Macro question

JimCricket · February 24, 2026 at 1:32 AM

I have made very limited use of Macros. To date, I have only used them to be able to repeat rather straightforward actions. But I am facing a set of steps that I would love to turn into a simple Macro but not only am I dubious it is even possible, if it is possible, I am unsure how to set it up. I hope I can describe this clearly enough.

I'm colorizing a black & white line drawing.

From this:

To this:

I make three layers. I change the blend mode of two of the layers (one to Color Burn; another to Hue). And then into each layer I place three different color balance adjustments, and one of the layers an HSL adjustment.

Right now I keep a template open of a previous file done, with all the layers still intact. Then I copy and paste each adjustment into the appropriate layer. And voila it is colored. (I decided to add ears after I had drawn all the images and that would have to still be done separately.)

Is what I'm doing even possible to turn into a Macro? Can Macros understand that I am dragging something into Layer 2, and record that? Can Macros understand that I have set Layer 2's blend mode to Hue, and Layer 3's to Color Burn?

It's either all or nothing. If I still have to do some of the steps manually/separately, I might as well continue to do what I'm doing.

smadell · February 24, 2026 at 4:43 AM

Hi JimCricket. If you attach that template to a post so the actual structure is more obvious, creating a macro should be possible.

JimCricket · February 24, 2026 at 11:37 AM

Sorry didn't think of that.

Not sure if you meant a picture of the layers or the actual file. Here's both.

If you're actually going to make a Macro, you can ignore the ears. They have to change for each file.

smadell · February 24, 2026 at 6:52 PM

Good morning, JimCricket. I made a macro for you, and I think it's what you're after. Please note - the macro is named "Layers and Colors.afmacro". This is an individual macro, NOT a macro category.

The file is attached, but I had to make it into a ZIP file because of CreoFora limitations. You need to Un-Zip it first. Then, to get it into Affinity, do the following:

(1) Make sure the "Macro" panel is open. This macro will not get loaded if you try to get it into the Library panel. (2) At the very top of the Macro panel, there are a bunch of icons. Hover over them one by one, and find the one that will "Import" the macro. Click on that icon, and navigate your way to the "Layers and Colors.afmacro" file. Import this. (3) The macro will get loaded into the Macro panel. (4) You can run the macro from there by clicking the "Run" icon. However, if you want to keep it you should click on the icon labelled "Add to Library". This will let you save the macro to a category in the Library panel. (5) Once you've saved the macro into the Library, you can click it to run on any additional images you like.

Note: I think I covered all the things you were looking for. Please be aware that instead of just creating 2 more layers, each called "Background", I created a layer called "Background (Hue)" and another called "Background (Color Burn)". Hope you don't mind! Also, I added the Color Balance adjustment layers, but did not change any of the settings. I assumed that you would set those colors on a one-by-one basis.

Also note: in the file you supplied (thank you for that!) the HSL Adjustment layer has a very small area near the top left that was masked. I assumed that was an error, and omitted it.

Participate now!