Something to consider

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

Something to consider

Post by davidh »

I have been long postponing this topic until I finally posted it


Would it be possible to reduce the Paint Tool Redo the last operation to always redoing only the painting effect and leave the current settings as they were set?

The reason is this:
You set most of the sliders as Radius, Transparency, Softness, Brush shape, Mode Color, (also Stylus Pressure who use it) and do some painting. Then you do another step with different settings.
Suddenly you find out that you should or might have used a bit different Transparency or Color or whatever, so you click Undo the last operation and instead of simply dragging a slider a bit, you have to set again most of the controls because they had been reset to the previous step.

With more painting steps with different settings there is high probability that you overlook one or two controls, most often being it (at least in my case) different Softness, Brush shape and even Mode). This often means dozens of clicks to complete a few small small changes. Transparency is an exception as it is easily operated by the mouse wheel.

With the controls fixed at their last position or value, when Undo was applied, you could change what you really needed and the work would go much more smoothly. Even now if you go back and change something you are starting afresh form this point.

I realize that the controls are synchronized with the Undo and Redo buttons and this synchronization would be lost, but not the possibility to Undo or Redo the painting steps. Even now the synchronization with controls works only backwards.
jsachs
Posts: 4203
Joined: January 22nd, 2009, 11:03 pm

Re: Something to consider

Post by jsachs »

This is an issue with all the transformations that have undo buttons (Clone, Paint, Smudge, Levels and Color Tool, and possibly Mask). I have noticed the inconvenience myself on some occasions, while other times resetting all the dialog settings was something I wanted. It's not entirely obvious how to make it work better without being too complicated or confusing.
Jonathan Sachs
Digital Light & Color
davidh
Posts: 835
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Re: Something to consider

Post by davidh »

Sometimes, if I do not forget, after making new setting, I do a kind of a first dummy stroke that does virtually nothing but to which I can Undo without having to set everything again.
I was wondering if a similar idea could be implemented into the Undo function. The first Undo click would always just undo the last strokes without moving the controls. Only the second and the all the next Undo clicks would work as they do now.
Easier said then done, I guess.
jsachs
Posts: 4203
Joined: January 22nd, 2009, 11:03 pm

Re: Something to consider

Post by jsachs »

For the next release, undo undoes the last stroke but not the current brush settings. Shift-undo reverts to the old method of undoing both the stroke and the settings.

In my limited testing, it feels to me like the unshifted undo is more useful and intuitive.
Jonathan Sachs
Digital Light & Color
davidh
Posts: 835
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Re: Something to consider

Post by davidh »

Jonathan, thank you very very much.
I think this way it is much closer to real painting: it is like you take a piece of cloth, wipe off a stroke, change a brush, or dip into a different color on your palette, etc., and go on painting.
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