the Affinity apps operate on a layer-based system this means that objects adjustments and groups are created as individual layers these layers can be organized edited and managed on the layers panel there are many different types of layers each layer type has a unique icon shown at the beginning of the layer entry the white chevron indicates that there are layers nested inside this one either this layer is a group containing other layers or this is a parent layer with chart layers inside next to this we have the layer thumbnail to show us the layer contents and a text description of the layer type if the layer is unnamed you can also name your layers if you have applied a layer effect to the layer it will show up as an fx icon layer effects can be applied via the layer effects panel you can tap to toggle the visibility of the layer on or off layers that are hidden like this sketch layer will not be printed or exported to select a layer tap the thumbnail or the area containing the layer name or description if I want to select a layer that is childhood I can double tap it on the workspace or tap the white chevron and select the specific layer you can select multiple layers by swiping right to select a range of layers first select the top layer then tap with two fingers to select the last layer and all the layers in between will also be selected tapping another layer will deselect the existing selection if you long press on a layer you can move it up the layer stack to bring it closer to the front or move it down to place it behind other layers take care when dragging your layers as there are actually three Drop Zones where you can place the layer the long blue line indicates that the layer will be placed between the two layers if you hold it over another layer's name it will become a child layer if this is a group it will be placed inside the group if it is an object the layer will be clipped inside that object if you hold it over the thumbnail of another layer it will become a mask layer you can also use the arrange options on the context Toolbar to move layers up or down or to the top or bottom of the layer stack at the top of the layers panel we can tap to enable compact view this reduces the panel size to a compact mode showing just the visibility button and the layer's thumbnail this is great for maximizing your document view especially on smaller iPad models tap again to return to full View the three line icon will open the panel preferences here you can select all objects across all layers you also have the option to lock and unlock your selected layer and unlock all locked layers you can also hide or show your selected layer or show all hidden layers you can solo your selected layer by tapping hide others and return to your normal view by selecting show others unlike show all this will only show the layers that were previously visible leaving any hidden layers The Way They Were at the bottom of the preferences you can toggle some options when show unlocked is enabled a gray open padlock will appear on each layer this is useful for locking and unlocking layers quickly but it's also great to have the option to hide this if you like to keep your layers panel uncluttered when auto scroll is enabled you can select a layer and the panel view will move to view the selected layer if it is nested the parent or group layer will be expanded so the selected chart layer can be seen show group thumbnail is great for previewing all the group's content but if you disable this feature it can help you to identify which layers are groups this works well when groups are clearly named although it can be useful to see the layer type icon you can hide these by toggling show object type if you'd rather have a less busy layers panel edit all layers allows you to make selections across all layers with this disabled you can only make selections within the group of your selected layer I'll just re-enable it for the rest of the video when the checkerboard background is enabled transparent areas of the thumbnail display a checkerboard pattern depending on your preference this might help you to see the contents of the layer in the top right of the panel we have the pin icon when you start interacting with the workspace the panels close automatically to give you access to more of your workspace tapping the pin icon will keep the panel open while you work below these are some quick access options you can press add to create a new layer here we have the option to create a vector or pixel layer if we've already made a selection on the workspace we could choose to create a mask layer based on that selection or we could create an empty mask layer which ignores any selections we could also create an empty group to organize our layers into next to this we have the merge and rasterize options the rasterize options convert Vector layers to pixel layers and in the process they can also trim off canvas content or convert the layer to a mask the merge options enable you to amalgamate the currently selected pixel layer with the layer directly below or merge multiple selected pixel layers together if you choose to merge visible then all visible layers will be combined into one pixel layer any visible Vector layers will be rasterized and included in the new pixel layer if you have a parent or group layer selected you can expand or collapse these layers or collapse all parent layers in the layer stack next along are the grouping options here you can create a normal group or a variety of warp groups if you currently have a group selected the group option will change to ungroup instead after that is the remove button this will delete any currently selected layers the bin icon at the bottom of the tools panel will do this too the three dots icon will open the layer options here we can rename the layer by tapping its description or name at the top of the panel now I can type a name for this layer and tap ok we can also change the layer opacity and try out the different blend modes below is another way to hide or show selected layers lock or unlock them and enter solo View below this we have a gamma slider to determine the distribution of mid-tone pixels in layer blending the anti-aliasing modes control anti-aliasing behavior for selected layers anti-aliasing is a technique used to remove Jagged edges although it can reduce the jagged appearance it can also make lines fuzzier inherit is the default option and this adopts anti-aliasing from any parent layer alternatively you could change this to force on to apply anti-aliasing or Force off to disable anti-aliasing independently of other layers below you can select which color channels will be affected when adjusting the blend ranges on the source and dust graphs finally at the bottom of the layer options you can select color tags to tag layers making them easier to find in the layer stack this means that you can also take advantage of the select same function to quickly select all the layers with the same tag color going back to the main view of the layers panel we can also change the layer opacity and blend modes from here and quickly return the settings to a hundred percent opacity and normal blend modes with the double tap on each you can also double tap the layer thumbnail to zoom into that object to speed up workflows you can swipe left to open a menu of shortcuts including add to selection delete lock or unlock and rename layers most people will develop a preferred way of working so it's good to know the options to find what works for you there are also some keyboard modifiers that you may find useful holding command will enable you to select multiple layers individually or you can hold shift to select a range you could also go back to command to remove layers from the selection the option modifier also has a few different capabilities holding option and tapping the thumbnail will solo that layer and then return to the normal view or selecting a different layer will also return to the normal View you can also use option to create duplicates of selected layers by holding it while you drag the copies to the new position on the layer stack and finally if you hold option while you open a parent layer it will expand all groups layers and other nested items within that parent layer and holding option when you collapse the parent layer will collapse everything neatly so if I open it again without the modifier we can see that the groups inside have all been collapsed this is a more convenient way to expand and collapse selections without having to open the merge and rasterize menu so that was a look at the layers panel functionality and a few tips to help speed up your workflow thanks for watching