Digital Light & Color

The new disk behaviour introduced in 6.0.9 puzzles me a bit.
In the fillowing image is the green line painted with Paint-Tool, the first red line with Mask, Paint tool, modus Accumulate and the last line with Mask, Paint tool, Modus Don't accumulate.
Settings were for all Radius 20, Transparency 0 and Softness 100.
It looks like in accumulate mode, which is obviously used by the Paint tool, too, the disk accumulates itself during moving when painting. Is that intended ? I would expect the same result in Accumulate and Don't accumulate Mode when making just a single stroke as I did in my example image.
Personally at first try I find the new mode much less softer then it was originally, with Transparency 100 I would expect a full saturated pixel in the center and then a gradual fall down to zero at the edge of the disk.
I understand that the new style may have it advantages, but also the old style has, so maybe it would be possible to select between the old and new gradient?

When painting in accumulate mode you need to use somewhat higher transparency to get soft effects since the overlapping brush applications add up. You can also adjust the spacing parameter to limit the frequency of brush applications as you move the brush. This is the way the paint tool has always worked, although I did fix a bug that had effectively prevented spacing from being set below 25%.

In non-accumulating mask mode, the mask is never be applied heavier than the brush which is the original way the mask paint tool worked. The accumulating mask mode is new and works like the paint tool.

In non-accumulating mask mode, the mask is never be applied heavier than the brush which is the original way the mask paint tool worked. The accumulating mask mode is new and works like the paint tool.

Jonathan, I have just put on PWP5 for a test.
I created a mask in PWP5 and PWP6.0.9, both the same settings as above, R 20, S100, T0, in PWP6 Don't accumulate.
To me the PWP6 version seems to be much heavier then the PWP5 version.

Dieter Mayr wrote:

To me the PWP6 version seems to be much heavier then the PWP5 version.

You have effectively illustrated the difference between a S-contrast curve gradient [co-sine curve] white to black [PWP6] vs. the linear gradient white to black that PWP5 had...

Which is better might be a matter of getting use to...!!!

Personally, being a long time PWP user, I have gotten adept using a linear gradient brush profile and would tend to have that as a preference...

Perhaps a solution would be to add the brush profile, linear or co-sine, as a "File/Preference" item.

Den, I would not dare to say which versions is better, both have their advantages, and there are always more ways to come to a desired result, and very often a question of personal taste.
In some cases I do like very soft masks, like a gradient between the 2 parts, and there I see advantages of the old linear version.
But of course there are other ways to achieve this, too, sometimes just to leave the old trained footpath used by us old veterans ;)

One problem with linear falloff is - as you can see in your example - that the central line stands out from the softer surrounding area, which is a well-known visual artifact. Since a cosine curve has the same area under it as the linear curve, the same total amount of masking is being done in both images, but with the cosine curve the falloff is initially slower and then faster at the edge. At least mathematically, the cosine is smoother and should look softer as it does to my eye. It also looks a little narrower because of the more rapid falloff at the end so you might try again with a slightly larger radius and slightly higher transparency and see if that gets you closer to the old brush, but without the central line and more abrupt outer edge.

Jonathan, I agree with you that the cosine curve is more smooth and does not have that outstanding line in the center the linear curve has.
I did play around a bit with transparency and it really helps a lot to get a "softer" gradient, i have to say i did not use Trasparency too much erlier.
Thanks for pointing to the right path, it happens really often that one that uses a program a while (3.2 was my first version) stucks in some old tracks because things were "always done this way ;)".

Probably something worth mentioning is that the PWP6 brushes of 'Miscellaneous Tools' have the updated profile as well:old dogs and new tricks ___ ;-)

Hint: when using brushes, often times I found that 'stamping' [left click-slight shift-left click-slight shift...repeating] with a transparent, soft-sided brush; letting the effect accumulate to a preference with each click more effective then painting [left click-hold-drag-release].

...den...

What a pleasure to read this exchange; you guys rock!

What a pleasure to read this exchange! Thanks for the insights, both about how the magic works and neat ways to use it. You guys rock!