Path to Selction

[Mischugo]

Hello,

just want to do that:

1- Drawing a path

2 - Clicking (or right click, what i have expected) the path

3 - Create pixel selection from this path

 

Any idea?
 

 

Thanks
 

 

[MEB]

Hi Mischugo,
What application are you using? This is already available in Affinity Photo, Pen Tool, context toolbar: click the Selection button to convert the path into a selection. If you want to keep the path as well, duplicate it before converting to a selection. You can also use the Shapes Tools to draw the path(s), convert them to curves (press ⌘ (cmd) + Enter on Mac or CTRL+ Enter on Windows or use the command Layer ▸ Convert To Curves), then change to the Pen Tool and convert them to a selection.

[Mischugo]

Hi Meb,

first, thank you so much for open my eyes to find the "selection". Thats what i wanted to do.

But. Why didn't you give this function its own window in studio? Or is it hidden? When working with paths, a window, similar to Transform, would be more than helpful. I still think that important functions cannot be called up there, where they are needed. Namely at the mouse pointer /inspector.
The Pen tool is now a small inconspicuous bar that is quickly overlooked. I didn't find it after 40 minutes, so I asked.

There is a lot more to say about GUI. That's one reason why I just can't get warm with Affinity Photo and Designer. And i would like :-)
But that's not appropriate here.

[toltec]

3 hours ago, Mischugo said:

The Pen tool is now a small inconspicuous bar that is quickly overlooked. 

I think the biggest problem is that Photo has a lot of users who were using Photoshop first. Photo is quite consistent it putting lots of stuff on the Context toolbar, like it or not, but you get used to it.

Having said that, making a selection was the first thing I wanted to do and couldn't find it either. I had to give up and use PS. 

That was before I found this forum and before a few more difficulties.

Now I'm used to Photo, I wouldn't want to go back to PS but that's a matter of taste. 

 

[MEB]

Hi Mischugo,
We try to avoid cluttering the app as much as possible (menus/pop-up menus included). Settings pertaining to specific tools are all located in the context toolbar right above the work area. If you feel that having this option in the right-click menu for paths (after Convert To Curves entry for example) is important for you, feel free to create a new thread in the Feature Requests section asking for it. The dev teams don't implement everything requested (for obvious reasons) but they do check there and implement a few they consider valuable to the app/end users.

[Alfred]

10 minutes ago, MEB said:

We try to avoid cluttering the app as much as possible (menus/pop-up menus included). Settings pertaining to specific tools are all located in the context toolbar right above the work area.

I’ve always liked the way the Context toolbars in Serif software help to prevent the user interface getting cluttered, but I think the problem with putting the ‘Selection’ button there is that converting a path to a selection isn’t something you’ll only ever want to do while drawing with the Pen Tool.

[MEB]

Why not? In Affinity Photo in particular, didn't you ever used bezier curves/paths to create/generate selections or masks rather than using raster based selection tools? It's quite useful. Affinity Designer doesn't have those buttons in the context toolbar.

[toltec]

4 minutes ago, MEB said:

Why not? Didn't you ever used bezier curves/paths to create/generate a selection or mask rather than using raster based selection tools?

Exactly. I do that all the time!

And (now I know where it is) click on the Selection or Mask buttons a lot. Just where I expect to find them 

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, MEB said:

Why not? In Affinity Photo in particular, didn't you ever used bezier curves/paths to create/generate selections or masks rather than using raster based selection tools? It's quite useful. Affinity Designer doesn't have those buttons in the context toolbar.

I think you must have misread my post, Miguel! I said converting a path to a selection isn’t something you’ll only ever want to do while drawing with the Pen Tool, my point being that it’s perhaps a little unhelpful to have that option tied to the Pen Tool context (which means that it isn’t available, for example, when you highlight a previously drawn curve with the Move Tool). In other words, I agree with the OP that it should be more readily accessible.

[R C-R]

31 minutes ago, MEB said:

Why not? In Affinity Photo in particular, didn't you ever used bezier curves/paths to create/generate selections or masks rather than using raster based selection tools?

As @αℓƒяє∂ said, there are times when (for example) using one of the shape tools would be the preferred or most convenient way to create a selection. It is possible to do that in Affinity Photo but it takes several steps:

1. Draw the shape, adjust its position or parameters as desired with the shape tool.

2. Click "Convert to Curves" on the Context toolbar, which automatically switches to the Node Tool.

3. Select the Pen Tool so the "Selection" button appears in the Context toolbar, & click that to create the 'marching ants' selection.

(Step 2 is necessary because otherwise the "Selection" button is greyed out when the Pen Tool is selected.)

So for example, it would be nice if in Affinity Photo the "Selection" & "Mask" buttons were available on the Context toolbar for all of the tools where that would be applicable.

[Mischugo]

1 hour ago, MEB said:

Hi Mischugo,
We try to avoid cluttering the app as much as possible (menus/pop-up menus included). Settings pertaining to specific tools are all located in the context toolbar right above the work area. If you feel that having this option in the right-click menu for paths (after Convert To Curves entry for example) is important for you, feel free to create a new thread in the Feature Requests section asking for it. The dev teams don't implement everything requested (for obvious reasons) but they do check there and implement a few they consider valuable to the app/end users.

Hi Meb,
I am fully aware that Affinity Photo and Designer are two powerful programs. What I miss is the certain flow. To have the tools where they are needed. Without first moving the cursor up and down the edge of the screen, then over a long horizontal area again, where the option I was looking for is located. All in all, in my view, this is far too cumbersome. This also means that it is still not possible to organize your palettes, for example in Photoshop, and to anchor them to the program window, like it fits my workflow ...

[R C-R]

@Mischugo, you can 'undock' the Tools panel in the View menu (uncheck "Dock Tools") & move that panel around to wherever you want to put it. You can also undock Studio panels and/or panel groups & move them around.

Also, any tool can be assigned a custom keyboard shortcut so you don't have to use the pointer to select one.

[Mischugo]

6 minutes ago, R C-R said:

@Mischugo, you can 'undock' the Tools panel in the View menu (uncheck "Dock Tools") & move that panel around to wherever you want to put it. You can also undock Studio panels and/or panel groups & move them around.

Also, any tool can be assigned a custom keyboard shortcut so you don't have to use the pointer to select one.

Ups, sorry.
I doesn't mean the tools on left side, but the palettes / inspector panels. Putting all palettes i need together (docking) and this block should docking at the main window.
Maybe i have to create a short screencast about it

[MEB]

37 minutes ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

I think you must have misread my post, Miguel! I said converting a path to a selection isn’t something you’ll only ever want to do while drawing with the Pen Tool, my point being that it’s perhaps a little unhelpful to have that option tied to the Pen Tool context (which means that it isn’t available, for example, when you highlight a previously drawn curve with the Move Tool). In other words, I agree with the OP that it should be more readily accessible.

Sorry Alfred. I did misunderstood your post. I agree it could be more accessible from other places as well thus the suggestion to fill/create a Feature Request for this.

 

26 minutes ago, R C-R said:

As @αℓƒяє∂ said, there are times when (for example) using one of the shape tools would be the preferred or most convenient way to create a selection.

True. I've filled an improvement request for this quite some time ago but it wasn't implemented (maybe because the most used shapes - ellipse/rectangle - are also available directly as marquee selection tools i don't know). 

[MEB]

3 minutes ago, Mischugo said:

Ups, sorry.
I doesn't mean the tools on left side, but the palettes / inspector panels. Putting all palettes i need together (docking) and this block should docking at the main window.
Maybe i have to create a short screencast about it

Hve you tried to drag the panels from their title/tab to the middle of the screen and dock/stack them (both horizontally and vertically)? They should move as a block.
Out of curiosity, are you using a Windows or Mac machine?

[Mischugo]

Just now, MEB said:

Hve you tried to drag the panels from their title/tab to the middle of the screen and dock/stack them (both horizontally and vertically)? They should move as a block.

Yes, i did.
But it docks then not as a block at the main Affinity window.
I don't like to have it like a floating block. When i resize the main window of Affinity, the block should go (horizontal) with it
 

[Mischugo]

[toltec]

Personally, I have no issues about the way Photo does this. The Selection or Mask button on the Context Toolbar is a special Pen Tool only operation for making pixel selections or masking (clipping paths). It is more of a pixel task than a vector task, just using a vector path for that end.

Making a pixel selection from a previously drawn curve produces a very different result if you Ctrl + click on the curve in the layers panel. i.e. the curve would have to be filled or it just selects the stroke pixels, if it has any stroke. A shape is different because you can just Ctrl + click on the layer to make a selection or right click on it in the layers panel to make it a mask.

I don't think making a pixel selection from saved curves would be a particularly common use (?) because of the different type of selection that it makes (by default). 

When I trace around the object for a pixel selection I immediately click on Selection or, more usually, Mask. A mask is better because the path is part of the layer, so the "curve" is effectively saved. 

Still, a few improvements are never any harm.

 

[Mischugo]

... and of course -> saving that a as Workspace

[R C-R]

18 minutes ago, MEB said:

Out of curiosity, are you using a Windows or Mac machine?

@Mischugo, please specify which OS you are using. That makes a difference in the available UI options because the two OS's use different windowing systems.

[Mischugo]

MacBook Pro 2013,

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MI
Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

High Sierra (since three weeks) 10.13.5

[R C-R]

14 minutes ago, toltec said:

Personally, I have no issues about the way Photo does this. The Selection or Mask button on the Context Toolbar is a special Pen Tool only operation for making pixel selections or masking (clipping paths).

But as has been mentioned, there is no good reason to confine this to a Pen Tool only operation. Consider for example if the perfect pixel selection happens to be one of the parametrically adjustable vector shapes like those you can make with one of the star tools, the Polygon Tool, etc. As I mentioned above, it is possible to convert these shapes to pixel selections, but it takes several steps to do that. Like @MEB said, those buttons could be accessible from other tools in addition to the Pen tool, making this much simpler & easier to do.

[R C-R]

20 minutes ago, Mischugo said:

High Sierra (since three weeks) 10.13.5

Since you are using the Mac OS, in regular (non-separated) Window mode, you can dock as many Studio panel & tabbed panel blocks together as you want in either the left or right studios. You can't dock two columns of blocks to the same side of the main window, but maybe that would get you closer to what you want.

[toltec]

30 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But as has been mentioned, there is no good reason to confine this to a Pen Tool only operation. Consider for example if the perfect pixel selection happens to be one of the parametrically adjustable vector shapes like those you can make with one of the star tools, the Polygon Tool, etc. As I mentioned above, it is possible to convert these shapes to pixel selections, but it takes several steps to do that. Like @MEB said, those buttons could be accessible from other tools in addition to the Pen tool, making this much simpler & easier to do.

Of course, but where would you put two rather large buttons on this ?

It has already lost a bit off the right hand edge (convert to curves).

 

If you select a curve and press "P" (for pen) the buttons appear

You can even use the Pen Tool to select the curve layer with, and again, the buttons are there.

 

Or do American keyboards not have a "p" ? I know how you Americans hate "superfluous" characters 

 

[toltec]

Actually, thinking about this maybe Serif could put something on the Toolbar.

There is already a Selection set of icons and the Quick Mask icons. Perhaps they could incorporate a dropdown menu in there, or even the choice to add the icons as a complete tool group when you customize the Toolbar?

Just thinking out 'loud