Eraser no longer works

[maho]

Hey guys, I've recently encountered this problem. When I open any image, and attempt to use the Eraser tool to erase portions of the image, nothing happens. Also, if I select an area with the Lasso tool and hit delete, nothing happens. However, if I go into Use Mask mode, I can see the Lasso seems to work.

All I can think of is that I must have unintentionally toggled Photoline into a strange mode where these tools no longer work as expected, or there is some kind of bug.

Any ideas?

[Gerhard Huber]

there are many ways that a beginner can do to "destroy" the eraser.
- If the picture has no transparency, the eraser uses the background color. If this is transparent, there is no action
- If you setup the intensity of the tool to "0", nothing will happen
- If you setup the "Channels" to change nothing, it won't erase
- If you have a mask, it won't work under the mask
...

[maho]

Thanks for the quick reply, Gerhard! If I do Layer Properties, to the right of Type, it seems little "Tick Box" next to the transparency icon was unclicked. If I click that, then the Eraser tool and the Lasso tool work as expected.

This transparency icon seems to be set to "off" for all my images - so it seems to be the (new?) default behavior.

I find it tragicomic that after 10+ years of using Photoline, I'm still a beginner. :_(

[Gerhard Huber]

If I click that, then the Eraser tool and the Lasso tool work as expected.
This transparency icon seems to be set to "off" for all my images - so it seems to be the (new?) default behavior.

transparency should be off for most of your images. Every JPEG has it off. Since switching on "solves" your problem, I think your background color is transparent.

[maho]

Yes, my background color was transparent.

Usually, when I am using the Eraser tool on a multi-layer document, I want the Eraser to add transparency (or alpha) where I am applying it. I found it very counter-intuitive that it was doing nothing.

[bkh]

Usually, when I am using the Eraser tool on a multi-layer document, I want the Eraser to add transparency (or alpha) where I am applying it. I found it very counter-intuitive that it was doing nothing.

This is what happens when the layer has an alpha channel. (Turn the alpha channel on in the Layer Attributes panel).

If the layer doesn't have transparency, the eraser behaves like a brush with the background colour (which is common behaviour across all sorts of painting programs, I believe). Even using the eraser with a partially transparent colour makes a certain sense (although you might as well adjust the brush intensity). Working with a totally transparent background colour is an unfortunate special case (like changing its intensity to 0). I'm unsure how this might be improved – using the background colour with full opacity might be an option, but then black-transparent and white-transparent (which look the same in the background colour swatch) would erase with black and white, respectively.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[maho]

Thanks... I am now enlightened.