Colour in gradient black to opacity

[dmstraker]

1. Draw a rectangle shape.
2. Draw a gradient, black to red, across it.
3. Gradient colour, select red end and reduce opacity to zero.

You can still see red in the gradient, even though the red opacity is zero. 

Fix is to change red node to black (or whatever the other node colour is.

[NotMyFault]

9 minutes ago, dmstraker said:

1. Draw a rectangle shape.
2. Draw a gradient, black to red, across it.
3. Gradient colour, select red end and reduce opacity to zero.

You can still see red in the gradient, even though the red opacity is zero. 

Fix is to change red node to black (or whatever the other node colour is.

Why do you rate this as bug?
the gradient will create a mix of:

black/ 100% alpha

via black 50% alpha,  red 50% alpha

to black 0% / red 0%

so for me it is correct that you see a mix of black and red with reduced opacity at the middle of the gradient.

[dmstraker]

3 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

Why do you rate this as bug?
the gradient will create a mix of:

black/ 100% alpha

via black 50% alpha,  red 50% alpha

to black 0% / red 0%

so for me it is correct that you see a mix of black and red with reduced opacity at the middle of the gradient.

This makes sense. 

And yet by setting the opacity to zero, you can also argue that the gradient is from black to no colour.

Hmm.

[NotMyFault]

The gradient just creates a linear share of the individual color channels and alpha. For me this makes sense.

If we take your interpretation, it would be impossible to create gradients over alpha channel.

[dmstraker]

Understood and accepted.

There's also the psychology of perception to consider. Looking at the red-with-zero-alpha node in the gradient panel or on screen, it appears to be transparent node. Yes, showing it as 'red with zero alpha' could be tricky. But cognition is often based on simple visual cues more than an examination of further panel data. And so (as with me), it is easy to assume that what is seen is all there is.

This is what, in my development/QA/HF days we would have designated a 'usability defect'. There is clear logic in why it is what it is, but nevertheless it is experienced as a confusing difficulty.

What the solution is here, I don't know. Nor is it a hill on which I plan to expire. I'll leave it to the good people in Serif to figure what to do about it.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, dmstraker said:

I'll leave it to the good people in Serif to figure what to do about it.

Is V2 behaving any differently than V1?

 

[dmstraker]

One last note, and perhaps something that Serif can address.

In the Gradient colour panel, when you reduce opacity, the colour as displayed decreases to grey. But if the colour is still being used (as it is) in creating the gradient, then perhaps the colour should remain, hence giving some indication that you are going to still get the colour within the gradient. 

Image attached.

[dmstraker]

47 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Is V2 behaving any differently than V1?

 

No, but that doesn't stop it being a usability defect, as per notes above.

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, dmstraker said:

No, but that doesn't stop it being a usability defect, as per notes above.

Sorry, but I don't agree that it's a usability defect.

19 minutes ago, dmstraker said:

In the Gradient colour panel, when you reduce opacity, the colour as displayed decreases to grey. But if the colour is still being used (as it is) in creating the gradient, then perhaps the colour should remain,

It can't. It has 0 opacity, so you can only see the background color of the dialog itself.

You see the actual color in the gradient color bar at the top of the dialog.

[Old Bruce]

7 hours ago, dmstraker said:

And yet by setting the opacity to zero, you can also argue that the gradient is from black to no colour.

That is faulty logic, the gradient goes from black to red regardless of opacity. What happens with a gradient with the last stop with an opacity of 10%? should the gradient be shifted over so only the final 5 or 10% of the distance has any red instead of the original 50%?

[dmstraker]

So I did a quick video for folks who might be confused (as I was).