AD pixel persona: Brush –> Colour Well UI in various panels

[thomaso]

As far I understand vector brushes most often have black as their default colour which will get used if I did not choose a colour myself, even if "none" is selected in the colour wells of the various panels (colour, swatches, appearance, tools).

But pixel brushes still confuse me, it happens here and there that the various wells display different states: white or gray, while white doesn't always paint because it occurs with the color opacity = 0. Furthermore the appearance panel can display in its 2 basic color wells (stroke + fill) the default icon for "no color" Ø, which never occurs in colour, swatches or tools panel with a pixel brush selected. Means it may appear but may not be set in purpose, or may get set but switches as soon the brush starts painting.

Fig.1.  I get presented 4 different colors as the currently selected 1: white / gray / transparent / none. – How to decide by the UI which is the valid color for the brush? Is there an indicator in the UI which well is responsible? Here for any reason the colour opacity either was already set to 0, or jumped to 0 as soon I started painting. Accordingly painting did not create any pixels – but what does it mean that at the same time the appearance panel shows gray (as the colors panel sliders do) and the swatches panel > Recent does show a transparency icon but the round color wells don't? And if the latter can't display the checkerboard why do they show white instead of the symbol for "none" Ø as the opacity slider does?

Fig.2.  With the same pixel layer + the MoveTool selected all colour wells can display the same state of "none" Ø as the currently set colour. No confusion, no doubt then. But returning to the brush tool may cause the same situation as above.

I was looking in the Help, in the forum and for tutorials about this default-color subject but couldn't find info, as if my concern is either too simple or too special. The only related thread (a user confused by color wells) respectively hint was this post about the stroke/fill wells working as primary & secondary colour. Good to know but doesn't solve my confusion with the different behavior of various wells.

P.S.: maybe not worth a separate thread: without using artboard layers a vector brush stroke in the workspace area gets displayed while pixel brush strokes occurs cut at the page edge & being limited already while painting. – Is this the intended behavior / can I make pixel brushes paint outside, too?

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

I get presented 4 different colors as the currently selected 1: white / gray / transparent / none.

I am probably not interpreting what you mean correctly, but for one thing I do not see grey in any color well anywhere in the 1st screenshot. For another, the Swatches panel looks to me like it is showing the same 3 color well choices (the two identical white ones for foreground & background color choices & the one small black one next to the color dropper icon).

So it seems to me that in that first screenshot, you should expect the brush to begin painting using white, because in both Swatch & Color panel the wells are showing white for the selected (foreground) well. It would be the same white if you switched to the background color because both wells are set to that same white.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

I do not see grey in any color well anywhere in the 1st screenshot

Indicating grey: Appearance panel (stroke & fill), Colour Panel (slider setting).

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

So it seems to me that in that first screenshot, you should expect the brush to begin painting using white, because in both Swatch & Color panel the wells are showing white for the selected (foreground) well.

I also was expecting white paint but it did not paint at all. Then I noticed that the color opacity slider jumps to 0 as soon I started painting. I had reset the brushes via app prefs > misc but the confusion still occurs. I wonder if I simply don't understand the principle of pixel brush color wells.

Here another situation: Appearance Panel with gray stroke & white fill, all round wells show white, colour sliders + palette swatch show orange as set, recent swatch color as transparent again but colour opacity = 100. And the brush does not paint any color.

[Hm, now I get the known upload error -200 since about 1 hour. I'll try later to add the image]
 

What do the round wells display if you click the none-icon Ø in any panel? Do they show white (as for me) or the Ø symbol when the pixel brush tool is selected?
Also confusing to me: if I click the wells in the appearance panel I can select the Ø icon. But if I close the sub-dialog and then click on the other well this turns this previous well from Ø back to gray, as if one well influences the other.

[R C-R]

29 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Indicating grey: Appearance panel (stroke & fill), Colour Panel (slider setting).

In the first screenshot, in the Color panel the color wells are showing white & the Opacity slider is showing 0%. As I understand it (& as it works for me) if you try to paint with 0% opacity, nothing visible will happen, regardless of the color in the well. But if I move the Opacity slider to greater than 0% the color in the well will change to whatever the RGB sliders show (here a grey) & that is what the brush will paint with. For me, it does not jump to 0% if I start painting with a brush so I do not know why that is happening to you.

48 minutes ago, thomaso said:

What do the round wells display if you click the none-icon Ø in any panel?

In the Color panel, they show as white. In the Appearance panel they show with a slash.

[walt.farrell]

32 minutes ago, R C-R said:

In the Color panel, they show as white. In the Appearance panel they show with a slash.

Even if you click the none (/ icon) below the foreground/background color wells? If so, that sounds wrong.

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Even if you click the none (/ icon) below the foreground/background color wells? If so, that sounds wrong.

On my Mac, in the AD Pixel Persona, that is how it works in the Color panel. I have no idea if this is by design or what, but it does not behave the same way in the Designer persona -- there clicking the small icon changes the large well to one with a slash.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

In the Color panel, they show as white. In the Appearance panel they show with a slash.

Even if you click the none (/ icon) below the foreground/background color wells? If so, that sounds wrong.

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

On my Mac, in the AD Pixel Persona, that is how it works in the Color panel. I have no idea if this is by design or what, but it does not behave the same way in the Designer persona

Almost glad I am not the only one who gets confused. Like R C-R, I experience such oddities only in AD's Pixel Persona. There the Ø-icon only appears reliable with the Move Tool but with the Brush Tool selected it is white, (respectively in the Appearance Panel the Ø can appear but disappears if I select the other of the two stroke / fill wells).

[ unfortunately I still can't upload in this thread (but in another one I could in the meantime). I just noticed that in the lower left corner of this forums page above the "Follow Thread" and "Hide" buttons, it says "This field is required." in red letters. - No idea which field is meant. ]

[Callum]

Hi All,

I've spent most of the day reading this thread over and over and trying to recreate some of the colour well behaviour here the only way I can get the appearance tab wells to be grey is if I lower colour opacity to 0 which is to be expected as the colour well has become transparent and is now showing the background colour through itself. As for in the vector persona brushes painting black I believe this is by design as the vector brushes are typically bitmaps stretched along a vector path. When you set both colour wells to no fill the vector path will have no fill (as usual) but the bitmap will still be rendered in black. 

Thanks
C

[R C-R]

13 minutes ago, Callum said:

I've spent most of the day reading this thread over and over and trying to recreate some of the colour well behaviour here the only way I can get the appearance tab wells to be grey is if I lower colour opacity to 0 which is to be expected as the colour well has become transparent and is now showing the background colour through itself.

Please open this Color wells.afdesign file, which just has a single rectangle on its one artboard. I opened the Appearance panel, double-clicked on the stroke thumbnail to open the color tab dropdown, & moved the Opacity slider all the way to the left:

I did the same thing with the Fill thumbnail.

Note that in the dark UI there is nothing grey in either thumbnail:

While in the Color panel both wells are white:

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Callum said:

I've spent most of the day

What a wonderful day!
I understand / agree with the second part ("As for in the vector persona…") but then I would expect if "none" gets selected in the wells of the pixel persona either black / or none Ø being displayed rather than grey / or white + opacity = 0 for the pixel colorizing tools .

But not only certain colours appear strange and confusing, also the apparently irregular occurrence of white + opacity = 0 feels quite weird (I have reset brushes in the app prefs twice meanwhile). When exactly does this combination occur, and why then in particular? If the wells in the Appearance panel are expected by concept / design to show grey because of the background in the dark UI, why don't the wells in the other panels, too? And how come that the Appearance Panel wells are able to display the Ø icon for a moment but jump to grey if the other well gets clicked?

In the attached screencast I just try various settings without a specific goal but rather to experience what will cause what colour where. – Compare the various wells, slider settings, highlighted swatch (orange) or resent color swatch (transparent) at various times. In some moments its all fine, in many others it is confusing.

@Callum, currently I still can't upload in this thread anymore. Different to yesterday (error -200) now next to the 📎 symbol at the bottom it does not display options for uploads but says "Loading…" though I did not try today to load any file. The red text from yesterday (this field is required) is not there any more. – Do you have a chance to reset this for me? Or, if you like give me an upload link for the screencast and do paste the video either to my post or to any new one. (6 MB, 2:50 min) – EDIT: just experienced new error: on a posting emoticon reaction a popup window says "Sorry, there was a problem reacting to this content."

Edited November 15, 2021 by thomaso

[thomaso]

On 11/15/2021 at 7:19 PM, thomaso said:

In the attached screencast I just try various settings without a specific goal but rather to experience what will cause what colour where. – Compare the various wells, slider settings, highlighted swatch (orange) or resent color swatch (transparent) at various times. In some moments its all fine, in many others it is confusing.

@Callum, currently I still can't upload in this thread anymore.

Here's the screencast [upload seems to work with a different browser (Safari)]: