Shortcut for toggling between Matte/Foreground and Background in Refine Selection

[JGD]

The title of the thread says it all: in AP, it would be nice if pressing Option toggled between one of the two additive selection brush modes (Matte or Foreground) and the subtractive mode (Background) in the Refine Selection dialog box. It's just that having to move the cursor or the pen back and forth just to change the selection mode gets rather tedious quickly and breaks the flow.

 

Also, while on this subject, it would be nice if one could do further refinements without screwing up with other parts of the selection, but maybe it's just my workflow that isn't properly set up. Please bear with me, as I started transitioning to Affinity Photo in a production environment only very recently, and for now only when the tools I need are superior enough (the Refine Selection brush being one of them). IMHO, the greatest thing ever would be being able to just use the refine selection brush and the refine selection parameters independently of one another (or being able to undo them in separate steps in History), in order to achieve the most perfect selection possible. If only there was a way to use the brush without applying any effects, or certain effect slider values in said dialog box that produced zero changes and allowed me to refine the selection in many independent passes and apply said effects only when I was completely satisfied with it, I'd be a happy[ier] camper.

 

That being said, the tool as it stands made one heck of a difference in a self-initiated emergency change, on a crazy-ass deadline (I could never have finished that in time using Ps, that's for sure), I made for a big project I just finished last month; I basically treated a landscape shot, which was used as the main theme on all media for an arts festival, in order to change the orange-y colour of the background clouds to a more neutral blue-gray independently of some trees in the foreground, because our country's forests had just started burning earlier that day – and have been burning almost continuously for a while now –, as leaving it untreated could mess with some people's sensitivities because it looked waaay too much like the photos and videos of said deadly fires circulating on the media.

The only reason I didn't send this photo to you for your recent call for professional work done with AP was the fact that I do not own the rights to the original, and even though the author retroactively authorised the modifications I did to it after I explained him my reasoning behind them (I mean, given how serious the situation was, how could he not?), he didn't seem all too happy about the whole thing at first (especially considering that I did that on a rush, the night before sending that job to the print house, without consulting him first – I obviously negotiated it with our mutual client, which can ultimately propose and decide that kind of stuff at its sole discretion, but still), so I didn't even consider asking him for permission to share it with you.

 

But anyway, I digress; Affinity Photo and my loyal Bamboo tablet saved the day and made doing this on a single all-nighter possible. Just to think that I could have saved some 10+ hours of work in a similar trees-vs-background selection task I did back in 2013, for the very same client, if only this app was available back then makes me value it even more because I now know how much more time I'll be able to save in the future… But I also know for a fact and from experience that I could save even more time if you implement that toggle shortcut. 

[toltec]

It already does.

 

This is for a Mac.

 

It seems Shift is Matte, Alt is Background, Ctrl is Foreground.

 

If you have selected Matte, Alt temporarily selects Background. Ctrl selects Foreground. 

 

If you select Foreground, Alt temporarily selects Background, pressing down Shift temporarily selects Matte. 

 

If you select Background, pressing down Ctrl selects Foreground. pressing Shift does temporarily select Matte. 

 

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Edit.

That is correct for a Mac (confirm anyone?). and is shown on the Refine Edges Video but does not work on a Windows PC.

 

On a PC you need to use the Right Hand Mouse button instead of Ctrl.

See below.

 

[JGD]

Oh really…? Well, the last option seems to be just what I was looking for. Let me just check on it…

[JGD]

Well, what do you know, @toltec, you are absolutely right! Thank you for your feedback!

 

But now comes the hard part for Serif devs, who are never exempt from my cutting criticism.  The feature is there, sure, but the UX is just disastrous (and that's why I was a bit skeptical at first about your reply, sorry ). It is not in the least bit discoverable, as the toggle *is not visible* to the user. It just magically happens behind the scenes with zero visual feedback.

 

If the team had implemented that small but crucial detail, I would have found out immediately that pressing Alt was doing what I expected and this whole post would be moot. So, I'll either change the title of this request accordingly or, if that isn't possible, create a new one. [Edit: I went for the latter option; you can follow the new topic here: Make Refine Selection modifier-activated toggles visible to the user ]

[R C-R]

@JGD At least in the Mac version, the Status Bar at the bottom of the window indicates how each modifier key will alter the mode of the refine Adjustment brush. The status text changes based on the currently selected mode to indicate which modifier keys invoke the other three, & includes feather as well as the others.

 

Is there not something similar on the Windows version?

[toltec]

Yes, very good point R C-R.

 

In fact, because of that, I have just noticed that the Windows commands are different to the Refine Edges Video.

 

Grrr! Second class citizens you see?

 

The Ctrl key does not work on a PC, it is Mac only. You have to use the Right mouse button instead. 

 

[R C-R]

50 minutes ago, toltec said:

Grrr! Second class citizens you see?

As I understand it, that is because Microsoft did not provide as many easily programable modifier keys as did Apple. Ironically, that is because for many years Steve Jobs was adamantly opposed to the idea of a multi-button mouse, making it simple for the Control key, originally intended to be the substitute for a second mouse button to be repurposed as a general purpose modifier key.

[JGD]

17 hours ago, R C-R said:

@JGD At least in the Mac version, the Status Bar at the bottom of the window indicates how each modifier key will alter the mode of the refine Adjustment brush. The status text changes based on the currently selected mode to indicate which modifier keys invoke the other three, & includes feather as well as the others.

 

Is there not something similar on the Windows version?

 

Well, I'm running the Mac version, and I just checked on that. My bad, it really does, and thanks for pointing that out! I guess I was just distracted, maybe because of all the pressure I was under while doing that job.

 

However, I still stand by the suggestions I made on this and the other thread. Though the “cheat-sheet” is indeed there on the status bar, I still think that the selection mode separator should reflect which modifier is pressed. And some sort of iconography next to the brush cursor outline would be a nice plus, too.