Feature Requests

[Hoogo]

(currently, you can paint with the R,G,B channels off and get the erased area back)..

Explain, please. I'm not getting that to work....

All the brush tools have a selector for channels in their tool settings. Usually RGB with all channels is selected, but there's also RGBA if an alpha channel is present. Or any other color model. Deselect RGB, only select A, and you can paint transparency away.

But when you got used to this kind of channel selector it can happen from time to time that you forget to enable the other channels again. So when you paint someday and really nothing seems to happen, have a look at the tool settings and the channel selector

[bkh]

(currently, you can paint with the R,G,B channels off and get the erased area back)..

Explain, please. I'm not getting that to work....

Select the brush tool and a RGB layer with transparency. In the tool settings, there's a line "Channels". Select "RGB" as the colour model and uncheck the "R", "G" and "B" boxes beside it (they have a white background if unchecked, and grey when checked). Leave the "A" box checked. Then just paint with a totally opaque colour – it will reveal transparent parts previously cleaned by the eraser. (The eraser just sets the alpha channel to 0% but leaves the other channels unouched – by setting the tthe alpha channel back to 100%).

Cheers

Burkhard.

P.S. Before starting to paint with the brush, remember to check the R,G,B channels again.

[photoken]

Select the brush tool and a RGB layer with transparency.

Ah! That step is where I was having the problem -- there was never an "A" channel. It took me a while to discover how to set the layer to use transparency via the layer properties. This technique works well, thanks, but not with areas made transparent by the AutoEraser tool, unfortunately.

[photoken]

Position choice indicator for scaling
I noticed this when trying to scale a duplicated vector object (no fill): I wanted to reduce the size of the duplicated object to fit precisely within the original object. It would be very helpful to have an indicator in the Scale Dialog to specify which part of the newly scaled object should hold its position. For example, this image shows that the newly scaled object would maintain its original center location:

scale dialog proposal.png

[Herbert123]

Position choice indicator for scaling
I noticed this when trying to scale a duplicated vector object (no fill): I wanted to reduce the size of the duplicated object to fit precisely within the original object. It would be very helpful to have an indicator in the Scale Dialog to specify which part of the newly scaled object should hold its position. For example, this image shows that the newly scaled object would maintain its original center location:

scale dialog proposal.png

You can already do that: before you scale the layer, switch to the layer tool (black arrow icon) and move the origin/pivot point in the center of the to be scaled object to one of the corners. It will snap into place, and then scale the layer. The scaled object will retain its position relative to that point.

*edit* Belay that! It does not work - I thought it did, but alas, it is not so.

This is definitely something that should be addressed. I'll report it as a bug.

[photoken]

...
The scaled object will retain its position relative to that point.
...

Even if that technique did work, having the indicator in the Scale Dialog would also allow its use for document scaling, etc.

[bkh]

Position choice indicator for scaling
I noticed this when trying to scale a duplicated vector object (no fill): I wanted to reduce the size of the duplicated object to fit precisely within the original object. It would be very helpful to have an indicator in the Scale Dialog to specify which part of the newly scaled object should hold its position.

I don't quite see the point – why don't you use the alignment tool or the automatic guides to move the layer into place after scaling?

Even if that technique did work, having the indicator in the Scale Dialog would also allow its use for document scaling, etc.

As far as I can see, the indicator would be useless when scaling a document – the corners will all be corners again, and the centre will stay the centre.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[photoken]

I don't quite see the point – why don't you use the alignment tool or the automatic guides to move the layer into place after scaling?

1. Too many extra steps & mouse fiddling.
2. The alignment tool doesn't give you the corners.

I'm used to being able to specify the position at the same time as the scale factor. It's simple, quick, and easy that way.

Even if that technique did work, having the indicator in the Scale Dialog would also allow its use for document scaling, etc.

As far as I can see, the indicator would be useless when scaling a document – the corners will all be corners again, and the centre will stay the centre.

You're probably right about documents -- that was just the first thing I noticed when looking for a "Scale" function in the menu. My point is that having the choice in the Scale Dialog will mean it's available regardless of the object being scaled -- vector or image.

[bkh]

2. The alignment tool doesn't give you the corners.

It does – use left-align and top-align for top-left corner, … (in a sense, the centre align button is redundant).

Do you need this feature so frequently that a few mouse clicks matter? I use the other alignment tools (esp. the automatic guides) so often that it wouldn't even come to my mind to use something else for putting a scaled layer into place.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[photoken]

Do you need this feature so frequently that a few mouse clicks matter?

Frequency of use is irrelevant. A feature that saves extensive futzing around is valuable regardless of how often it's used.

[Herbert123]

...
The scaled object will retain its position relative to that point.
...

Even if that technique did work, having the indicator in the Scale Dialog would also allow its use for document scaling, etc.

? How would that be useful for document/page scaling? The entire document or page would be scaled down or up in the same manner, regardless of the pivot point's position: the end result would be the same, since the "world" is scaled down. The page or document IS the absolute reference, so scaling from the bottom left point or top right point makes no difference at all in the result.

And if you needed to scale a number of objects relative to the page: group the objects, change the pivot point, and scale up/down.

Also: the pivot point allows for much more flexibility in terms of the pivot point placement (anywhere you wish, even outside the selected object's frame), thus keeping relative distance to a border as well.

So, all in all controlling the alignment while scaling and rotating seems much more effective and flexible. And this would also work for rotating a layer: hitting two birds with one stone. And the dialogs would not be junked up with additional needless options.

Having said that, sometimes I want to rotate the pivot point and the object simultaneously, so a simple checkbox labelled "use pivot" or something similar would be very useful.

[photoken]

? How would that be useful for document/page scaling?

See my previous message retracting the document scaling argument....

And the dialogs would not be junked up with additional needless options.

Not junk at all (the proposed dialog is used in CorelDraw, where it works excellently) and certainly not needless. Going back to my original request: Given a vector object that is not centered in the image area, what I want is a smaller version of that object centered over the original object.

As I understand it, now one has to:
1. Duplicate the original vector layer. The duplicated layer is automatically selected.
2. Make any modifications (line colour, etc.) to the duplicated object, then open the Scaling Dialog.
3. Make the scaling adjustment and click "OK" to dismiss the dialog.
4. Because PL uses the first selected layer as the "anchor" for aligning, go to the Layers panel.
5. Select the original vector layer.
6. Add a checkmark to the duplicated (scaled down) vector layer.
7. Go to the Tools panel and select the Layer Tool (or use the hotkey).
8. Click the "Layer Align Center" icon.

My proposal would require only those first 3 steps.

To make this proposal even more useful, provide a live preview option in the Scaling Dialog (as is the case for most of the other adjustment dialogs).

Another way to think of this is trying to achieve the same simplicity that the "Contract Selection" option gives for creating "nested" raster objects. The new scaling options would also give the same simplicity when one does not want the new object centered.

[photoken]

Layer Tool alignment icons not visible in "Black Mode"
This is another request that can almost be considered a bug: When the UI is in "Black Mode", the alignment icons at the bottom of the Layer Tool options are nearly invisible:

layer tool options.png

[photoken]

Additional demosaic interpolations for RAW files.
I'm using RawTherapee, and found that it has a couple of demosaic interpolations that give very good results for my RW2 images. I'd like PL to include the
amaze
dcb
interpolations as options.

[bkh]

Additional demosaic interpolations for RAW files.
I'm using RawTherapee, and found that it has a couple of demosaic interpolations that give very good results for my RW2 images. I'd like PL to include the
amaze
dcb
interpolations as options.

dcb shouldn't be a big problem – it's under a BSD license and the author supplies a variant of dcraw which includes dcb as an additional option (http://www.linuxphoto.org/html/algorithms.html. Since PL already uses dcraw code, this should be relatively easy to add. The samples supplied by the author look promising. dcb is also available in the LGPL version of LibRAW (which again seems to rely mostly on dcraw code).

amaze is GPLd (https://github.com/LibRaw/LibRaw-demosa ... /COPYRIGHT), so it can't be used in PL. (Maybe it would be possible for PL to use it if a suitable version of LibRAW happens to be installed on the computer, but I am not entirely sure if that's legal.)

Cheers

Burkhard.