Digital Light & Color

PW 1/22. Found some old scanned images with horrible contrast, so having fun with PWP masks, and found:
1) mask dialog. Click on mask #x - popup menu with 'help,' and 'new mask.' 'New mask' should be first. There is a help button on dialog, why is it needed on this popup? Plenty of room on dialog, suggest add [New mask...] and [Edit mask...] buttons to replace the popup. And the [New mask...] button would have same effect as a [Reset] button (with warning msg) on the existing mask, no? When user first opens mask dialog, only the [Edit] button for mask #1 should be available!
2) mask dialog. There are two [Settings] buttons. The R button 'Load' and 'Save as' menus should be 'Load curve' and 'Save curve as,'; and 'Reset' could be 'Reset curve' because that is what they do. And these are not the same as corresponding items on top setting menu, which save or load the mask file.
3) the top [Settings] button has the 'Save mask as image file.' How does one load the saved mask image to use for the next transform??
4) mask | luminance curve & create the stair step mask. Are [Invert] and [Overlap] supposed to change the curve or the mask?? The help says [Invert] button changes mask. But the [Invert] button has no affect on the mask; the 'invert' on the R setting menu (curve control) does invert the curve, so it should be so labeled. And what would [Invert] do if I am using the paint tool? It appears to change transparency? The [Overlap] button makes the paint tool erase!
5) Now change above stair step graph to broken line. Check the end points - they seem to move. Change stair step to curve is same. Works OK on brightness tool graph.
6) [Mask Brightness Curve] button. Not mentioned in help file. What does this do? Now, I may have an old help file. Please add the link to latest help file to the download page.
7) Open image. Select mask tool; this is labeled 'Mask 1' in workspace. Open Brightness curve transform, amount & select mask 1 & change mask 1. The updated mask image is attached to brightness & labeled 'Mask' in workspace; should be 'Mask 2?' That is, when there are multiple masks in workspace, they should be appropriately numbered. Now the mask tool image in workspace has 'mask 1' and 'mask 2' but mask 2 does not reflect the change made in the brightness tool. The mask image attached to brightness curve is labeled 'mask' and does reflect the change made in brightness amount control.
Now, if you return to mask tool, each mask should load corresponding mask #, but they do not. Just returned to mask tool and none of the three masks show up in mask tool!
[img]C:\Users\bfuerman\Documents\picturewindow\masks01.png[/img]

Sorry, I am having a lot of trouble making sense of your message.

Please try again and distinguish between the Mask dialog box, creating masks via the Amount control, and using the Masks transformation.

1) I think the Help menu item you are referring to is the one you get by clicking on the white square at the right of the Amount control. This gives you help on the Amount control, not help on the Mask dialog.

2) There usually is only one setting button in the Mask Dialog -- namely the one at the top. Some of the tools such as the brightness curve tool also have a settings button that applies to the curve.

3) To use a mask saved as an image file, you just open the file and then you can select the image as a mask in an Amount control as long as it is the same size as the image you are creating a mask for.

4) Invert mask inverts the mask -- it does not change the transparency, but there is only a blank mask to invert until you click the Apply button to create a mask from the curve.

5) ???

6) The Mask Curve tool is right there in the help file. You get the latest help file when you run the full installer.

7) ???

New help file (see #8)
1) Correct. and the help menu you get when click on 'Mask 1' control on mask dialog also displays help on amount control?? and not help on mask dialog!
2) Correct. When you do have *both* [Settings] buttons, then updating the tool tips to distinguish how they function would be helpful.
3) Open image; then brightness tool. Click on Amount control and menu = 'help | New mask.' No way to select a saved mask here! I'm still missing something? Must I save the mask to a specific folder??
4) Not working here. Open image, then mask dialog tool. Create the 1/2 mask. Click [Apply] on mask dialog tool. Click [Invert] button on 'Mask 1' dialog - no change to mask. WAIT - I'm clicking the [Invert] button next to [Red overlay] button. the [Invert] button *above* [Blue overlay] button does invert the mask. So, I guess the question should be: How are these buttons different?
5) image one = graph with step tool. image two is same graph after clicking [Broken line] button. Is this correct? 6) New help file fixes this, thx.
7) image did not post. I shall try again! 8) running full install msi (to update help file) and message "Another version of this product is already installed. . . Use add/remove programs on Control Panel"

3) You have to open the save mask image to be able to use it. See the new Creating and Using Masks document.

4) The Invert button next to the red button is part of the mask mode tool bar and does not invert the mask. See the new Creating and Using Masks document.

5) Yes that is correct. Note that the stair step curve has it rightmost control point in the upper right corner.

7) ???

8) To streamline the frequent alpha releases I am giving every release the same version number. Just uninstall the previous one before trying to install the latest version.

If you want to email me files, send them to jsachs@dl-c.com.