Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
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Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
Hi All,
I have lodged a request for GIMP to support use of transparency as a color. By this I mean mainly that when using a paint tool, painting with that tool paints only the chosen level of transparency. The enhancement request is here: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=704775
This email is to invite comments on the proposed enhancement.
What? Ability to tap a palette region with the paintbrush and then "paint" with full transparency/erase.
Why? This request occurred to me after watching online digital painting tutorials from a couple of different sources. In them, the artist chooses a particular color as their background (typically white) and, rather than erasing their mistakes, simply switches to the background color and paints over with it. I have seen several comments on these videos (replicated across the sources) to the effect that this swapping to background color rather than using the eraser is a neat trick - mainly because it simplifies the workflow.
How would I use it?
I recently worked on an ecorche
http://brendanlearnstosee.deviantart.com/art/An-onion-skinnable-ecorche-dorsal-view-387530797
To do this I basically had 9 tool presets - a solid brush, no dynamics in each of 3 sizes (small, medium, large) - the same brushes but with pressure->opacity dynamics; and - erasers in each of the three sizes (with no dynamics)
I also had a small palette of colors.
The tool preset tab separates the brushes from the erasers. So each time I swap from paint to erase and back again I spend a little time hunting, and breaking my concentration.
I have a Wacom tablet and the pen had an eraser on the other end from the stylus. If I spin the pen around, it gives me an eraser with the right size and dynamics. However: - the palm rejection on the tablet often skips while the pen is being spun in my hand, so I can end up in a changed window, screen or activity (I am on Linux); and - the GIMP's interface doesn't seem as responsive to the eraser as to the stylus.
I was specifically creating an onion-skinnable picture, so there had to be multiple layers and each layer had to have transparency so I couldn't simply use a background color. Any time that there are multiple overlapping layers a transparency brush will be useful.
Implementation I don't know how it would be implemented or whether transparent should be treated as a color internally. The main point is that the workflow would be simplified if fully transparent were accessible through the color selection interface. If I could add fully transparent as a color to a custom palette, then I could have my "eraser" and color selection in the same place. I know that conceptually it may be useful to draw a distinction between an eraser and a paintbrush but, in practise erasure is equivalent to painting with transparency.
Also, having transparent as a color is more consistent as the background "color" for layers.
I thinking only of a fully transparent brush, simply because that would be my use case. There would probably also be a use case for partial levels of transparency (this is already sort of implemented through eraser opacity).
Thanks
Brendan
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
On 07/25/2013 03:09 PM, Brendan Scott wrote:
I recently worked on an ecorche
http://brendanlearnstosee.deviantart.com/art/An-onion-skinnable-ecorche-dorsal-view-387530797
There is an adult content filter on it that non-devianters can't disable.
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
Hi Brendan,
does the 'Color Erase' painting mode in the Paint tools dialog solve your problem? See http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tools-paint.html#idp11582648
It erases parts of the layer that are painted in the foreground color. To achieve partial transparency use the Opacity slider. Note that you have to right click on that particular layer before and select 'Add Alpha Channel' from the context menu.
Kind regards,
Sven
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
You could always just use the Eraser tool. I'm pretty sure you can set how strong it is, the brush style, etc.
Sent from my iPod
On Jul 25, 2013, at 9:09 AM, Brendan Scott wrote:
Hi All,
I have lodged a request for GIMP to support use of transparency as a color. By this I mean mainly that when using a paint tool, painting with that tool paints only the chosen level of transparency. The enhancement request is here: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=704775
This email is to invite comments on the proposed enhancement.
What? Ability to tap a palette region with the paintbrush and then "paint" with full transparency/erase.
Why? This request occurred to me after watching online digital painting tutorials from a couple of different sources. In them, the artist chooses a particular color as their background (typically white) and, rather than erasing their mistakes, simply switches to the background color and paints over with it. I have seen several comments on these videos (replicated across the sources) to the effect that this swapping to background color rather than using the eraser is a neat trick - mainly because it simplifies the workflow.
How would I use it? I recently worked on an ecorche
http://brendanlearnstosee.deviantart.com/art/An-onion-skinnable-ecorche-dorsal-view-387530797To do this I basically had 9 tool presets - a solid brush, no dynamics in each of 3 sizes (small, medium, large) - the same brushes but with pressure->opacity dynamics; and - erasers in each of the three sizes (with no dynamics)
I also had a small palette of colors.
The tool preset tab separates the brushes from the erasers. So each time I swap from paint to erase and back again I spend a little time hunting, and breaking my concentration.
I have a Wacom tablet and the pen had an eraser on the other end from the stylus. If I spin the pen around, it gives me an eraser with the right size and dynamics. However: - the palm rejection on the tablet often skips while the pen is being spun in my hand, so I can end up in a changed window, screen or activity (I am on Linux); and - the GIMP's interface doesn't seem as responsive to the eraser as to the stylus.
I was specifically creating an onion-skinnable picture, so there had to be multiple layers and each layer had to have transparency so I couldn't simply use a background color. Any time that there are multiple overlapping layers a transparency brush will be useful.
Implementation I don't know how it would be implemented or whether transparent should be treated as a color internally. The main point is that the workflow would be simplified if fully transparent were accessible through the color selection interface. If I could add fully transparent as a color to a custom palette, then I could have my "eraser" and color selection in the same place. I know that conceptually it may be useful to draw a distinction between an eraser and a paintbrush but, in practise erasure is equivalent to painting with transparency.
Also, having transparent as a color is more consistent as the background "color" for layers.
I thinking only of a fully transparent brush, simply because that would be my use case. There would probably also be a use case for partial levels of transparency (this is already sort of implemented through eraser opacity).
Thanks
Brendan _______________________________________________ gimp-user-list mailing list
List address: gimp-user-list@gnome.org List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 23:09:13 +1000 From: disposableemail@apps.opensourcelaw.biz To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
Subject: [Gimp-user] Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" colorHi All,
I have lodged a request for GIMP to support use of transparency as a color. By this I mean
mainly that when using a paint tool, painting
with that tool paints only the chosen level of
transparency. The
enhancement request is here:
Add a layer mask. A layer mask is effectively a second alpha channel but you can paint directly on it using any tool and any (greyscale) color.
-- Stratadrake
strata_ranger@hotmail.com
--------------------
Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color - Update
Just to be clear - the reason I am proposing the enhancement request is a new way of using a feature which has already been coded (ie giving the paintbrush eraser functionality). The purpose is primarily to have a better workflow, but also to have more meaningful treatment of "background color" for pictures which have multiple layers (and an alpha channel).
I have reposted the sample picture here: http://brendanlearnstosee.wordpress.com/2013/07/26/ecorche-dorsal/
The xcf has been renamed with a .jpg extension otherwise it wouldn't upload.
By way of example in relation to the paint-with-background-color trick:
"*also a friend of mine commented that using white to erase was a good trick, but in Wesnoth it's actually really bad considering all portraits are on a transparent layer..."
(From Wesnoth art forums: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=38935 There are other examples floating around the web.)
Wesnoth portrait art would be an example where this enhancement could be used.
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
On 07/25/2013 11:09 PM, Brendan Scott wrote: []
Why? This request occurred to me after watching online digital painting tutorials from a couple of different sources. In them, the artist chooses a particular color as their background (typically white) and, rather than erasing their mistakes, simply switches to the background color and paints over with it. I have seen several comments on these videos (replicated across the sources) to the effect that this swapping to background color rather than using the eraser is a neat trick - mainly because it simplifies the workflow.
See for example:
http://www.davidrevoy.com/article172/chaosevolution-digital-painting-1h30-open-tutorial
at 1:55 where he says:
"To erase, I don't use the eraser. It's slow to switch tools. I prefer [to] use the color picker and pick white color on the background. To draw again, I pick grey"
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
So, to give an analogy, if you are working on a surface with no alpha channel, you can simply swap to the background color to "erase" something you've drawn (which is also precisely what the Eraser tool does if there's no alpha channel!), right?
Okay, I think I understand. You know how the Eraser option uses an Alt key modifier for "Anti-erase"? Maybe add something similar to the Pencil/Paintbrush tools - Alt key activates an "anti paint" mode. The difference between this and switching to the Eraser tool outright is that the Eraser tool might have separate tool options (dynamics, etc.).
I can support that having a keyboard modifier to do something on an arbitrary basis is indeed slightly faster than going to the toolbox and switching tools. Heck, it's still faster than swapping a Wacom pen around for the other end.
-- Stratadrake
strata_ranger@hotmail.com
--------------------
Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
Richard Gitschlag (strata_ranger@hotmail.com) wrote:
Okay, I think I understand. You know how the Eraser option uses an Alt key modifier for "Anti-erase"? Maybe add something similar to the Pencil/Paintbrush tools - Alt key activates an "anti paint" mode. The difference between this and switching to the Eraser tool outright is that the Eraser tool might have separate tool options (dynamics, etc.).
At some point we had a feature where the keyboard shortcut "X" would swap between two different tools (and their contexts). It seems that this feature got lost at some point unfortunately.
Anybody willing to hunt it down and resurrect it?
Bye, Simon
simon@budig.de http://simon.budig.de/
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 8:21 PM, Simon Budig wrote:
At some point we had a feature where the keyboard shortcut "X" would swap between two different tools (and their contexts). It seems that this feature got lost at some point unfortunately.
Anybody willing to hunt it down and resurrect it?
X is currently taken by swapping BG/FG colors. Perhaps some other shortcut for the swapping of tools?
Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
Alexandre Prokoudine (alexandre.prokoudine@gmail.com) wrote:
On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 8:21 PM, Simon Budig wrote:
At some point we had a feature where the keyboard shortcut "X" would swap between two different tools (and their contexts). It seems that this feature got lost at some point unfortunately.
Anybody willing to hunt it down and resurrect it?
X is currently taken by swapping BG/FG colors. Perhaps some other shortcut for the swapping of tools?
ok, to clarify: I meant Shift-X (as in X vs. x :)
The point is though that the functionality behind shift-x got lost.
Bye, Simon
simon@budig.de http://simon.budig.de/
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
On 07/30/2013 04:45 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 8:21 PM, Simon Budig wrote:
At some point we had a feature where the keyboard shortcut "X" would swap between two different tools (and their contexts). It seems that this feature got lost at some point unfortunately.
Anybody willing to hunt it down and resurrect it?
X is currently taken by swapping BG/FG colors. Perhaps some other shortcut for the swapping of tools?
The way I was thinking of it, if transparent was a color (and set as the BG), the shortcut would work. This seemed logical for me because in a file with layers transparent is effectively the BG color for the layers above the bottom.
"Anti-paint" would also work I guess.
Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 20:50:29 +0200 From: simon@budig.de
To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" colorok, to clarify: I meant Shift-X (as in X vs. x :)
The point is though that the functionality behind shift-x got lost.
You can assign keyboard shortcuts to "previous/next tool", but this goes by internal tool ordering and not most-recently-used. Unlike, say, "revert zoom" which toggles between the current and previously-used zoom level.
-- Stratadrake
strata_ranger@hotmail.com
--------------------
Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.
Sample script was: Re Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
I have written a short python script to do paint-with-erase (see below) Have no idea if it has unwanted side effects.
It gives no visible feedback of the current drawing mode :( I'd be interested to hear how I might provide this feedback.
******** Script
''' toggle_eraser.py
toggles the current tool between eraser and paintbrush
Brendan Scott
Version: 1.20130807
7 August 2013
Copyright (C) 2013 Brendan Scott
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see : Toggle_Eraser().start()
Sample script was: Re Enhancement request: Transparency as a "paintable" color
On 13-08-07 08:36 AM, Brendan Scott wrote:
It gives no visible feedback of the current drawing mode :( I'd be interested to hear how I might provide this feedback.
You could use gimp-message to display a pop up dialog box with message to the user.
Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ |"Nerds make the shiny things that distract Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | the mouth-breathers, and that's why we're | powerful!" #include | --Chris Hardwick
