Vis Mask in Painter: no you're not going crazy.

[Wayne D]

Hi Thelonius!

I was reading along and suddenly realized thatI didn't know what in the worl you were taking about. But that doesn't surprise me, I'm still struggling with floater/layers/whatever. I did learn how to use the stroke selection thinga ma bob.

I guess Corel is taking the rap for something they got from Meta/Fractal people. I wonder what Zimmer and Derry were doing while they were consulting with Corel? Maybe they will leave soon and design a new package. Who knows.

I still get jazzed about what Painter5.5 can do let alone P7.

Still I hear lots a bad news overshadowing the good news. Most new product get real beta testing upon release to the consumer.
I remember the Pong video game when it came out in the late 60's. I watched three guys lose their jobs in SIlican Valley one Friday afternoon after lunch. They got to playing Pong and forgot to go back to work. And these weren't young guys either. They blew off end of the month shipments cuz' they were captured by technology.

Ah well -- enough of this rambling on -- off subject that is!

Wayne D
Arizona

[s.winders]

Stick to your guns T [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]


I wont be buying Painter 7 now,and you have probably saved me a lot of money and grief.


When someone takes my money for a service I expect the service as stated,if the service cant be supplied for technical reasons then I expect this problem to be remedied so that the original service can be then reinstated.Ok no one is perfect and everyone is just human and prone to mistakes sometimes and I believe in giving people a chance to get themselves sorted,but telling you there is no problem when you can see quite clearly that there is,is just pouring gasoline on a fire and is pure denial on their part especially if you have logically and patiently pointed out the problem over and over again.What it probably comes down too is the viz mask is too expensive to fix and not enough people even know it is broken [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img]


Thanks for saving me some cash T,I will probably look for a copy of Painter 6 at sometime in the future [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]


I also understand that it is because you like Painter so much that you are complaining,otherwise you wouldnt care.


Cheers.

Stu.

[freebird]

Don't know if I am doing something wrong or if this is a painter bug but when I run filters on certain layers it also messes up pixels near the egde on other layers.
I was using some of the blur filters on lower layers and they worked fine on that layer but also kept messing up edge pixels on the upper layers.
I remade the file again from scratch and tried selecting the area on the layer before blurring it and it still messed up edge pixels on other layers. I even tried again by hiding the uppermost layers from view while I blurred the lower layer but it still continued to effect pixels on other layers. Not only did it blur edge pixels on other layers but it changed their color and I ended up taking it into Photoshop to repair the areas along the left side and bottom with the rubber stamp tool there.

[Thelonious]

Looks like you've got something new there Athena. I haven't seen what you describe. I'll be looking forward to a screen shot.

BTW What I describe is not a bug. It is a consequence of using a Vis Mask as a Layer Mask. Vis Masks should not be available to the user to play with. It was just a quick fix so MetaCreations could sell Painter.

Laughingly Tanya Staples from Corel told me that it's supposed to work like that. Yeah sure who wouldn't want to ruin their layer. Doesn't everybody.

I wish some smarty pants who maintains that the Vis Mask is not supposed to be a layer mask would tell me how it is supposed to be used then.

I think this is your cue to step in Mr EW

Thelonious

[eky]

Though I've not yet tried using this feature it's good to be informed about problems others have experienced with a program. When I do find a problem I also like to be able to go to messageboards such as on talkgraphics and do a search for the problem and possible solutions.

I don't agree that Corel is taking a "rap" for a problem that existed in a program they purchased from metacreations. It's a bug that Corel was informed of and choose not to fix in their latest version. That was Corel's decision. It's strange when you think about it that we have come to accept (or live with) the fact that a lot of software will not always work the way we want or that when there is a major bug that it probably won't be fixed until a new version comes out that we have to pay for when we would not accept that kind of quality (or lack thereof) in any other product or service. Imagine if your car or television won't operate 10% of the time.

I appreciate reading about problems as well as successes with software as it keeps me well informed.

[Thelonious]

Try this open the guitar file in the sample section of photoshop. goodies. you can bring this into Painter and restore the background.

Also you can use the extract command in Photoshop and also bring it into Painter and use the Vis Mask to see how Photoshop does the processing around the edge. It is quite interesting.

Thelonious

[Thelonious]

Hi Eky,

You can imagine how frustrating it is then to have a discussion on this when someone with an interest to disrupt the thread start using all the terms incorrectly. The terms I use are the "official" ones. ie User Mask in Painter, that's what they call it in the manual. This is the same as the Alpha Channel in PS.

It is very important not to call the Painter Vis Mask a layer mask. As Painter call it a Vis Mask. The reason for this is because if you call it a layer mask then the tendency is to get it mixed up with the PS layer mask.

If you have a layer in Painter that is completely filled with image like a photograph for example or even a painting if the layer has been filled first. Then in that circumstance the Painter Vis Mask will work in the same way as a Photoshop layer mask, no problem. Apart from the fact that in PS black makes invisible; white makes visible; and in Painter this is reversed.

This goes to prove that the Vis Mask is meant to act like a layer mask. It is when a layer is not filled with image that the Vis Mask doesn't work properly, it erases OK but it won't restore without damaging the layer.

The reason that it is so cockeyed is that in order to be able to highlight the Vis Mask you first have to highlight its corresponding layer first. Otherwise the Vis Mask will not show up in the mask palette. You can deselect the Vis Mask by selecting RGB image in the Mask Palette. But you can't deselect the layer that the Vis Mask belongs to and leave the Vis Mask highlighted because when you deselect the layer the corresponding Vis Mask disappears off the palette. This is why black appears on your layer when you paint on the Vis Mask and you go past the edge. The poor program has Both the Layer highlighted and the Vis Mask highlighted at the same time. So where does the paint go?

This is the sort of problem that Metacreations created when they make the Vis Mask user accessible. Unlike PS who kept it hidden and provided the user with their very own vis mask which they call a Layer Mask.

There is one more very frustrating thing about Painter that can be a real pain and that is Painter will allow you to paint on a layer even if it is invisible ie the eye is turned off. So it is possible to accidentally paint on a layer without realising until it is too late. Be careful on this one.

There is only one problem with doing layer masking in PS from a Painter file and that is if your image is in rif format for example if you have dynamic layers or wet layers and you want to bring it into PS you have to save into PSD which will set all dynamic layers.

Tanya Staples from Corel is trying to say that Corel never meant the Vis Mask to be like a proper layer mask. However this is rubbish. for two reasons one is that it was a metacreations idea in the first place so Corel can't speak for Metacreations. But more importantly they cannot possibly say that it was their intention that painting on the Vis Mask can completely destroy the image. I mean come off it.

If I complain that the scripts don't work properly are they going to say, "yeah we meant that too"? Corel has beta testers who do not even understand the difference between a User Mask and a Vis Mask. And Corel will not discuss this issue at all. In my opinion Corel have proven themselves to be fools. I beleive that Metacreations only provided the Vis Mask because they wanted to rush out P6 and didn't have time to engineer a proper layer mask. They probably thought that anyone serious would just do it in PS. Which I do. But it is an unnecessary pain. I'm sure that if Metacreations kept Painter that we would have working layer mask by now.

So remember boys and girls if the layer is filled with wall to wall image then the Vis Mask is OK. I hope this has made a very cocked up situation a bit more clear.

I remember way back in January someone on the Corel news group was asking for help about this black on the layer business. He even sent in a diagram in ascii code. I really felt sorry for him as he just met with total denial from the same morons who still deny that a problem exists.

The main problem now is Corel incredible arrogance. I see no reason at all to upgrade to P7. I don't see how Corel can move onto P7 before they release patches to fix P6. Like the scripts don't work very well in P6 everyone knows this. But what I don't know is are they fixed in P7. And even if they are why should I have to pay for a bug fix. I should only have to pay for new functionality. So it seems Corel have abandoned P6 and to add insult to injury we don't even know if all the P6 bugs have been fixed.

I'm happy to discuss this issue in however much detail is necessary. Usually by this stage I would have some complete idiot throw a spanner in the works. But she only enters the thread when she can detect that a moderator or someone in power is having trouble following because they only pretend to understand, then they insult me together. However it is more difficult to throw a hand grenade into a thread such as this as opposed to a newsgroup thread.

Regards

Thelonious

[This message was edited by Thelonious Hink on August 21, 2001 at 14:47.]

[Thelonious]

Doug,

There's no such thing as simple chalk. But I've got some samples of a variety of media including your suggested digital airbrush. It seems that you are not entirely clear what I'm talking about or you wouldn't suggest that it could have anything to do with what brush you're using. We are painting on the vis mask remember? It is of no consequence how the pixels are altered on the Vis Mask in relation to the black on the layer business.

Please insert illustrations into the thread to back up anything you say. Or at least a description that we can follow on our screens.

T

[This message was edited by Thelonious Hink on August 30, 2001 at 00:24.]

[Thelonious]

Right on Erik,
I don't know anything about Corel draw or Xara but one thing I do know is that an attitude that a company has will diffuse down through all their products.

I am angry and anyone who cares about about the way Corel is ruining their software should show their anger in the best way. Ie don't pay them any more money. I like Painter a lot if I didn't like it I wouldn't even bother. However I don't like being taken for a fool by Corel.

When I was growing up in the sixties I was led to believe we'd all be going to work with jet packs by now. Where are they, I want my f***ing jet pack. Now.

OK I'm not going to get my jet pack. But when I buy a software package there is an implicit agreement and obligation on the part of the supplier that their product will work. They have a duty and I have a right to expect faulty software to be fixed.

I don't want vector tools with disappearing handles, I don't want faulty scripts, I don't want half baked Vis Masks etc etc.

Show Corel you are angry, Don't upgrade any Corel products. Make them take notice. How? I don't know really after all they just ignore individual users who have genuine questions.

All I can say is if you don't need to then don't upgrade.

BTW Eky you should be OK now the only problems I had was when I thought that I was doing something wrong and I wasted so much time and energy.

Thelonious

[Thelonious]

Now some folks say that no one wants a Vis Mask like Photoshop's layer mask because painter is not an image editing program.

I'd like to point out that Painter has a curve dialog box. This is without doubt the most powerful image editing tool that there is! Who is the potential user of this tool. Many Photoshopists go their whole digital live not using the curves (except in the most rudimentary way) because it is so frightening.

The fact that Painter has curves is a testament to its serious image editing credentials. It also has a clone tool designed for image editing. It is a nonsense to suggest that the Vis Mask was not meant to be a layer mask.

Thelonious