PhotoLine video for Photographers #4

[OldRadioGuy]

Here is my fourth PhotoLine video directed at English-speaking photographers who may be considering PL as an external editor for use with Lightroom or another raw image developer or digital asset manager.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc3PuhaSwXk

Bob

[greenmorpher]

Great, Bob, many thanks. I just watched it and found it instructive (I've never used the line lassos) but I was surprised that you didn’t demonstrate the automatic (magnetic) lasso.

I find this very useful valuable.

Cheers, geoff

[OldRadioGuy]

Great, Bob, many thanks. I just watched it and found it instructive (I've never used the line lassos) but I was surprised that you didn’t demonstrate the automatic (magnetic) lasso.

I find this very useful valuable.

Cheers, geoff

Thanks, Geoff. the Automatic Lasso is in the video I'm now editing and posting soon.

Bob

[greenmorpher]

And Border Matting, and …

Cheers, geoff

[SCX]

Again a good video. You will be the main PL-tutor soon if you keep on the good work.

Shortcuts could be changed by the way. I created PS-shortcuts for the tools I use.

I was surprised, that the PhotoLine way of naming things is considered so confusing. It is confusing to talk about it, when several people use different programs, but the tools work more or less like they would in other programs and it seemed not to difficult for me. Same name, different function would be more confusing You can't copy everything from other programs, I guess you would get trouble doing this.

More difficult I would consider strange behavior of PhotoLine, but that's all past, since PhotoLine has improved a lot since version 14, which was my first PL-version.

[greenmorpher]

I was surprised, that the PhotoLine way of naming things is considered so confusing. It is confusing to talk about it, when several people use different programs, but the tools work more or less like they would in other programs and it seemed not to difficult for me. Same name, different function would be more confusing You can't copy everything from other programs, I guess you would get trouble doing this.

More difficult I would consider strange behavior of PhotoLine, but that's all past, since PhotoLine has improved a lot since version 14, which was my first PL-version.

Hello SCX. My entry to PhotoLine was at about the same time as yours. I wouldn’t say the strange behaviour is "all past". It’s been cleaned up a bit, but …

Naming stuff using the conventions that have developed would not involve problems such as copyright since the terms are simply convention. The problem is for users coming from the conventional background. They are used to the "usual" names for certain functions and it is just willful to refuse to acknowledge that and make life easier for them by using the same names. A case in point in a (lasso) "selection" (the term used in every other raster editor I know, looking at what’s inside the lasso) being described as a "mask" (the term used in PL, referring to what’s outside the lasso). I came across this anomaly in terminology just recently when I was looking for "invert selection". I had to appeal to this forum to find out that it was "invert mask" I was looking for.

The other problem is that people working in two (or more) different editors have to remember two (or more) sets of nomenclature. Now, many people do work in more than one editor because they all have weaknesses. A number of people on this forum use Elements to supplement PL. I actually use three, now I think about it: iPhoto is primarily for for storage but also has some useful editing functions, PL has its strengths in editing and resizing pix, and Canvas is my primary destination for pix coming out of PL, but it has some excellent raster editing tools too and they get used where necessary.

I find things like the use of "mask" instead of "selection" a pain. If you consider your customers, then you give them the terminology they want. Which is "correct"? Neither and both, but if you want to communicate, you use the language your receiver understands. The Hubers understand this to a degree, hence the separate German and English language forums here, but clearly they don’t understand the concept of dialects or language within language. Or if they do understand that, their failure to use the common terms is arrogance and/or a lack of interest in their customers.

This is one of the things that stops me using PL more extensively. I do not question that it is an excellent program in many respects and has some nice little features, but I also know that some of the stuff it does is not executed well (e.g. HDR -- I've never been able to make that work well) and I find its DTP and vector functions really, really odd. Canvas kills it in many other respects despite having had no development (on my platform, Mac, although development continues on Windows) since Canvas X about 10 years ago. Hence Canvas will continue to be my primary work program for the foreseeable future and PL will never fill that slot.

Cheers, geoff

[SCX]

I went through several programs until I ended up with PhotoLine. Maybe this is the reason, why I don't have to much problems with different terms on the same tool. I made a tutorial for beginners (in German of course) whith some translations between Photoshop, Gimp and PhotoLine because every program has it's on terms. You could say that PS is the standard for professionals, so just use the ps-terms, but you will never have a standard for all programs. But if this would be changed in PL, I wouldn't have problems with it. Because PL could be a good alternative for pro's who don't want to pay a fortune for their image editing program, it should be as easy as possible for them to switch to PL. All the same for amateurs, who want a pro-program without a pro-price.

[bkh]

Regarding the mask/lasso/selection thing, I'm entirely with greenmorpher. When I started using PL, this was the major stumbling stone for me, especially since there are also layer masks and some people refer to adjustment layers as masks. I ended up writing a glossary for me to look up the terms when needed. Technically, mask, lasso and selection are three different things, but in most cases, it's not necessary to distinguish between them. In the cases where this is necessary, one could use something like

area of the selection (German: Auswahlbereich) for the mask (the mask isn't the area surrounding the selection, try "expand mask"!)
content of the selection (Inhalt der Auswahl) for "selection"
selection border/border of the selection (Rand der Auswahl) for "lasso"

I woudln't mind changing a few other names if they have different standard names in most other graphics apps, but wouldn't necessarily follow a single app if both terms are commonly used.

Cheers

Burkhard.