Neue Testversion 19.40b10

[Herbert123]

...when I have to make tenths of adjustments on a pixel level to many frames of sprites.

Isn't that the real point of the matter? When you're doing specialized tasks, it's always best to use a specialized tool.

Whether the specialized task is animation, or 3D rendering, or CAD drawing, etc., there are programs for that. I can appreciate wanting PL to do every conceivable thing, but one does need to be realistic about a general-purpose raster/vector program....

Sure, that would be true if it actually was a very specialized feature: it is not. Such functionality is standard in most image editors (including Photoshop). It is actually a very basic feature of most image editors (except Affinity Photo, I believe). And I am not the only one who has asked for a direct pixel manipulation mode here.

Photoline primary focus is on image pixel manipulation - I should not be looking at other applications to just move a couple of pixels and being forced to create new layers every single time to pull this off. Sometimes direct pixel manipulation is the most efficient method of making changes - I am merely asking that we can switch the lassos to a mode like that. It will then accommodate both workflows, and make Photoline a better image editor.

[Herbert123]

Here is how I solve that issue. ...

That will work.

There are many ways to skin this cat, but I thought I might as well mention the simpler (for the user ) method of having a more realistic 3-D Shadow layer effect....

Added:
This is probably related to the fix for an earlier problem with the 3-D Shadow layer effect:
http://www.pl32.com/forum3/viewtopic.ph ... dow#p35793

I do agree it would be nice if the 3d shadow effect could be improved to look more realistic from the get-go. Distance from the light source could be added as a parameter. Or penumbra and umbra controls!

[photoken]

Distance from the light source could be added as a parameter.

Yeah, I can see something like that or automatically varying the blurring according to the distance of the shadow from the object. Something that would accommodate drawings where the object is well above the surface on which the shadow is projected as well as drawings where the object is touching the surface.

[Hoogo]

Yes, and a height map and a bump map, so the shadows can fall correctly on a meadow with Jane Fonda on it.
Seriously, there's a boundary between simple tasks for effects and more complicated stuff that needs real work with layers.

[photoken]

Yes, and a height map and a bump map, so the shadows can fall correctly on a meadow with Jane Fonda on it.

Hmmm...I'm liking that....

Seriously, there's a boundary between simple tasks for effects and more complicated stuff that needs real work with layers.

Sure. But evenly blurring the shadow doesn't give quite the 3D effect that it should.

[Herbert123]

Distance from the light source could be added as a parameter.

Yeah, I can see something like that or automatically varying the blurring according to the distance of the shadow from the object. Something that would accommodate drawings where the object is well above the surface on which the shadow is projected as well as drawings where the object is touching the surface.

As far as I am aware it is not really the distance, but the size of the light source which defines the penumbra's fade to softness. I would settle for an additional size setting!

This example was rendered in Blender with its physically correct render engine. On the left: a larger light source. On the right: a light source similar in size to the Sun. Both from identical distances and at matching light power.

Untitled.jpg

[Herbert123]

User interface bug:

The cursor up and down keys can be used in many dialog input fields to increase and decrease the values. But it does not work for the layer panel numeric fields, nor for the Line Style panel, the document panel (or the Change Document Size dialog), the guides panel, and other dialogs and panels.

In other cases (drop-downs) only the preset values can be selected with the up and down cursor keys. Good, but I would expect the <ctrl> key to allow the user to increment by 1, for example. This does not work at the moment.

[photoken]

As far as I am aware it is not really the distance, but the size of the light source which defines the penumbra's fade to softness.

The size of the light source will determine the overall "softness" of the shadow, but it's the distance of the shadow from the object that defines the sharpness of the shadow within that overall shadow's available softness.

That was a really difficult sentence to write (it's waaayy too late at night) and probably doesn't make sense at first glance, but your examples show what I'm talking about. In both cases, the closer the shadow is to the part of the object casting the shadow, the sharper the shadow's edges are.

That's all I'm looking for with this request -- a nice difference in the blurring of the shadow: the part of the shadow that is close to the object will be blurred less; the parts of the shadow that are farther away from the object will be blurred more.

The bad news is that things will get complicated when the shadow is never close to the object; for example, think of an object existing above the ground -- it's shadow on the ground will (effectively) be uniformly blurred.... I guess there will have to be a "disable" option for the progressive blurring to handle that case.

[Herbert123]

Bug Stamp tool:

1) create a rectangular lasso of a small section of a background with one colour (for example, a light-blue background).
2) switch to the Stamp tool, and create a new stamp based on the lasso area ("from Lasso")
3) create a new empty RGB bitmap layer, and paint with the new lasso.

Result: rectangles with a border.
Expected result: no borders, just the light-blue rectangles.

This is also an issue with other lasso shapes used for the Stamp tool: dark lines appear here and there.

[photoken]

Result: rectangles with a border.
Expected result: no borders, just the light-blue rectangles.

This is also an issue with other lasso shapes used for the Stamp tool: dark lines appear here and there.

I can't duplicate that problem here on Win7 Pro x64 with PL 19.40b10 x64:

stamp test.png

This shows the result from using the Free Lasso, and the problem does not occur when using the Rectangle Lasso, either. This test was made with a 16-bit RGB image.

[photoken]

Win7 Pro x64 SP1
PL 19.40b10 x64

I started with an image of The Jen and used the Quick Selection Tool and the Border Matting Tool to extract her head and her body to separate layers:

Jennifer Aniston 02.jpg

If I use "Merge Down" on the "Head" layer, I get the following result:

Jennifer Aniston 02 merge down.jpg

I expected to get a result that combines her head and body, which is the result from using "Merge Layers":

Jennifer Aniston 02 merge layers b.jpg

What am I missing?

Here's the link to the PLD file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/20tin8plazr7v ... 2.zip?dl=0

[bkh]

If I use "Merge Down" on the "Head" layer, I get the following result:

What am I missing?

Apparently, "Merge down" doesn't change the size of the layer below. Not sure if it's a bug or a feature, really.
You'll have to enlarge the layer below (e.g., using Document -> Image -> Bring to Document Size) first to fit in the entire top layer.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[photoken]

Apparently, "Merge down" doesn't change the size of the layer below. Not sure if it's a bug or a feature, really.

I wasn't sure about it, either. Now that I've had a chance to think about it, I'll consider it a feature.

Extracting an object to a layer creates a layer that's the minimum size needed to contain the object. This is probably an advantage for manipulating and transforming the extracted object; and, as you described, it's straightforward to bring the layer up to document size if that is what's needed.

"Merge Down" is probably most used for a small layer that's above a full-size layer. To accomplish the somewhat specialized task I wanted, it's not a big deal to first select both layers and then use "Merge Layers". So, both scenarios can be done.

Thanks for your reply -- it helped me clarify my thinking about this....

As a side note, it has been a while since I used the Quick Selection tool in conjunction with the Border Matting tool. They did a real nice job of extracting the windblown hair from a multi-coloured background. It was real easy, too.

[Herbert123]

Result: rectangles with a border.
Expected result: no borders, just the light-blue rectangles.

This is also an issue with other lasso shapes used for the Stamp tool: dark lines appear here and there.

I can't duplicate that problem here on Win7 Pro x64 with PL 19.40b10 x64:

stamp test.png

This shows the result from using the Free Lasso, and the problem does not occur when using the Rectangle Lasso, either. This test was made with a 16-bit RGB image.

Just found out why it works for you, and not for me: follow direction. Activate "follow direction", and you will see the issue: borders.

[bkh]

Just found out why it works for you, and not for me: follow direction. Activate "follow direction", and you will see the issue: borders.

Ah, yes, with "follow direction" (or an angle other than multiples of 90*), the problem is there on OS X, too. Also, when one specifies an angle, the stamp cursor is not a rectangle any more but somehow distorted.

Cheers

Burkhard.