Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

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davidh
Posts: 835
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

Post by davidh »

1. clone One To One, Lighten Only, from a source image

2. change cursor to Linked -> the source image stays in both the left preview window and the Source Image icon

3. do some linked cloning and then click Undo last operation -> the Source image now disappears from both the icon and the preview, which is now switched from Side by Side to Display Preview

now the problem starts

4. load back the source image -> it is highlighted in the image list as if loaded, but reload it and
change the cursors to One to One and the preview to Side by Side -> the left preview (the source preview) will not display the source image but keeps showing the input image - Brightness

5. cancel and reopen the Clone transformation dialog and change cursors to One to One and try to reload the source image -> again it is highlighted in the image list as if loaded, but reloadig it you will not get the source image to the preview window

6. click OK and reopen the Clone transformation dialog -> the Source image icon is empty, Cursors are Linked instead of One to One, Mode is Copy instead of Lighten Only (default settings, even though different user settings were saved)

7. Reset the Clone transformation dialog, reload the Source image list - still highlighted in the list, Set One to One, Lighten Only, click OK and reload -> the same result as in 6.

8. reopen, reload source image, set to One to One, etc. save into workspace, Close all images, load the workspace, reopen Clone transformation dialog -> the result as in 6.

10. close PWP, reload load the workspace, reopen Clone transformation dialog -> the result as in 6.

11. clone the branch starting from the step before Clone - the input image, reload the Source image - this time NOT highlighted in the list and it shows in the preview window, click OK -> when the procesing gets to the last transformation in the branch, the Clone dialog shows, freezes and PWP crashes
I restarted PWP and tried again but with the same result.

I have not found a way to reload the source image and get it to left preview to continue with One to One cloning. Finally I removed and recreated the Clone step, this time without jumping to Linked cursors.
davidh
Posts: 835
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Re: Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

Post by davidh »

One additional observation.

When you clone a branch that contains Clone transformation step and side branch with an image that is used as the Source Image in the Clone step

1. create a branch No.1, with a clone step and a side branch with an image that is used as the Source Image in the Clone transformation.
e.g. my example:
top image,
Crop,
Resize,
Three Zone Adjustment,
Splitter - added side branch with Brightness Curve
Clone (Source image from the side branch)
etc.

2. clone the branch as a side branch No.2, from the Three Zone Adjustment step
3. remove the branch No.1
4. reopen the Clone step in the branch No.2 -> you get a message Missing Source Image
5. click the message until it stops popping up (many many times ??), and the Clone Tool dialog opens
6. expand the Source Image list and load the image that corresponds to the Source image from Brightness curve in this branch (No.2), click OK -> at the end of the process PWP crashes

This is the same end as described in the step 11. above


------

One comment:

When the branch No.1 was removed, there was no warning about dependency in the branch No.2. even though the Clone in branch No.2 copied as the source image the image from branch No.1 instead of using the one from its own branch.
This may be intentional as mapping and reconstructing all the dependencies in multi-branched could be rather complex and time consuming.
However a reminder message to rebuilt links, poping up at the moment of clonnig a side branch that contains a link to an auxiliary image within its own branch, might be helpful.


Also, why so much Missing Soruce Image message popping when you try to reopen the Clone Tool dialog box. It pops up many more times than there are steps in the branch.
davidh
Posts: 835
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Re: Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

Post by davidh »

A new finding:
Removing the branch No.1 as described in step 3. above is not necessary to get to the crash in step 6.

After step 2 just go directly to step 6.
jsachs
Posts: 4203
Joined: January 22nd, 2009, 11:03 pm

Re: Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

Post by jsachs »

Some more bugs that turned out to be hard to find and fix, but should be OK for next release.
Jonathan Sachs
Digital Light & Color
davidh
Posts: 835
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Re: Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

Post by davidh »

A few observations:

-------

Closing or cancellig Clone transformation leaves no image active, consequently the preview window is empty.

------

Adding Clone transformation to a branch triggers the warning message Clone input image does not match original image dimensions.

-----------

1. add a top level image
2. add a side branch and use e.g. Brightness Curve to make the image lighter
3. add Clone transformation to the original branch and confirm the warning message mentioned above
4. load the Brightness Curve image as the Source Image, choose Lighten Only, One to One -> in the left preview you have Brightness Curve image, in the right you have Clone image,
in the browser Source Image thumbnail is active
5. do some cloning and then click Undo last operation -> OK

now alter the step 5. and continue with the process:

5. do some One to One cloning

6. change cursors from One to One to Linked, do some linked cloning, and then click Undo last operation ->
left preview window switches from Brightness Curve image to the preceding image (top level image),
Brightness Curve image is still loaded as the Source image,
in the browser Clone image thumbnail is now active,

7. change cursors back from Linked to One to One ->
this does not replace top level image with Brightness Curve image,
in the browser Clone image thumbnail stays active
you need first to click and activate the Source image thumbnail in the browser to display it in the left preview again - I think, perhaps, this should be better done automatically because naturally reloading already loaded Source image does nothing,
neither does clicking on the Display Input button of the Clone Tool dialog

One more observation:
If you, instead of activating the Source Image manually in the browser (at 7.), click Undo last operation again, you cancel the linked cloning but also automatically activate the Source Image thumbnail in the browser and consequently display Brightness image in the left preview window.
So perhaps the same could happen when you reselect the One to One Cursor (at 7.).


This is a pretty complex stuff. I will continue tomorrow.
jsachs
Posts: 4203
Joined: January 22nd, 2009, 11:03 pm

Re: Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

Post by jsachs »

I am having some trouble duplicating the second problem, but I should mention something about how cloning works from one image to another. I will be looking into this further tomorrow.

To select a new image to clone from, use the Source Image control. This makes the input the current image (i.e. highlights its half-size thumbnail in the image browser) and switches to a split screen.

To select an image that has been used before and already recorded as an input, just click on its half-size thumbnail in the image browser. Selecting it from the Source Image control does not do anything at this point since the image is already recorded as an input.

When you click OK, only those inputs that were actually used (by cloning a stroke from the input to the output) are recorded in the command line. This avoids creating unnecessary dependencies since the input list is what is used to determine dependency.
Jonathan Sachs
Digital Light & Color
davidh
Posts: 835
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Re: Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

Post by davidh »

I think there is some synchronization inconsistency between some of the dialog controls and the browser images.

1. top level image -> add side branch -> add Brightness Curve or something
the main branch -> add Clone One to One and load the Brightness Curve image as its auxiliary Source image - this makes it active in the browser

2.do some One to One cloning

3.switch to Linked and do some linked cloning -> there is no automatic switch of active image in the browser

4.click Undo last operation -> this undoes linked cloning strokes,
and in the browser active image is automatically switched from the auxiliary half-sized Source image to full-sized Clone image,

5. click Redo last operation -> you redo the Linked cloning, but there is again no automatic switch of the active image in the browser

This seems to be out of synchronization and a bit confusing because in a similar scenario you have at one moment in the left preview the auxiliary image, and at the next moment the input image without you switching them in the browser.
davidh
Posts: 835
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Re: Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

Post by davidh »

I have a new observation regarding a Source Image dependency relationship in a cloned branch mentioned above.

Previously when you tried to replace a Source Image in a cloned branch for its cloned twin (or any other image), PWP crashed at the end of the processing. Now it does not crash but the change is not saved. When you reopen the Clone dialog the original source image is back.
jsachs
Posts: 4203
Joined: January 22nd, 2009, 11:03 pm

Re: Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

Post by jsachs »

The Source Image control is only used to add new inputs. Thus there is no need to restore it when editing the transformation. To select an input, you click on its thumbnail. I have updated to help file to help clarify this which is admittedly confusing.
Jonathan Sachs
Digital Light & Color
davidh
Posts: 835
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Re: Changing cursors during cloning corrupts the whole step

Post by davidh »

When I wrote "...When you reopen the Clone dialog the original source image is back....."
I did not realize that unless you make at least one small cloning stroke, which I did not do, no change in settings is saved.

-----

Another observation:

the Help says:
To resume cloning from the output image to itself, click on the Clone thumbnail in the image browser. To clone from the input image or from some other image, click on its thumbnail in the image browser.

But when you click on the Clone thumbnail in the image browser, you get the unusable Clone input image in the left preview window not the (identical) Clone Output which would be more logical as it happens with all half-sized thumbnails when you click on them - they are displayed in the left preview window..
Well, you can clone using only the output preview, but is a bit inconsistent and confusing (why the Clone input image on the left ?) if you are not a seasoned or frequent "cloner".

Perhaps it would also be worth mentioning in the help that it is possible to replace a Source image for another only before you use it for cloning, or if you already did, after you first undo all the cloning strokes made with this source image.
This is quite useful to know, because, on the other hand, if you wanted first to preload several source images before doing any cloning, you would fail because you would be just replacing one image source with another.


Two more points for later consideration:
1. It would be more informative if the half-sized Clone Source thumbnails were titled as their full-sized transformation thumbnails instead of just repeated Clone Source.

2. There does not seem to be a way to remove a redundant source image from the list without recreating the whole Clone transformation. The horizontal list may grow quite large and wide in the browser.
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