Affinity Photo V2 How Using the new compound masks tutorial helps when creating. Desktop version.

In this Affinity Photo v2 desktop tutorial I show how compound masks can be so useful in your workflow. I saw this tutorial done on Photoshop by Mood on TH-cam, but without compound masks and thought about how much better compound masks makes it in Affinity.

[@williamcarter6374]

Thank you for doing this! I'm brand new to Affinity coming from Photoshop after 18 years, but sick of the changes, subscription fees and new policies.
There are many use cases for compound masks, and it can be done in PS also. I don't know the official name, but I've heard people call it "masking the mask" where it's especially useful working with complex luminosity masks and compositing work. Similar things can be accomplished using clipping masks. The process is different, but the end result the same. This video was extremely helpful to me since I'm trying to find ways to replicate my workflow in PS. Thanks again for the help!

[@DigitallyFearless]

I replaced photoshop years ago after working with it for over 20 years. Welcome to the club.

[@PhiddyPford]

Watched this at least 30 times to finally understand them. I even added more layers! Thanks

[@mikelockwood2104]

thank you - well done

[@enthusiaticbeginner]

Marvelous Rich, I learned so much in that 7 mins +, your example is just perfect! Thanks 🙂 I have just recommended on Facebook Affinity Photo page 🙂

[@DigitallyFearless]

Thanks so much! Learning so much is the best compliment I could get. I sometimes wonder whether me experimenting during the video makes people not like me, but I rather show my thinking process as I do it instead of just giving instructions. I'm glad it works for you.😊

[@mizzysparrots4874]

This is very cool. Thanks for the video and thanks for explaining it

[@DigitallyFearless]

Glad you liked it!

[@raquelbigby5501]

Thank you for answering just what I have been wondering about.

[@DigitallyFearless]

Glad to help

[@DoctorZebedee]

Always appreciate your tutorials. I'm gonna go try it right now.

[@DigitallyFearless]

Please do!

[@apexnoobgeneral6877]

cool cool

[@DigitallyFearless]

Thanks.

[@12thDecember]

Great explanation, and I think the banana is a better example than a pepper. 😃

[@DigitallyFearless]

I felt the banana was a moor a-peeling way to show compound masks. 😃

[@Gentleman_Songster]

That's great Rich, very helpful. So far I haven't had to use compound masks, but I'm pretty sure they'll be really useful once I get to grips with them.

[@DigitallyFearless]

I'm with you. I'm not sure I will use it much, but the example I gave does work, so maybe.

[@Timespider]

Thanks for posting Richard. I really like how you experiment with these apps & let us know what you find. I hadn't been to your channel for a while as youtube doesn't recommend you to me any more along with so many other channels I subscribe to.

[@DigitallyFearless]

Thanks for watching. I have had the same issue with the channels I subscribe to. Not much we can do. When on TH-cam I go to the section labeled subscribed and find all the videos that I subscribed to.

Its even more under how the maskes interact to each other, this was add, it also subtract, intersect and Xor

[@DigitallyFearless]

Yes. I am still trying to find uses for this in my projects.

[@TayoAdeniyi]

Thank you.

[@DigitallyFearless]

Thanks for watching.

[@Cyber_Kriss]

So... a compound mask is basically a "maskception", right ?

[@ptst19]

Thank you, very i teresting. Though, the order of adng mask confused me a lot.

[@DigitallyFearless]

It doesn't matter what order you add the masks. The only thing that matters is that you add a compound mask and then put the two masks inside it.

[@pedropuckerstein4670]

Rich, thanks and I repeated your experiment and determined that the order of the masks, in this case doesn't matter. What I am still confused about it the following from the help page "compound masks-a powerful masking system that uses the same Boolean operations (i.e., add, subtract, intersect or xor) but are instead applied to multiple mask layers non-destructively, i.e. without altering the individual mask layers." I wanted to understand the algorithm behind compound mask and I still can't figure it out.

[@DigitallyFearless]

I am trying to understand compound masks myself. I know without them you couldn't put two masks together and make it work in the video so that's what my tutorial was about. I will try to experiment with blend and booleans on the mask, but my mind needs to find something that I would use this on for me to understand it. I will keep trying to teach this old dog (me) new tricks.

[@pedropuckerstein4670]

@@DigitallyFearless the official affinity photo TH-cam tutorial does try to explain the Boolean operations

[@pedropuckerstein4670]

@@DigitallyFearless I did some more experimenting and of course in your example, adding masks, the order doesn't matter. I played with intersecting and or and of course the order does matter. In the past, when I wanted to highlight people in a group photo, I would create multiple shape masks, blur the background, and mask out the blur for the people I wanted to show without blur. This worked well. I think I can do the same with compound masks.

[@michaelbuddy]

In the first method, can you not unpaint the mask with the opposite color. Black or white masks or reveals?

[@DigitallyFearless]

Without the compound mask, you can paint the mask out, but you have to be so precise when near the letters. This way you don't have to.