Random first impressions, discoveries, questions

[ogonek]

Random things I found out:

Useful adjustment layer: Hue editor (The curve icon reflects the custom curve haha, I love this attention to detail )
Lots of useful adjustment layers actually.

ctrl/alt + space + click zooms in/out with every click
space + ctrl/alt + click reverts to the alt/ctrl binding after 1 click
.. but can I initiate a click and drag zoom somehow? That's always nice to have with tablet&pen

The mask/lasso/selection issue became clear, once I had the channel panel open next to the layer stack.

masking/clipping is on another level here.

not a lot of presets. At least a handful for every item would be nice in order to get a better understanding. Is there some thread here or a webpage with collected scripts/presets/window layouts? And is there a gallery thread where I can look at the works of other users?

performance still stumps me. In a few cases it is a little slower than PS, faster in some others and miles ahead of everything else I've tried so far...

Some options are spread all over the place while not being integrated in the context menu. Can I adjust that? Layer management (save/load) and ordering (send to back) for example - I'd like to have those in the layer context menu. I'll end up with actions and shortcuts anyway but I am not yet in the customization stage. Need to explore more first.

[Vivi_Ram]

Agreed! The UI is a bit scatter gunned in PL. And unless you get used to the ways of working, it's disorienting. You can do the same thing in 4 different places. And that's a bit frustrating sometimes.

Also, noticeably, PL is not particularly friendly to pen tablet workflows. As you've discovered smoothly zooming in and out is not possible with just pen tablet.

Shift + Space and Alt + Space + pen tapping does zoom in and out. But only in set values. Not smoothly like in other programs. A noticeable kink I'd like to see addressed. It also doesn't have scrubbing. I've already flagged this.

Copy and pasting are pretty limited. Copy and pasting attributes is not possible presently. Copy pasting masks is a bit circuitous too. Through change channels tool. Another candidate for non modal window!

The histogram needs to be improved too. For example, try making a selection and find out the histogram of just the selection alone live. Not possible. Might be wrong on this one though.

There are various other places in which PL suffers from inconsistencies. UX labels and menus can be slightly confusing initially.

As part 3 of my proposal, I'm going to suggest a general clean up. Keep eyes peeled.

[ogonek]

Also, noticeably, PL is not particularly friendly to pen tablet workflows. As you've discovered smoothly zooming in and out is not possible with just pen tablet.

Ok good to know, thanks. Not really a dealbreaker but something like modkey + space + drag R/L to zoom would be nice. (and I had to flip the tablet mode in the preferences (win.. tab or ink or sth) for the pressure to work)

As for the UI, I don't really like to click buttons and try to hide most of the overlaying panels at any possible time. So I will bind everything I frequently need to some KBshortcut anyways - scatter gui or or not

some more questions came up:

quickest way to add/ subtract a marqueed selection to or from an existing mask layer? I stil have to get used to the channels, mask buttons etc..?
(I think I answered that myself already. Add multiple mask layers and combine them at will..)

Can I control the colour/transparency of the passepartout in image mode? Hide stuff outside document is all I could find.

the adjustable wand/bucket drag for treshold stuff is awesome

I really have to let go of some old habits. This will take some time

[shijan]

Hello! There are some simple and advanced tips in Tipps&Tricks collected in https://www.pl32.com/forum3/viewforum.php?f=7 For example Hidden Hotkeys in Levels, Curves & Other Adjustments https://www.pl32.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=6981 or Collection of Tutorials in English https://www.pl32.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=6301

PL needs needs some settings to adjust.
Preferences->Working->Mouse->Scroll image contents with mouse wheel uncheck it to enable zoom with scroll.
For Overscroll (moving image in any position inside window even when image is zoomed out) you need to setup Preferences->Display->Document Set the Edge Width for both the Document Mode and Picture Mode to 1000%.

You can change value in any field or slider by mouse wheel scroll. Do not click on number, just hover the mouse over it and scroll. You can also click to middle mouse button and drag to change value. Guess it should work with tablet as well.

Check also my PhotoLine UI Icons Customization Project https://www.deviantart.com/shijan/art/825902404
And PhotoLine Basic Asset Library Project by Herbert123 https://gitlab.com/Herbert123/photoline ... ts-library

[Hoogo]

There's also a section with user content in this forum,

[shijan]

Some options are spread all over the place while not being integrated in the context menu. Can I adjust that? Layer management (save/load) and ordering (send to back) for example - I'd like to have those in the layer context menu. I'll end up with actions and shortcuts anyway but I am not yet in the customization stage. Need to explore more first.

There is a special very useful user customizable Context Menu which could be opened from anywhere by middle mouse click. You can add any icons to it like this:

Screen Shot 2025-02-05 at 2.33.00 PM.jpg

[ogonek]

hey, thanks for your answers.

@Hoogo - I found the user content just after posting. Will have a closer look later.

@shijan - that was great information. The custom context menu seems like what I was looking for. Your icon set is really nice too.

One thing that still hasn't clicked 100%: I am a big advocate of non destructive workflow, but sometimes I do it the quick and dirty way too. So let's say I have a background layer (A) and above that a layer with 3 floating circles (B). I want one of them larger. In PS I would either separate the object to another layer or marquee it on its own layer and transform it destructively. That's not a PL thing, is it?
So I separate one circle with a rectangle lasso selection, cut and paste to new (C). Now i want them to be mice and draw ears and a tail on them but the separate layer has a hard border with the dimensions of my lasso from before. Any way to extend that border? I can scale the layers but can't find a way to alter their bounds. Or am I getting something wrong? do I just add another layer with doc size measurements and merge? What is the best workflow here?

And I already discovered some new stuff. I can copy single transformed layers to other open documents without losing resolution
The colour editor seemed glitchy at one point (showing only grayscale slider for an RGB type layer until I selected a colour via the swatches)

[shijan]

One thing that still hasn't clicked 100%: I am a big advocate of non destructive workflow, but sometimes I do it the quick and dirty way too. So let's say I have a background layer (A) and above that a layer with 3 floating circles (B). I want one of them larger. In PS I would either separate the object to another layer or marquee it on its own layer and transform it destructively. That's not a PL thing, is it?
So I separate one circle with a rectangle lasso selection, cut and paste to new (C). Now i want them to be mice and draw ears and a tail on them but the separate layer has a hard border with the dimensions of my lasso from before. Any way to extend that border? I can scale the layers but can't find a way to alter their bounds. Or am I getting something wrong? do I just add another layer with doc size measurements and merge? What is the best workflow here?

Layout->Image->Bring to Document size

It is also possible to do the opposite and delete unwanted transparent pixels surrounding image:
Layout->Image->Trim Image

[shijan]

And I already discovered some new stuff. I can copy single transformed layers to other open documents without losing resolution

This could be changed in Preferences. It was discussed a lot during 25 beta version. That preserve to dpi logic sometimes creates very strange sizes and may change image position. So i personally recommend uncheck that checkbox to avoid surprises.

[ogonek]

Layout->Image->Bring to Document size

It is also possible to do the opposite and delete unwanted transparent pixels surrounding image:
Layout->Image->Trim Image

Excellent. Everything feels really granular without being a 1000-options fest here.

the "paste in doc mode sets physical size" I didn't really get yet. I just like that layer exchange between documents is so effortless.

But I got the external app thing going, piping stuff from Krita into PL. That was great. I was just trying out some RGBA brushes shown on the Krita yt channel today. (They are great btw.)

[shijan]

Layout->Image->Bring to Document size

It is also possible to do the opposite and delete unwanted transparent pixels surrounding image:
Layout->Image->Trim Image

Excellent. Everything feels really granular without being a 1000-options fest here.

the "paste in doc mode sets physical size" I didn't really get yet. I just like that layer exchange between documents is so effortless.

It is useful for printing mostly. It calculates size in Cm from dpi and pixels and so keeps physical print sizes of the images.

[Vivi_Ram]

How do we get multi page/art board view in pl?

[shijan]

There is only Pages List. View->Panels->Page List

[Herbert123]

One thing that still hasn't clicked 100%: I am a big advocate of non destructive workflow, but sometimes I do it the quick and dirty way too. So let's say I have a background layer (A) and above that a layer with 3 floating circles (B). I want one of them larger. In PS I would either separate the object to another layer or marquee it on its own layer and transform it destructively. That's not a PL thing, is it?
So I separate one circle with a rectangle lasso selection, cut and paste to new (C). Now i want them to be mice and draw ears and a tail on them but the separate layer has a hard border with the dimensions of my lasso from before. Any way to extend that border? I can scale the layers but can't find a way to alter their bounds. Or am I getting something wrong? do I just add another layer with doc size measurements and merge? What is the best workflow here?

Selecting part of a bitmap layer and switching to the layer tool does allow for quick destructive repositioning. By pressing ALT quick destructive copies are possible.

Pressing SHIFT while dragging a selection with the layer tool will create a new layer with the selection.
Then rotate, scale, etc. and hit CTRL-RETURN to merge down quickly.

It's pretty quick, although sometimes I also would like a direct destructive option. I requested it a few times before, and it doesn't seem to be a priority for the devs to implement this. I don't mind it too much. It would make editing pixel-based GUI stuff and pixel art a bit more direct and efficient, though.

As for the layer canvas size: others here have answered that question. Myself, I would like the Crop option in the rectangular marquee selection tool to also allow for increasing the layer canvas aside from only cropping it smaller.

I will create a feature request for that, because it would make life MUCH easier for everyone here. We often have to increase the canvas size for layers in PhotoLine, and there is no obvious quick and easy method to do so in a controlled manner.

The trick I currently use is to create a new transparent layer with the Layer tool (CTRL-drag to set the size) over or under the layer I need to increase the layer canvas of, and the merge the two layers.

There has to be a quicker way to achieve this...

[Herbert123]

There is only Pages List. View->Panels->Page List

I wish we could display all pages in the viewport, and have an option to rearrange those any way we want. Similar to artboards.