MikeFromMesa

I found myself working on some very old photos taken about 15 years ago with a very inexpensive digital camera. The shots were mostly OK but they suffered badly from lens distortion and often the AP lens distortion filter was not enough to fix it. Some of the photos were taken inside buildings and the lens distortion often distorted the walls in such a way that even the Perspective Tool was not enough to fix the issue. What I wanted to do was to select a rectangle, invert the selection and then use the clone tool to clone a background color leaving only the earlier selected wall alone. The problem was that the rectangle I wanted to select was not perfectly horizontal and vertical, but was on an angle so the rectangular Marquee Tool did not do what I wanted. I thought I had two choices - rotate the image so that the Marquee Tool would work, or find some way to draw a rectangle using the hand-held selection tool. I tried the second method but could not get a straight enough line to work for me so I began to wonder why there is no tool in AP that would allow me to select a point, select a second point, have AP draw a straight line from point 1 to point 2, then go to point 3, repeat, and so on until I closed the polygon. That way I could select a triangle, rectangle, pentagon, hexagon or any other multi-sided figure, have AP connect the adjacent nodes with straight lines and I could do that without a lot of work. Of course there is also the possibility that such a tool already exists in AP and I have just not found it. Is there such a tool? If so, which one? If not, why not? Or am I alone in wanting such a tool?

Well, that is just remarkable. Thanks again for the tutorial. It is going to make fixing this image a lot easier.

Thanks for the post. My first thought is that I was wondering what the Sources Panel was for and, not knowing, I closed it before I tried cloning. Figures ... My second thought is that I now know why my attempt did not work. All I did was open an image, select the "from" source, switched to a second image and tried to clone. That does not work. Without the video I doubt that I would ever have figured it out. I am going to give this a try, but in my case the photos were not taken from the same spot so this will be interesting. Thanks again. At least this gives me a place to start. Live and learn (hopefully ...)

Is there any way to use the Clone Tool between photos? That is, select a "from" location in one photo and use it on another photo? I have tried this with both separate photos and with separate layers, but could not make it work. I know I can move a bottom layer around and cut out the section I want to clone to, but I would rather be able to control an actual clone.

Have you tried either Rasterizing or flattening the image before the call? That is what I started to do when I saw odd behavior from Topaz after a crop straightening.

I am not suggesting that this is the same as your problem, but there has always been a bit of an oddity about using InPainting after using the crop tool to rotate an image for straightening. As best I can figure it AP rotates the visible image but leaves an underlying internal layer (which are not visible) alone. Then, when I have InPainted after that rotate, AP seems to have always taken data from the underlying unrotated layer at the location specified on the rotated image. Since the two locations are different, one rotated and one not, the wrong data gets used in the InPainting. I reported this issue a very long time ago and was told to either rasterize the image or flatten it to fix the problem. It struck me as interesting that you are seeing a different problem with the same solution.

In my case I performed different adjustments on each open image and wanted to export them all with a simpler work process than going through a dozen or more images and exporting each one separately. I tried to create a macro to do that but the macro recorder apparently could not record using the export dialog box.

The adjustment panel may be for presets, but it opens the exact same adjustment slider dialog box as I would get from opening it from the Layers command drop-down and I get the exact same adjustment control, so I guess I do not see why you would say it is only for presets. If I could only apply presets using the Adjustment Tab entries I would not use them at all. As far as your comment that I can reduce my click count by using the Layers entry, that is wrong. Consider - I want to adjust the Brightness and Contrast on an image. If I use the Adjustment Tab entry I click one time to open the dialog box, make an adjustment and (since I have to) click once more to close it. Two clicks, one of which seems unnecessary to me. If I want to use the Layers drop down there are also two clicks, one to open the drop-down list and another to select the adjustment I want. Again, two clicks, both necessary, and requiring that I change the concentration of my work from the image/panel area to the top of the UI. My point was that if the Adjustment Tab entry closed when the dialog box closed I would not have to perform two clicks. As for your comment that the adjustment dialog box will close when I open another image, that is true, but the Adjustment Tab entry does not close when another file is opened. It remains open requiring that the user again close it (one click) and open it again (another click) when it seems clear that opening another image should close the dialog box and the Adjustment Tab entry.

I have been loading multiple files into AP simultaneously, adjusting them and writing them out individually. It occurred to me that AP has a batch function and I decided to try to set up a batch write for all of the files currently loaded (and adjusted) in AP. When I tried what I found was that the batch dialog box seemed dedicated to processing images that are on disc and not in memory and I could find no way to batch save all of the multiple images I currently had loaded into AP. Is there any way to batch save multiple adjusted images? Or do I have to save them individually? I suppose I could create a macro but then I would still be stuck with applying the macro to each loaded image rather than issuing a simple batch-type command to process them all at once. UPDATE: Just to be clear, this would involve "saving" in the sense that an image would be written out in the requested format. That is, the image would be exported to whatever format is requested, given the acceptable format types for AP. In this case I was trying to export the images as psd files although I might have wanted to export them as jpgs.

If you use the adjustment entries under the Adjustment tab while editing an image you have probably noticed that when you click on an entry it expands and stays expanded after the adjustment dialog box has closed. The fact that it does not automatically close upon dismissing the associated dialog box has always annoyed me but, since my workflow usually involves editing in a workflow tool like CaptureOne and using AP as an external editor, it had little actual impact on me. I adjusted one image at a time and closed AP after I was finished with that image and, when AP was reopened, the adjustment entries were all properly closed. Today I spent some time working with multiple images, all open in AP simultaneously, and noticed that not only does the adjustment entry stay open after it has been used, it does so even if the user switches to a different image or, in fact, opens another image after using the adjustment. This means that if I want to use, say, the Levels Adjustment on several images in sequence I have to: 1. Click on the Levels entry and make the adjustment on image 1, 2. Click on the Levels entry (to close it) and then click on the Levels entry again (to open it) to make the adjustment on image 2. 3. Repeat for image 3, and so on. That is, making an adjustment requires on click to open the adjustment dialog box for the first image and then two clicks for every subsequent image. Why is all of this extra clicking required? Why does each image not get a completely closed set of adjustment entries? Do others find this annoying? Or is it only me?

I have not seen anything addressing the original question of this thread - when will the next beta be available?

OK. That was the original assumption I made in my earlier post. I asked: What app are you referring to when you talk about it trying to open the beta and not the MAS version? Finder? When I did not get a confirmation that it was Finder I assumed it must be something different and that was the reason for my subsequent post.

Perhaps it has to do with the way you and I are opening photos as I do not see this issue. When I edit a photo using either AP or APB it is done in one of two ways - either the call the specified editor from a workflow tool (which, in my case is usually CaptureOne) and then I am presented with a list of editors to use and CO then opens the specified editor OR I open AP or APB and then open the image I want to edit. In neither case do I get the wrong editor. You must be using a different scenario to open your images.

I must be missing something here. What app are you referring to when you talk about it trying to open the beta and not the MAS version? Finder?

I suppose all of this means that there will be a new beta out soon.

The only time I have seen that is when I have accidentally selected the wrong layer. If an adjustment layer is selected the haze filter can not do anything because it has no data to work on. One of the continuing problems I have is that I sometimes forget that I have to select the image layer when I want to apply filters. If your problem is different than that it is something I have not seen.

Thank you. I have wondered if there was some reason that my last several issues were overlooked. Along with this one I also posted about APB's inability to properly process a vertical panorama and produce something useful. It appears that when stitching a vertical pano APB automatically uses spherical projection while using cylindrical for a horizontal projection. This item has been viewed over 100 times by participants but I have never gotten so much as a notice from any Moderator. I could not help but wonder why.

There are two ways to call AP from C1, sending the raw image and sending a processed image (Open With and Edit With). Which are you using? If you are sending the raw image you must be using AP to develop the photo and that means adjusting it, so you might expect the return to look a bit different. On top of that you probably have C1 set to make some initial adjustments when opening a new image. If you are sending an image to AP or APB and then saving it under a new name, C1 will adjust it (again) when it opens it because it assumes it is a new image (and it is as far as C1 is concerned).

> When you are recording a macro, after you have added the mask, you must select the parent layer (click on it) to return focus to that layer ​Yes. This is what I discovered when trying to create the macro. If, after adding the mask, I tried to select a layer other than the parent of the mask APB sometimes got completely lost and presented a dialog box with no enabled selections and thus no way to properly reply. The only way out of the problem was to select the parent layer of the mask and then to select the next layer I wanted. > The "bug" may be that the mask (child) does not get highlighted when you add it to indicate explicitly that it is the targeted (active, selected) element in the stack. I do not know what was in the minds of the developers when they coded this part of AP but what struck me is that if you do this "live" (that is, while not recording a macro) there is no issue. APB just allows you to select whatever layer you wish to work on next. But if you are recording a macro you have to tell APB where it is supposed to be. In all of my other attempts to create macros the recording process has been identical to the "live" process with this scenario being the only one I have seen where things work differently. ​When I posted the "bug" report I tried to explain that I considered the fact that the active layer seems to lose focus when the mask is added. If the focus is on the mask child layer, then I am not sure why it is not highlighted. It it is on the parent layer the same question applies. Why is it not highlighted and, in fact, why is no layer highlighted? When working with layers most (although not all) changes leave a layer highlighted so the real question is whether or not adding a mask is supposed to leave no layer selected and that was the reason I posted with the subject that I believed this to be a bug rather than saying it was a bug. If one of the moderators or developers post telling me that this was the way they intended APB to work then I will assume it is not a bug but I thought the question deserved to be asked.

When I said that I believed the issue to be a bug I was not referring to recording the macro. I was saying that adding a mask to a layer automatically de-selects the layer and I believe that to be a bug. What is the purpose of having the software automatically de-select the current layer? It seems to me to be so pointless that I do not see how that could be anything but a bug. Perhaps there is a reason and perhaps I am wrong and that is why I listed the post with the subject that I believed it to be a bug rather than saying it was a bug. But this has nothing to do with the fact that I was recording a macro.

A short time ago I started a thread about the problems I was having trying to record a macro. While I was able to work around the issue and now have the proper macro I believe that the problem at that base of the thread is a bug. If a user selects a layer and then uses the Mask Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to add that mask to that layer APB adds the mask properly but then de-selects the layer involved. Since the layer is now deselected any attempt to do something else, like select another layer, runs into the problem that APB does not know what layer is the current layer. Am I right in assuming that adding a mask to a layer should not deselect the layer? If so, this is a bug.

Adding a mask to a layer de-selects that layer and I believe that is the base problem here. When the mask is added the the layer is de-selected the user has to go back and reselect the layer or the system has no idea where you are. Hence the dialog box and all of my problems (until you cleared that up for me). I believe that to be a bug and I will report it as such. Perhaps they will agree and fix it. Perhaps not.

p_mac: That link is nothing more than a dropbox location so I do not know what went wrong. I got the same error. This time I followed your instructions and "edit"ed the macro (by the way, you need an image loaded for that to work), and then exported the single macro, which is here. This time I tested it to make sure the link works properly.

Of course, although it is nothing special. It is one of two macros I keep in a group I call Mikes and I could not see any way to export only one, so here are both. The first only performs a flatten followed by a matte since that is what I need to do to some images I process in On1 to get them to open in Dxo's Optics Pro. The second, cleverly named HMS Masks (for highlights, mid tones, shadows), is the one you are asking about. Let me if you have any suggestions or questions.

Thank you for the macro. In trying to understand what I was doing wrong I finally realized my problem. When recording the macro I had just added the masks to the appropriate layers one after the other and the resulting structure did not work as I expected. This time I took the time to check and uncheck the appropriate layers as I added the masks (unchecking those not involved, checking the one I was using, but always leaving the Background layer checked) and that solved my problem. I now have a working macro that does what I wanted to do. Thanks for your help.