Search this forum but ended up getting many results that had nothing to do with Krita.
Sub-forum search didn't give any results for my issue.

Why is Krita making boxes when erasing. And why isn't it like other painting programs.
Even found Krita help about it with Krita/Tutorial 3A https://userbase.kde.org/Krita/Tutorial_3A

Erasing is acting weird: it's making all these boxes!

Are you erasing on the white, background layer? The boxes you see below is Krita's way of displaying full transparency. To avoid this effect, it's better to paint with white on the background layer than to erase.

Better yet, always make a new, transparent layer to draw on. Lock the background layer, even.

Must be Dense As makes absolutely no sense or explains well on how to get the white canvas underneath when erasing.
Please help as trying to understand layers. But yet found a through step-by-step of explanation and the why's of layers.

What I have found in vid's tut's or web have glossed over explaining why you need this layer and why you need transparent or why you need to lock?
etc...etc... And scratching my head as don't have a clue when and why I need to add a layer except in the general sense. And especially why I need extra layer just for erasing.

Any help,links,tuts,books,etc that does more then say add another layer without explanation is greatly appreciated.
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You should have a color wheel to the right of your screen.

1. click on the while and drag your mouse until you get white on the color triangle
2. release the mouse
3. click the paint bucket tool on the left toolbar (about half way down)
4. click on the canvas

That will fill the canvas with whatever color you chose (white in this example). You can switch back to the brush tool (3rd one) on the left toolbar and start painting/erasing if you want. Pressing the "E" key will toggle the brush and eraser. There is no eraser tool in Krita.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the step by step and strange only painting program I have heard of that doesn't have a true eraser.
Wondering why that is?

But will give your steps a go and thanks for sharing them.
Don't know why any would think little boxes is acceptable when trying to touch up a drawing.

1. click on the while and drag your mouse until you get white on the color triangle
2. release the mouse
3. click the paint bucket tool on the left toolbar (about half way down)
4. click on the canvas

That will fill the canvas with whatever color you chose (white in this example). You can switch back to the brush tool (3rd one) on the left toolbar and start painting/erasing if you want. Pressing the "E" key will toggle the brush and eraser.

Update: Sorry didn't work. Tried bucket fill with different colors. Then draw with another color. Used E key as well as Soft and Hard erasers selected from brush palette. And grid still comes through.
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Krita does have a true eraser; what it does not have is layers without an alpha channel. The reason Krita doesn't have those is that we decided there was no good reason to exactly follow the historical baggage of an application like Photoshop.

Photoshop started out with one background layer, no alpha channel, like Mac Paint. That means that the eraser would paint white. The Photoshop added (up to 51) transparency channels. Then it added layers, and in doing that had to add an alpha channel to all layers but the background layer, except if the user expressly added alpha to the background layer, in which case the number of layers as saved in a PSD file is negative, so the application can figure out that the alpha channel of the first layer should be used as the alpha channel of the background layer, while all the other transparency channels still only apply to the composite image, though layers also can have two transparency masks, one marked 'User', on marked 'Real', though it contains vectors. Gimp sort of clones this model, bcause Gimp is old enough to have had the single-layer model as a start as well.

Krita is pretty simple: all layers have an alpha channel, erasing happens the same way on all layers, there is no special background layer that works in eighties Mac Paint compatibility mode. If you want to have a white background, add a white layer and lock it. Don't paint and erase on that layer, do it on layers on top of that layer. If you create a new image, press Insert for a new layer, PgUp to go to that layer, you don't need to touch the background layer and that layer will take about 8 bytes of memory.

(There are other ways in which Krita works differently from Photoshop: you can have as many transparency, local selection or filter masks per layer as you want, group layers really group their content layers, instead of being a merely organization afterthought and the clone brush is a brush, not a tool. Here's a PDF that explains some of the differences: https://krita.org/wp-content/uploads/20 ... age-v4.pdf)

Thanks all for the detailed explanations and clearing away the Fog between my neurons!
Caught a good explanation in FAQ I missed also.

Why do I get a checkerboard pattern when I use the eraser?

You’re probably used to Gimp or Photoshop. The background, that is default or first layer in these applications doesn’t have an alpha channel by default. so, on their background layer, the eraser paints in the background color.

In Krita, all layers have an alpha channel, so if you want to paint in the background color, you should do that, instead of erasing. You get the same effect in, say, gimp, if you create new image, add an alpha channel and then use the eraser tool. Most Krita users actually on starting a sketch in Krita add a new blank layer first thing they do (the INSert key is a useful shortcut here.) That doesn’t use extra memory, since a blank layer or a layer with a default color just takes one pixel worth of memory.

Which gives additional reasoning and support that the Krita way is more efficient & flexible which is always a good thing.
I knew it had to be me with locked in preconceived notions and expectations. And no problem updating them when I understand the reasons of why & how.

Thanks again for your helpful inputs & insights!
And believe I now have my last couple dozen neurons sparking and in Sync!
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