Another oddity when masking

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AHuntley
Posts: 51
Joined: September 1st, 2012, 3:32 pm
What is the make/model of your primary camera?: unknown

Another oddity when masking

Post by AHuntley »

It seems that no matter what tool is used to create a mask--I was using the paint brush and color range--if you move the transformation box from its default location in the lower-left corner, you cannot continue creating the mask. To be clear, I started creating the mask, then moved the mask dialog off the left preview to allow me to see what I was masking (continue with masking still works at this point), but then when I moved the transformation dialog I cannot do any further masking. This isn't a big deal with smaller transformation dialogs like the Brightness curve, but the Selective Correction dialog can cover to much of the left preview. IMO, any dialog box should be able to be moved to any location on the scene and still allow me to continue what I'm doing. I accidentally tripped over this issue because I was creating a mask for Selective Correction and hit the "Display Preview" button to have a full screen preview to work on, but can't create the a mask from here. Also, doing this does something very strange with CPU cycles because cursor movement slows to a crawl! Being that I have a brand new high power computer I doubt it's my computer causing this anomaly.

While we're talking Selection Correction... Somehow, yesterday, I lost the Brightness slider at the bottom of the dialog. It's just not there...period. How do I get it back?

Oh, and one other thought... Doesn't it make sense that the side-by-side preview, or any preview, be able to be zoomed into when masking? How would the user be able to create a complicated, detailed mask without being able to zoom in even beyond 100%?
Regards,
AlanH
AHuntley
Posts: 51
Joined: September 1st, 2012, 3:32 pm
What is the make/model of your primary camera?: unknown

Re: Another oddity when masking

Post by AHuntley »

Forgot to mention... I am running today's bug fix release.
Regards,
AlanH
jsachs
Posts: 4203
Joined: January 22nd, 2009, 11:03 pm

Re: Another oddity when masking

Post by jsachs »

>> It seems that no matter what tool is used to create a mask--I was using the paint brush and color range--if you move the transformation box from its default location in the lower-left corner, you cannot continue creating the mask. To be clear, I started creating the mask, then moved the mask dialog off the left preview to allow me to see what I was masking (continue with masking still works at this point), but then when I moved the transformation dialog I cannot do any further masking. This isn't a big deal with smaller transformation dialogs like the Brightness curve, but the Selective Correction dialog can cover to much of the left preview. IMO, any dialog box should be able to be moved to any location on the scene and still allow me to continue what I'm doing. I accidentally tripped over this issue because I was creating a mask for Selective Correction and hit the "Display Preview" button to have a full screen preview to work on, but can't create the a mask from here. Also, doing this does something very strange with CPU cycles because cursor movement slows to a crawl! Being that I have a brand new high power computer I doubt it's my computer causing this anomaly.

The short answer to this is that you need to click on the title bar of the Mask dialog to re-activate it before you can continue masking. Since various controls and transformation dialog boxes let you click on the input image to set probe values or draw overlays, PWP needs some way to tell when you click on the image which window to send events to. This is controlled by which window is active which in turn you control by clicking on the window title bar.

>> While we're talking Selection Correction... Somehow, yesterday, I lost the Brightness slider at the bottom of the dialog. It's just not there...period. How do I get it back?

The brightness slider is specific to the current control point. If there is no control point selected, it is not displayed.

>> Oh, and one other thought... Doesn't it make sense that the side-by-side preview, or any preview, be able to be zoomed into when masking? How would the user be able to create a complicated, detailed mask without being able to zoom in even beyond 100%?

Yes you can do this using the zoom control above the images. With split screen, for transformations that preserve the image size, you can do either synchronized scrolling and zooming or independent scrolling and zooming.
Jonathan Sachs
Digital Light & Color
AHuntley
Posts: 51
Joined: September 1st, 2012, 3:32 pm
What is the make/model of your primary camera?: unknown

Re: Another oddity when masking

Post by AHuntley »

jsachs wrote:>>This is controlled by which window is active which in turn you control by clicking on the window title bar.
Yes, sorry, I forgot that little fact from my prior days with PWP. But, IMO it's not necessarily obvious that a window doesn't have focus since the title bar description simply changes from a light gray (no focus) to a middle gray (focus). Would it make sense to have the entire title bar change?
jsachs wrote:>>The brightness slider is specific to the current control point. If there is no control point selected, it is not displayed.
Yep, makes sense.
jsachs wrote:>>Yes you can do this using the zoom control above the images. With split screen, for transformations that preserve the image size, you can do either synchronized scrolling and zooming or independent scrolling and zooming.
Sorry, my bad, again. I never looked over to the preview window to see active zoom controls. For some odd reason, I had only ever looked at the input preview and saw those controls grayed out, and thought I didn't have zoom control. Thank you for clarifying that for me.
Regards,
AlanH
jsachs
Posts: 4203
Joined: January 22nd, 2009, 11:03 pm

Re: Another oddity when masking

Post by jsachs »

I agree it would be nice if the title bar would light up when a window was activated, for some reason Microsoft does not seem to cooperate.
Jonathan Sachs
Digital Light & Color
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