Masking View

[ronniemcbride]

I would love to see  a option to view the mask on a layer in black and white like you do in the view options found in the refine feature. Something like holding down the option_shift and click on the mask thumbnail  so you can view and edit the mask in the canvas while in that view.

 

Does that make sense?

[ronnyb]

Yes agreed, but I would add not only view, but also edit, in 8 or 16 bit greyscale. I'd like to be able to toggle my masks' visibility on and off, like Photoshop allows in via the Channels palette, as a translucent, user-defined color overlay... perhaps that's more of a feature for AP... ? 

[ronniemcbride]

Yes, I am sorry when I said view I assumed that we have the ability to edit in that view as well. What good would viewing something if you could not make edit it, right? Some people might be wondering why this matters so I give you a scenario an example. Sometimes when making a selection being able to view the the mask layer in  this sort of way makes it easier for you to define your selection in greater detail. In the example below. you will see there are some really fine details of hair. The areas where the image is white is completely selected and the areas that are a percentage of gray are partially selected. If I take a paint brush and paint in the areas that are gray that I prefer white then those areas will be fully selected. Now there are instances when you just want to sharpen the areas of selection but not with a tool like the paint brush. You might want to focus on areas that may be sitting in a particular color channel. You would use the dodge and burn tools to selectively increase or decrease the brightness of select pixels in the highlights, midtones or shadows. There are numerous scenarios that can be applied here. Hmm, maybe we might see more of this in Affinity Photo.... 

 

[ronnyb]

Exactly Ronnie! OMG that image brought me back to when I was working at Zumba Fitness marketing/corporate. You have no idea how many heads of flying hair I had to mask, lmao!!!

 

I have to say Photochop has it's masking and selection controls down, but in Photochop it's not uncommon to rely on specialized plug-ins for specific types go workflows. I enjoyed using Topaz Remask for quick and quite decent masking, but It's always nice when the built-in tools "just work." I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing what our guys here can do :D

[ronniemcbride]

Haahaha Flying hair will either make or break a designer. I learned  the hard way with channel separations, calculations, garbage mattes, levels, dodging and burning. Then I graduated to the time saving plugin provided by onOne Software. But then came Photoshop Refine tool and I started using the plugins a lot less. It good to know  how to do it the hard way though. Affinity Refine tool is right no par though so I am looking forward to seeing how that advances over time.

[MattP]

Hmm, maybe we might see more of this in Affinity Photo.... 

 

 

...well, I couldn't possibly say... but, yes ;)

 

Flying hair (and cat fur, of course) have been tested to destruction - it should be able to take care of professional tasks without needing plugins.

 

Photo's looking like it's really coming together now - expect to see something very, very soon...