Digital Light & Color

Flood-Fill Mask changes when Mask Transformation is Re-Entered

NOTE: In reading the Help, it seems that I am probably missing something here, however IMO the mask that exists upon exiting the mask transformation should not change upon re-entering it. I guess what I’m not clear on is how to set multiple individual seed points versus how to set beginning and ending line points.

Anyway, the following steps create a mask, and that mask changes when the Mask Transformation is re-entered (or refreshed in the case where a transformation is added before the Mask Transformation – even if the added Transformation makes no change to the image).

To reproduce:

1. Start PWP 8.0.454
2. Add the Color Wheel test pattern
3. Add the Mask Transformation.
4. Select New Mask
5. Select the Flood-Fill tool
6. Select 1 Flood-Fill spot with a click on the image near the red vertex
7. Select another individual Flood-Fill spot with a Shift-Click near the yellow vertex
8. Prepare to create a Flood-Fill region by Shift-Clicking near the magenta vertex
9. Complete the Flood-Fill region (began in Step 8) by Clicking near the center
10. Note the three individual mask areas created
11. Exit the Mask Transformation and re-enter it.
12. Select Re-open Mask Dialog Box
13. Note now that the three individual mask areas are all joined

Jeff

I made the following change in 454:

Shift-Click sets to end of the seed line without starting a new flood fill. (Used to start a new flood fill)
Ctrl-Shift-Click applies the current flood fill and starts a new one. (Used to be Shift-Click)

Sorry for the confusion, but this seemed like the most logical way to add the seed line feature.

See the help file for more details.

Did you consider implementing the additional Flood-Fill feature in a backward compatible fashion?

Click and Shift-Click would perform as before, but Control-Shift-Click becomes the end point of seed-line running back to the previous Click or Shift-Click point. There is additional logic needed to define the state-diagram status at the end of the Control-Shift-Click. But again it could be backward compatible - another Click would remove the previous mask region (that was formed by the line instead of the point), and another Shift-Click would simply add another seed point.

A way to conceptualize this backward-compatible approach would be to view the original implementation as using zero-length lines for each seed point and the new feature merely adds the ability to stretch out the seed points into non-zero length lines (with Control-Shift-Click).

In any case, the steps in the above post do produce a serious bug in the current release. I came across this in a production edit where I inserted a Clone-Tool prior to the Mask Transformation. A little research showed that the bug happened even when a Clone-Tool made no changes to the image (or the Mask Transformation was re-opened).

Jeff

7. Select another individual Flood-Fill spot with a Shift-Click near the yellow vertex
8. Prepare to create a Flood-Fill region by Shift-Clicking near the magenta vertex
9. Complete the Flood-Fill region (began in Step 8) by Clicking near the center
10. Note the three individual mask areas created

These steps do not create 3 individual masks, since 7,8,9 simply define/re-define the seed line endpoint

11. Exit the Mask Transformation and re-enter it.
12. Select Re-open Mask Dialog Box
13. Note now that the three individual mask areas are all joined

There is only one region and its shape is based on the seed line defined by 6 and 9, so I think this is working correctly (or at least according to the current interface).

To quote the updated help file:

Click -- sets the seed point.
Shift-Click -- sets the seed line endpoint.
Ctrl-Click -- resets the seed line endpoint.
Ctrl-Shift-Click -- applies the current flood fill and starts a new one

If I was starting from scratch, this is probably the way I would have set it up and I think it is the cleanest implementation. I admit the first few times I used I a did a Shift-Click when I should have done a Ctrl-Shift-Click, but thereafter it became easier.

My bad. I botched steps 7,8, and 9. Here are the corrected steps:

7. Select another individual Flood-Fill spot with a Ctrl-Shift-Click near the yellow vertex
8. Prepare to create a Flood-Fill region by Ctrl-Shift-Clicking near the magenta vertex
9. Complete the Flood-Fill region (began in Step 8) by Shift-Clicking near the center

Attached is a screen-shot video illustrating the problem.

Jeff

OK, I got it now. Fixed for next release.