Transparent text in PS or Affinity

This is driving me nuts. I’ve achieved it in the past. Say I put an image into Section Pro and fix the background. Then another Pro undeath with a coloured png file with transparent text. Like this

Any ideas? I think I need to make the text a shape but I’ve forgotten how

Convert to curves then use the subtract tool?

In Affinity? Can’t see those options in PS.

It has been so long since I used PS that I can’t even be certain about this, but as far as I recall, PS doesn’t have that function. You would need a vector app such as Illustrator, Designer, Graphic App, etc…

There is probably a $1 iOS app that does it well.

I’m now using Affinity and getting there, still cant work it our though.

In affinity, try converting the text to curves then using the subtract tools.

Cant help more, not at computer.

Affinity what?

Designer. I can convert to curves but subtracting just deletes them, it doesn’t cut it out.

You may need to subtract each letter one at a time.

Just deletes them Gary

In which case, sorry, I’ll try to get a look later.

I just fired up Designer and it works or me. What I did was I created a large red square, added a character as text, converted to curves, selected all and did a Subtract, and that worked.

So I created a new document

Then I placed text on it

Then I selected it and converted to curves

I selected all the curves

I subtracted

And it deleted everything but the first one

Group the letter curves, select them and the background, subtract.

They are already. And I dont get the option to subtract with that advice

I don’t know if thishelps:
When a font character is converted to outlines, it creates a compound path if there’s two paths in the letter. For example, P, R, O, Q etc.
A compound path is treated as one object which is why the whole character gets deleted. I don’t use Affinity but in AI you can convert compound paths to ordinary paths.

Probably the simplest method is to
1 type the text
2 Add the image
3 Drag the image layer under the text layer


4 Drink a little coffee…

There is no image. It’s just a colour with cut out text. So I can use to to overlay a fixed background

Try not grouping the letters and subtract one at a time.

Out of curiosity, I just tried it in Graphic App and that works fine by grouping the characters and subtracting. Les clicks too.

Individually they also do not have the option to subtract. I’ll check the app though, thanks.