Digital Light & Color

Latest version

When compositing two images, I often use a Curves Overlay Mask.

As an example, I will start with a ,strictly, highlight mask, where the curve is a straight line from the top right corner to somewhere left of the bottom right corner. I will take a look at the result and often will move the bottom (or top) point to the left a bit, take another look at the result, and continue that process until I reach the desired result.

However, with the Overlay Mask dialogue (and Curves) open, when I press running man to see the result, the Curves closes. This requires another extra step in re-opening the Curves to nudge the point(s). Doing this several times can be a bit tedious, having to re-open the Curves multiple times.

Is there a way, that I may be unaware of, to keep the Curves open during this process? The mask itself will update automatically, so the new mask can be viewed, but it is not the same as seeing the actual result, especially when a different blend mode may be involved.

Marv

For the next release I added an item in the Mask dialog settings menu to always update the transformation when the mask is updated.

Originally I did not want make updating the transformation the default behavior because if you have a slow transformation on a large image, it can introduce long delays when making small mask changes. With the new menu item in the settings menu, you can choose manual updates or slower performance.

Latest version.

Thanks Jonathan for the noted change. It works a charm, at least for the Curves tool.

However, not sure it is working correctly for the Flood Fill.

If the new update option is off, and I click on a spot in the image, the mask appears. If I then shift+click another area, that area is added to the existing mask.....and so on.

However, if I choose the update option, and do the same operation, the mask is not added to but just moves to reflect the new point (as if Shift+Click is acting like a straight single Click). And throughout, the running man is grayed out (not that that makes a difference with the way it now works).

Not sure if it is supposed to work like this or not.

Marv

I am not seeing the problem with Flood Fill -- is it possible you are not holding down the Shift key all the way?

No, I am holding down the Shift key (in fact I pressed a little harder after your post). If I do not have the auto update clicked and do the Shift+Click, it works as expected.

Funny thing though, I was playing with some variations, trying to figure this out and found if I do the initial click, a mask is generated. Then if I press the Reverse Mask button and the mask reverses, I can then Shift+Click in the now unmasked areas and it adds to the mask, as expected.

But, if I cancel then re-open the Composite/Mask, and try the auto-update with Shift+Click, it fails to work again.

Marv

Should be fixed for next release.