the curves
adjustment to the level that we want if when we return to the image we find that it's too strong
we reduce the layer opacity or if it's too weak we can increase the opacity the next example that
i want to share uses something called blending modes i'll start by creating a consolidated image
as the top layer by selecting layer and then merge visible from the menu
the new layer is a copy of the other layers in the image combined together now i can change the
blending mode of the new layer in the layer studio panel the default blending mode is normal but
there are lots of others to choose from which all produce different effects some like screen will
lighten an image whilst others will darken them i'm going to choose soft light which increases
the image contrast and also color saturation with the layer opacity at 100 the effect is too strong
but by reducing the opacity i can control its strength the third example of a complex edit using
layers is to add a drop shadow to text if i wanted to add a drop shadow to the yorkshire dales text
manually it would be a lot of work but watch this after selecting the layer i can click the fx icon
at the bottom of the layer studio in the layer effects dialog i can then select from different
special effects i want to apply i'll choose the outer shadow option to add a drop shadow
i can then use the sliders in the dialog to precisely control the shadow's appearance
these are all examples of how you can use layers to easily create powerful effects but to get the
most out of layers you need to know about layer masks which is a subject of the next video in
this course if it's been published you'll see it here now and you should watch that next otherwise
watch this video for another powerful example of using layers also don't forget to subscribe and
please share this video with other affinity photo users i'll see you in the next video