Digital Light & Color

Two questions actually:

Is there a reason why when using the paint tool on a zoomed in image, the image window stays active so you can scroll around with the up/down/left/right keys without having to re-activate the window by touching the title bar with the cursor, but the same is not true when using the freehand or paint buttons in the Mask Transformation? I find it quite cumbersome when doing freehand or paint masking in a zoomed in view to have to touch the cursor to the bar each time to scroll to an area outside the window. I do notice that you can apply a mask using the paint button and, without releasing the mouse button, use the left/right/up/down keys to move outside the view then jiggle the mouse and it draws a straight line from where the cursor last was. Only good if you wished to draw a straight line however.

Second question. In an effort to determine if the feather or blur adds to itself each time it is used (prior to hitting OK) or whether it recalculates the radius using the current number (in other words does it do a 4 pixel radius, the number is changed to 6 so it removes the 4 pixel and recalculates the 6 or does it just add a 6 pixel radius to the already placed 4 pixel feather), I zoomed in considerably (30:1) and made a small sized square mask. However, when I pressed apply I unexpectedly discovered the mask was not sharp-edged but had a one pixel lighter colour feather. This was not consistent as sometimes the feather extended outwards by one pixel, sometimes it reduced by one light pixel and sometimes the border was sharp-edged. I tried to determine if this was impacted by where on/in the pixel the mask outline was drawn (and I still can't understand why the outline can cut a pixel in half rather than snap to a pixel edge, but that's another issue) prior to pressing the apply button but it seemed to have no rhyme or reason in that respect. My question: does the program automatically apply a single pixel feather even though the feather or blur tool is not activated? I should add, I found the answer about the feather/blur radius so that is not an issue.

Thanks

Marv

Re Question 1.
On my system (Windows 7 64 Home Premium), when using Mask paint in a zoomed in window:

1. Vertical scrolling using the mouse wheel works after releasing the mouse button and WITHOUT the need to click on the window frame.
2. If I press and hold the left mouse button and drag to paint a line do NOT release the button then the up and down arrows and the left and right arrows scroll vertically and horizontally WITHOUT drawing a line. Didn't know I could do that until your post, so Thanks!

Mike.

Re-feathering adds to previous feathering but does not double the radius since feathered parts of the mask do not feather as much the second time. To double the radius: undo, change the radius, and apply.

The various mask tools are anti-aliased so they are accurate to fractions of a pixel. This means sometimes the edge is soft and sometimes hard. If anti-aliasing was not done, edges would be jagged.

Most of the keyboard behavior you describe is unintentional.

Mike,

Did some more experimenting as a result of your comments. That's interesting that with Windows 7 you can scroll after releasing the mouse button and without the need to click on the frame. I certainly can't do that with XP Home version. Regarding the ability to use the arrow keys to scroll if you continue to keep the left mouse button clicked, on my system if I hold the mouse perfectly still and release the button, I can initiate another paint without the previous paint "catching up" by drawing a straight line the width of the radius. However, if I jiggle the mouse even a minute amount, the line catches up and draws a straight line mask. The unfortunate bit is I tend to use a pen and Wacom tablet to draw a lot of my masks and trying this with the pen is difficult at best.
Regardless, all bets are off when using the freehand tool. Does anyone know an easy way to use the freehand tool in a zoomed in view to draw intricate mask edges while keeping the workflow fairly smooth?? Currently, I draw as much as I can within the window and make sure the end point connects to the beginning point (if the two points are on a concave curve however, it doesn't work too well), then have to click the window frame to scroll over, and start the same procedure again. It would be nice to draw a segment, scroll over and continue to draw the mask and repeat until done.

Jonathan,

Thanks, I didn't even consider the anti-aliasing aspect and it certainly makes sense.

Marv

Does anyone know an easy way to use the freehand tool in a zoomed in view to draw intricate mask edges while keeping the workflow fairly smooth??

Try using Mask Tool - Polygon selection. Drag the initial four corners to surround the element edges to be masked... then use multiple 'shift-left mouse clicks' as needed along the element's edge... i.e., creating a 'connect the dots' type selection. You can zoom in or out and shift the viewed area as needed... once you get use to doing this, you can usually move along very rapidly forming an accurate sharp edged mask when the 'lower-left Apply Add' is selected after completing the dotted polygon selection. You then can 'lower-left Apply' a +2/-2 or -2/+2 feather or a small radius Blur to soften the edge as preferenced. Great for highly accurate extractions especially where some of the edge has low contrast. The closer the dots when going around tight curves, the smoother the mask edge when feathered or blurred. The dots can be further spaced when the edge is nearly a straight line.

A 'left-click hold drag' of a dot will relocate it when the hold is released.
A 'control left-click' of a dot will erase it.

Be careful not to move the surrounding overall rectangular guides once the dots are formed or all of the dots will shift accordingly.

Thanks Den,

I have rarely used the mask polygon tool, so know little of it's attributes. I will have to give this a try.

Marv

Instead of freehand I use the spline tool. Perhaps not quite as intuitive as the other tools but worth a little time to get familiar with it.

Mike.

Thanks Mike, I will give that tool a try as well.

Marv