Confused...again!

[Alan9940]

OK, guys & gals, PL is doing something strange, again, that has me baffled!

Just installed the latest update (19.51), open a TIFF image file, applied a Curves layer in Lab mode to increase contrast and saturation, then applied another curves layer in "Hide All" mode (black mask) to darken a small portion of the lower left corner. Now, I want to simply drag a black-to-white gradient in the mask to reveal that darkened corner. Color swatches are set to black/white, use mask button is highlighted, gradient type is set to linear, all ready to go...I think. But, when I draw the gradient it's creating a new Vector Graphic layer vs modifying the mask! Huh?

As always, thank you in advance for the wisdom of this group.

Kind regards,
Alan

[bkh]

There's a button in the lower left corner of the Tool Settings which controls whether PL will draw in the current layer or create a new (vector) layer. Alternatively, you can press CMD (Ctrl on Windows, I suppose) when drawing the gradient to toggle that setting.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[photoken]

As a side note, I got in the habit of never editing the adjustment layer directly. Instead, I apply a mask as a child layer to it and do any manipulation on that child mask:

mask layers.png

In that example, I used a circular gradient to target the Curves layer darkening to the center of the stars image.

It doesn't make much difference in a simple case like this, but it's great when I need to apply further adjustments (like a Gaussian blur) to the adjustment layer's mask.

[Alan9940]

Burkhard - Thank you. I toggled that button thinking it was the key to the gradient doing what I wanted, but I must not have been doing something right because it works just fine today!

Ken - As always, a good idea that I will keep in mind.

Thank you to both of you.

Kind regards,
Alan