New mask brush tool

[solo05]

Love the programme but have found making a mask can be a pain at times. Could we get, along with the other options, an on/off brush of variable size, as when doing say a repair on a galaxy image, the auto star mask thinks bright areas in the galactic arms are stars. The only way I can see at the moment to turn these off, or if in inverted on, is with the single pixel option unless I have missed something. This would also be useful within the Life option for the mask.

Thanks.
Steve

[admin]

Love the programme but have found making a mask can be a pain at times. Could we get, along with the other options, an on/off brush of variable size, as when doing say a repair on a galaxy image, the auto star mask thinks bright areas in the galactic arms are stars. The only way I can see at the moment to turn these off, or if in inverted on, is with the single pixel option unless I have missed something. This would also be useful within the Life option for the mask.

Thanks.
Steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks for taking the time to submit a suggestion.
When putting the brush in 'Flood fill lighter' or 'Flood fill darker' modes, you should be able to click on any stars (or any 'green pixel blobs' really) to turn the whole star off. Does this do what you want?

[puckja]

I also found painting mask sometimes difficult. Some user observation:
1. Current Lasso will toggle mask within range. Sometimes I only want to add small hand-drawn patch joining the existing patch. I have to be extremely accurate on the boundary otherwise I always get a gap in between. A "turn-on" lasso that always turn on mask within range and a "turn-off" lasso to turn off will be very welcome
2. Same thing for the "line" tool. Toggling makes it much difficult to use for me.
3. Similar behavior for almost all the tools: when I have most star mask on or off and just try to fill the gap with some tools, if I accidentally click on any existing mask, the the entire mask turn on or off. That really makes me wonder why such behavior.

This may be just nitpicking, but some change seems to make masking a lot more faster and effective.

Or maybe I just didn't use it right. I would like to learn about that if that is the case. Thanks!

[admin]

I also found painting mask sometimes difficult. Some user observation:
1. Current Lasso will toggle mask within range. Sometimes I only want to add small hand-drawn patch joining the existing patch. I have to be extremely accurate on the boundary otherwise I always get a gap in between. A "turn-on" lasso that always turn on mask within range and a "turn-off" lasso to turn off will be very welcome
2. Same thing for the "line" tool. Toggling makes it much difficult to use for me.
3. Similar behavior for almost all the tools: when I have most star mask on or off and just try to fill the gap with some tools, if I accidentally click on any existing mask, the the entire mask turn on or off. That really makes me wonder why such behavior.

This may be just nitpicking, but some change seems to make masking a lot more faster and effective.

Or maybe I just didn't use it right. I would like to learn about that if that is the case. Thanks!

You're right Puck - it's been nagging me for a while and you convinced me something needed to be done, now.
Check the new behavior in 1.3.5.259 and let me know what you think.
Instead of inverting whatever pixels are encountered, the decision to set or unset depends on the area you initially clicked in. If the area you initially clicked in was not set, the whole operation will set all pixels encountered. If the area you initially clicked in was set, the whole operation will unset all pixels encountered.

At every step of the way during development I try to make things smarter, instead of adding new options (I'm of the conviction that developers who clutter a UI don't really know or understand what their software is supposed to accomplish, putting the onus on the user instead to make sense of it all).

I'm hoping this goes a long way addressing the issues you highlighted.

[puckja]

I just download and try out the new beta. I like the clever use of Lasso now. However, this may be tricky for the new user to figure out since it will either on or off depending on the very 1st pixel clicked upon. But it is nice trick for me.

And this new feature make my mask making task much easier now. Thanks a lot!!