Jagged edges when SLOWLY drawing selection using lasso tool (antialiasing is on )

[iconoclast]

8 minutes ago, gentleclockdivider said:

What makes you think I am a beginner , just becasue I registered on this forum ?
 I have well over  2 decades experience with photoshop, illustrator  , 3d max , blender etc... 
This issue was the first thing I noticed , because I use the freehand selection tool  a lot , depending on the task .

Yes , it's a rough tool in affinity  

  
 

Definitely this "issue" made me think that you are a beginner. If you really used the Free Selection Tool so often and for years - even in Photoshop - you must have missed a lot. I, as all the other graphic designers I know, mostly used it for quick, dirty and rough preselections, as I already said. In Photoshop, in PhotoImpact, in GIMP, in Krita, in ArtRage and in AfPhoto. But it is of course your choice. You can even bang in nails with a screwdriver if you like. Doesn't matter to me.

[gentleclockdivider]

Don't know if I should even reply to that , but here it goes 
First , I make guis for software instruments ,mostly coded by myself in reaktor ,the freehand selection tool might not do the job for your line of work but for me it does it splendidly .

Accuratly selecting ( as in NOT jagged ) areas to paint upon , I am not talking about image editing or fine selecting  for photo retouching.

Yes there are much better tools for that and I am perfectly aware of that but  it was just NEVER  a part of this topic until you brought it up , effectively steering away from the (now confirmed ) issue .

Stop judging and assuming things .
Lastly ,  I could easily  just throw the ball  back and call you un-experienced for not even noticing the problem in the first place  ( which I know is not true ) 
 

[iconoclast]

39 minutes ago, gentleclockdivider said:

Don't know if I should even reply to that , but here it goes 
First , I make guis for software instruments ,mostly coded by myself in reaktor ,the freehand selection tool might not do the job for your line of work but for me it does it splendidly .

Accuratly selecting ( as in NOT jagged ) areas to paint upon , I am not talking about image editing or fine selecting  for photo retouching.

Yes there are much better tools for that and I am perfectly aware of that but  it was just NEVER  a part of this topic until you brought it up , effectively steering away from the (now confirmed ) issue .

Stop judging and assuming things .
Lastly ,  I could easily  just throw the ball  back and call you un-experienced for not even noticing the problem in the first place  ( which I know is not true ) 
 

As I already said, if you want to do it this way, just do it. The point is: Don't blame the software for your unconventional habits and desires. Many people are glad to have this software and haven't yet stumbled upon this "issue". Possibly because in fact it isn't really one. In fact it could also be that it is intended behaviour. However, it doesn't seem to be verry important for the most users because they use to create their selections in a more rational way.

And: "Stop judging and assuming things"? Nice joke! The same to you.

[Patrick Connor]

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[R C-R]

10 hours ago, RNKLN said:

I can easily reproduce the OP's issue. See below. The big shape was drawn quickly while the smaller one was drawn slowly. After drawing the shape, I used the Flood Fill tool to fill with grey.

FWIW, I cannot duplicate this -- I get antialiasing on edges only if I enable the Antialias option on the context toolbar before using the Freehand Selection Tool. I have tested this at least half a dozen times in AD's Pixel persona, each time starting with a new document created immediately after launching the app, each time drawing one selection very, very slowly & the other as fast as I can.

For example, in this freehand tool test.afdesign file the larger shape was created from a selection I made quickly in less than 1 second, while the smaller one was made from a selection I made very, very slowly -- about 15 seconds. The antialiasing option was not enabled.

As you can see if you zoom in, neither shape has antialiased edges.

The document dimensions of this test file are small to keep the download time to a minimum, but I have also tested with very large (like 10K x 10K 400 DPI) sizes, with tiny & very large selections, with different or the same pixel layer for each selection & fill, while zoomed very far in & very far out, & with every other variation I can think of.

For me, regardless of how fast or slow I make my freehand selections, there is no jitter, no automatic antialiasing when that option is not enabled at the time the selection is made.

[iconoclast]

26 minutes ago, R C-R said:

FWIW, I cannot duplicate this -- I get antialiasing on edges only if I enable the Antialias option on the context toolbar before using the Freehand Selection Tool. I have tested this at least half a dozen times in AD's Pixel persona, each time starting with a new document created immediately after launching the app, each time drawing one selection very, very slowly & the other as fast as I can.

For example, in this freehand tool test.afdesign file the larger shape was created from a selection I made quickly in less than 1 second, while the smaller one was made from a selection I made very, very slowly -- about 15 seconds. The antialiasing option was not enabled.

As you can see if you zoom in, neither shape has antialiased edges.

The document dimensions of this test file are small to keep the download time to a minimum, but I have also tested with very large (like 10K x 10K 400 DPI) sizes, with tiny & very large selections, with different or the same pixel layer for each selection & fill, while zoomed very far in & very far out, & with every other variation I can think of.

For me, regardless of how fast or slow I make my freehand selections, there is no jitter, no automatic antialiasing when that option is not enabled at the time the selection is made.

I also only have antialising if it is activated in the contextbar of the Free Selection Tool. Thought I had by quick drawing without it, some tests ago, but I may have mistaken. But the edge of the selection gets much more erratic if I draw the selection slowly. I'm not sure if this is only because my hand is trembling more when I draw slowly (just like real life drawing). But I can't see any other reason. What helps is to draw with the stylus of a graphics tablet. It has much less friction than a mouse and results in much smoother drawing.

[R C-R]

11 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

But the edge of the selection gets much more erratic if I draw the selection slowly. I'm not sure if this is only because my hand is trembling more when I draw slowly (just like real life drawing). But I can't see any other reason.

Try zooming in very far when you make a selection so the pointer has to travel a long distance on the screen to go from one pixel to the next to add to the selection. If you do that, you should be able to minimize if not completely eliminate any trembling/wobbling effects. When I do that, I still see no difference in what I select regardless of how quickly I draw the selection.

A variation of this test is to draw a selection very quickly while zoomed in, fill a pixel layer with it, & then create a new layer & slowly & carefully trace a new selection over the edges of the first layer. Now fill that second layer's selection & compare the two.

[RNKLN]

I've attached my file. These are the settings for the Freehand Selection tool:

I have no further experience with this tool. It may even have been the first time I used it, trying to reproduce the issue.

All done on my primary machine by the way, with 1.10 installed.

Freehand.afphoto

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, RNKLN said:

I've attached my file. These are the settings for the Freehand Selection tool:

Weird. Even if I start with your file, use identical settings, & draw one selection very quickly & the other very slowly, both show antialiased edges. In this Freehand with 2 new fills.afphoto file, the lower left green shape was created from a selection made very slowly over 20 seconds, while the one above & to the right of it was made with a <1 second selection.

The slowly made one has less edge antialiasing than the quickly made one, which is exactly what I would expect because I could control the path of the selection better when going slowly.

[Patrick Connor]

16 minutes ago, R C-R said:

draw one selection very quickly & the other very slowly

What input device (on what OS) are each of you using? it makes a huge difference

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

What input device (on what OS) are each of you using? it makes a huge difference

At the moment, I am using a Kensington trackball on macOS Catalina. There is a custom software driver available for it that includes some velocity-sensitive features but I do not have it installed, so it mimics a standard Apple mouse in that respect.

Later I can try with an Apple Magic Trackpad 2 & see if anything changes.

EDIT: I just repeated my tests using my Apple Trackpad 2. Same results -- no antialiasing unless that is enabled while the freehand selection is being made, regardless of how quickly or slowly I draw the selection.

[iconoclast]

26 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

What input device (on what OS) are each of you using? it makes a huge difference

As I said, I used mouse and graphics tablet (on Windows). It's in fact a difference.  I'm still not sure if here is really an issue. With zoom factor 100% even the shapes without antialiased edges don't look too bad for me.

For me it looks like R C-R is right and the zoom factor is the key to the problem this thread is about. If you draw the free selection with a steady hand and 100% zoom factor, you will get an almost smooth edge.

[RNKLN]

I use the trackpad on my MacBook.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, iconoclast said:

For me it looks like R C-R is right and the zoom factor is the key to the problem this thread is about. If you draw the free selection with a steady hand and 100% zoom factor, you will get an almost smooth edge.

Actually, I was suggesting testing with a very high zoom factor, much larger than 100%, so it is easy to see which pixels are being selected.

[iconoclast]

11 hours ago, R C-R said:

Actually, I was suggesting testing with a very high zoom factor, much larger than 100%, so it is easy to see which pixels are being selected.

To be honest, I was never aware of this problem, because I always only used the Free Selection Tool for quick and dirty selections, as I already said. Mostly to select the main part of the background of an image I wanted to release an image object from, before I refine the selection with a mask. It seems that depending on the size of your screen and the intended size of the selection, it can be a lot of puzzling to get the selection you want with a free selection. Without wanting to restart this unfriendly discussion from yesterday, it seems to me that it would be a much better idea to use for example the Pen Tool to create a clean and smooth selection. I know that Beziér Curves are a thing that especially beginners don't like, because they seem so abstract. But if you have just got a little into it and learned how it works, it is such a genius thing, you can draw extremly clean and precise with. And at the end it will probably be much faster than this puzzeling.

Edit: I compared this with the Free Selection Tool of GIMP, and it looks almost the same. I'ts not easy to say, because freehand drawing is alsways subjective, but it seems to be normal behaviour. Unfortunately I can't compare it with Photoshop. But I think, if there isn't any automatic smoothing, it will be the same.

[gentleclockdivider]

It is not the same in photoshop ( see my previous  posts and screenshots on page 1  ) , no matter the drawing speed the selection is always smooth .

I guess there is a lot more to it that we are not aware off , the underlying code etc

There is probably an algoritm that defines how much time it spends to select the underlying pixels , slow drawing  meaning it has more time to select the pixels and resulting in jagged edges  ( thus jagged ) , faster drawing speed = less time and maybe does some averaging- interpolaton whcih results in cleaner /antialiased lines .

 

 

[Old Bruce]

10 minutes ago, gentleclockdivider said:

There is probably an algoritm that defines how much time it spends to select the underlying pixels , slow drawing  meaning it has more time to select the pixels and resulting in jagged edges  ( thus jagged ) , faster drawing speed = less time and maybe does some averaging- interpolaton whcih results in cleaner /antialiased lines .

plus you could have an added smoothing algorithm for slow drawing. A choice of precision, every little side to side and up down deviation is reflected in the selection. Smoothing ignores up to a two or three (or 1, 6, 22... whatever it is would be decided by the zoom factor and screen resolution) deviation at right angles to the direction of the cursor. Sampled every millisecond for x, y co-ordinates.

[iconoclast]

23 minutes ago, gentleclockdivider said:

It is not the same in photoshop ( see my previous  posts and screenshots on page 1  ) , no matter the drawing speed the selection is always smooth .

I guess there is a lot more to it that we are not aware off , the underlying code etc

There is probably an algoritm that defines how much time it spends to select the underlying pixels , slow drawing  meaning it has more time to select the pixels and resulting in jagged edges  ( thus jagged ) , faster drawing speed = less time and maybe does some averaging- interpolaton whcih results in cleaner /antialiased lines .

 

 

It is not easy to say, because it depends on so many things like the steady hand, the zoom factor, the resolution of the image, the input device and maybe more. To really compare, all this factors must be the same. Especially the zoom factor plays an important role as I saw in my experiments. I got the smoothest selections with 100% zoom or more.

Isn't the Pen Tool an option for you? With it the selection is always as smooth as it could be, no matter with which zoom factor you draw it. And you can draw verry clean and precise. The only limitation seems to be that the antialiasing can't be deactivated for it. At least I couldn't find an option.

Edit: "Interpolation" is what in Affinity is called "Resampling".

[R C-R]

14 minutes ago, gentleclockdivider said:

There is probably an algoritm that defines how much time it spends to select the underlying pixels , slow drawing  meaning it has more time to select the pixels and resulting in jagged edges  ( thus jagged ) , faster drawing speed = less time and maybe does some averaging- interpolaton whcih results in cleaner /antialiased lines .

I am still not sure what you mean about jagged edges. From what I can tell from your last screenshot from PS, both triangular shapes have antialiased edges, which like I have said is the same thing I get in AP if I enable the Antialias option before I make my freehand selections, regardless of drawing speed.

If I disable the Antialias option before drawing the selection, then I get aliased edges which, since that produces stair steps, could be described as jagged edges, & in fact sometimes goes by the name "jaggies."

I have emphasized before in the above because antialiasing only occurs during the selection if the option is enabled -- IOW, it does not affect an already drawn selection.

[iconoclast]

21 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I am still not sure what you mean about jagged edges. From what I can tell from your last screenshot from PS, both triangular shapes have antialiased edges, which like I have said is the same thing I get in AP if I enable the Antialias option before I make my freehand selections, regardless of drawing speed.

If I disable the Antialias option before drawing the selection, then I get aliased edges which, since that produces stair steps, could be described as jagged edges, & in fact sometimes goes by the name "jaggies."

I have emphasized before in the above because antialiasing only occurs during the selection if the option is enabled -- IOW, it does not affect an already drawn selection.

As far as I remember, Antialiasing was enabled in both programs in the first screenshots. The zoom factors are not the same, so I assume that even the preconditions were not the same. There also is a Smoothing-option in the menu "Select" of AfPhoto. It does a verry good job, if you'd ask me. But it only works afterwards.

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

As far as I remember, Antialiasing was enabled in both programs in the first screenshots.

It was, but those AP screenshots are not zoomed in very far, so while it looks to me like the edges are antialiased, it it hard to tell for sure. For example, in the first one with the arrow & the "Awful edges" text, if I open the jpeg in a new, zoomed in Safari window, I see what could be antialiasing along the top edge, but since it is a jpeg of a section of a document window zoomed slightly to 107%, there is no way to know.

That's why I keep suggesting that to see what's really happening, it is important to zoom in far enough to see individual pixels.

[gentleclockdivider]

ZooM level 100 % 
left :fast 

right :slow 
I think the fast selection automatically interpolates between the pixels because of the limited selection time ,

The slow drawing (right)  also has some antia-aliasing going  on , but you'll notice that a few of them are not a-aliased 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2021 by gentleclockdivider

[iconoclast]

19 minutes ago, gentleclockdivider said:

ZooM level 100 % 
left :fast 

right :slow 
I think the fast selection automatically interpolates between the pixels because of the limited selection time ,

The slow drawing (right)  also has some antia-aliasing going  on , but you'll notice that a few of them are not a-aliased 

 

 

It seems that the semitransparent pixels are inserted only between two prongs that consist of one pixel each, not if there are two or more pixels side by side.

Edit, but there are also some positions where eventwo pixels side by side are added with an antialiasing. of pixels of two different values. I think the antialiasing tries to compensate buminess only with one line of blending pixels. If there are bigger prongs, this doesn't work.

Possibly Photoshop uses another way to sense edges or a bigger variety of additional pixels..

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, gentleclockdivider said:

The slow drawing (right)  also has some antia-aliasing going  on , but you'll notice that a few of them are not a-aliased 

There is no need to antialias a pixel if the selection includes all of it, so I think what you are seeing is just the difference in the screen distance between pointing device samples when drawing the selection quickly vs. slowly -- IOW, there is more wobble when drawing slowly that gets averaged out when drawing quickly.

[Valist Codery]

Yes, I also got the same issue as the OP's..

The freehand tool is pretty good when you want to make fast drawings in any shape you need, and many concept artists use it.

I re-produced the fast drawing and the Mouse vs Tablet Pen issue.

Though I had to draw as fast as I could to get these results maybe in like half second or less.

I have Antialis enabled for these tests.