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Color preview is wrong when opacity is less than 100%


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When we set our colors to, like, full red in the color panel, the color preview displays full red as expected.

But when we than change the opacity, the color in the preview-circle gets lighter.

That's not what we might expect and it's actually wrong, because this color preview doesn't (and can't!!) take in account what lies underneath this color (and in what blend mode an object using this color uses is in), which would affect the mix of colors.

The color-preview circle should always display the color as a direct result of the sliders. The opacity slider should never affect this preview!

In fact, nothing else apart from the color sliders/wheel/boxes should ever change this preview, because this preview should show the result of the COLOR channels we picked!

 

No opacity:

image.png.bc4a6ffe6d06f6f0c9db38e696cf80e6.png

With opacity;
image.png.854ab4449c121b1504d8457750e2f623.png

 

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2 minutes ago, Friksel said:

That's not what we might expect and it's actually wrong, because this color preview doesn't (and can't!!) take in account what lies underneath this color, which would affect the mix of colors.

The color-preview circle should always display the color as a direct result of the sliders. The opacity slider should never affect this preview!

It seems to assume a white or transparent page underneath the brush. And, personally, I think that's better than simply showing the color as a full-opacity value.

-- Walt
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4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It seems to assume a white or transparent page underneath the brush. And, personally, I think that's better than simply showing the color as a full-opacity value.

I understand what you write, but I respectfully have to dissagree here. There's no meaning at all in seeing a changed color value. That's also not at all what it does technically when mixing colors. Not to say it doesn't even know (and could know) which blend mode we're in. Which also has a lot of influence on the end result.

Changing the color by the opacity slider doesn't make any sense for a preview of the COLOR channels. We would like to see what COLOR we mixed. Not what the result MIGHT BE when put on top of a white background and ASSUME that we don't use some 'special' blend mode.

 

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1 hour ago, Friksel said:

That's not what we might expect and it's actually wrong, because this color preview doesn't (and can't!!) take in account what lies underneath this color (and in what blend mode an object using this color uses is in), which would affect the mix of colors.

The use of noise is also not reflected in the color preview.

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

It seems to assume a white or transparent page underneath the brush.

Just set the opacity to zero and see the underlying color - white.

In itself, quite confusing - according to the sliders, I have set a pure red, but according to the look it seems pure white!

When the opacity has to be applied in the preview (why is there no noise?), so the chessboard would be better and more comprehensible as a background color.

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1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

And, personally, I think that's better than simply showing the color as a full-opacity value.

I would prefer some sort of easy to see visual indication that the color is not 100% opaque but I don't think 'fade to white' is a good way to do that. Instead, maybe a checkerboard pattern overlay, one that appeared any time the opacity was less than 100%, would be a little better?

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42 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I would prefer some sort of easy to see visual indication that the color is not 100% opaque but I don't think 'fade to white' is a good way to do that. Instead, maybe a checkerboard pattern overlay, one that appeared any time the opacity was less than 100%, would be a little better?

Yes, that could be done by changing the opacity slider to a better one as discussed previously on the thread below. If the opacity slider shows a color instead of black (which doesn't make sense anyway), it would do exactly what you're after. That way you could see it on the exact spot you need it: on the opacity slider. And we could still see the REAL result of colormixing of the COLOR CHANNELS in the color preview, as how it should be, because that's how it basically works and what we're after when we want to preview the COLOR.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Friksel said:

Yes, that could be done by changing the opacity slider to a better one as discussed previously on the thread below.

What I was suggesting is when the opacity is less than 100%, for the large round color well to get a checkerboard overlay  -- ideally including in the Color panel, at the bottom of the Tools panel if it is set to 2 or more columns, & anywhere else the large color well appears in the UI.

This would be easier to notice than in the opacity slider (which is also a good idea), even when the Color panel is not visible. On further thought, maybe it should be the background around the color wells that do this, which would work for strokes as well as fills -- otherwise for strokes the donut shaped well would not show enough of the overlay to be obvious.

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11 hours ago, Friksel said:

That's another great illustration of the problem.

 

12 hours ago, Pšenda said:

When the opacity has to be applied in the preview (why is there no noise?), so the chessboard would be better and more comprehensible as a background color.

For illustration:
- current color preview behavior, pure red + opacity,(100, 55, 0%),
image.png.fc5d4ae1a575798fdf5db4a878d7b7b0.png  image.png.00f4d5325d1568524d6b4b2e05adac4f.png image.png.138ccdfbed9b483c247267fb70d497b5.png

- suggested color preview behavior, pure red + opacity,(100, 55, 0%).
image.png.fc5d4ae1a575798fdf5db4a878d7b7b0.png image.png.b07959e693daee71397f212d3d09d44c.png image.png.96a276bf892274a3e3d673d40fab7c4d.png

Edit: noise is almost invisible in the color preview, but it could also appear there.

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29 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

 

For illustration:
- current color preview behavior, pure red + opacity,(100, 55, 0%),
image.png.fc5d4ae1a575798fdf5db4a878d7b7b0.png  image.png.00f4d5325d1568524d6b4b2e05adac4f.png image.png.138ccdfbed9b483c247267fb70d497b5.png

- suggested color preview behavior, pure red + opacity,(100, 55, 0%).
image.png.fc5d4ae1a575798fdf5db4a878d7b7b0.png image.png.b07959e693daee71397f212d3d09d44c.png image.png.96a276bf892274a3e3d673d40fab7c4d.png

Edit: noise is almost invisible in the color preview, but it could also appear there.

Sorry, although I understand where you're coming from, I have a different opinion like described above. When mixing colors I want to see the result of the COLOR output. Not the opacity, nor the noice. Because we are not mixing opacity and neither are we mixing noice. And it could also never show you a preview of a blending mode, because it the color is not always bound to a single object. Which could also have a high effect on the result.

Also your suggested color behaviour previews are not as supposed to be; when you have half-transparent/half-opacity red, it's not pink. Only in your preview it becoms pink, because of the white background that's affecting it. But the underlying layer could as well have a much different color, like green. And than you don't mix pink with green, but still red with green. Again; opacity has nothing to do with the color channels (at least it shouldn't!!).

If we would like to see transparency we should have a better opacity slider in the UI, as discussed in the other thread. If we would like to preview both opacity and noice than add a new preview view somewhere in the interface, but please don't change the colormix output preview to something else than what it's supposed to do: preview the mixed COLOR. Opacity has nothing at all to do with the color channels. At least it shouldn't.

 

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2 hours ago, Friksel said:

When mixing colors I want to see the result of the COLOR output

But color previews are not just color mixing results*).
These are previews of what we will apply - that is, what color, what opacity and what noise. When switching primary/secondary colors, not only the color part are switched, but again all of its parts, color + opacity + noise.

*) Result of color mixing is evident on the sliders, or on the color wheel.
image.png.258471fee1cb6fddc09967032b4f34d1.png image.png.3ec9c13f0888f83422aceb27173b6df8.png

 

It is then necessary to display all folders in the preview of the applied color - that is, what the brush will draw.
And here it is clearly more sensible to use a chessboard (standard background) than some pure white.
In the preview, I just want to see what I'm going to paint, and if there is a pure white (zero opacity), but then it is not drawn, it's completely confusing.
But when I see the chessboard, it is clear, that I have a transparent color.

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On 6/30/2019 at 2:27 PM, Pšenda said:

But color previews are not just color mixing results*).
...

Sorry, but maybe you could (re-)read my opening post and the following posts I put here. I don't know how I can make myself clearer than this.

Or maybe we should just agree to disagree on this.

 

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11 minutes ago, Friksel said:

Or maybe we should just agree to disagree on this.

Yes, it is not problem.

The basic disagreement is on the meaning of "The color-preview circle".
If the color adjustment sliders would look like this,
2019-06-30_145236.png.ca87aca238d461e0b64310da6996e611.png

then the color mixing preview/result would be needed.
Note, however, that the colors on the sliders change dynamically,
2019-06-30_145723.png.9620afbf94e353f5a17dad2f9f416a90.png

so the sliders themselves display the result of mixing the color components.
So the preview of mixing color is no longer needed, and would be unnecessarily duplicated.

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11 minutes ago, Friksel said:

Sorry, but maybe you could (re-)read my opening post and the following posts I put here. I don't know how I can make myself clearer than this.

Or maybe we should just agree to disagree on this.

It is clear that there is disagreement regarding your opening premise that the opacity slider should never affect the color shown in the color-preview circle. There is also disagreement among those who think that it should about what the effect should be, if it should only affect the circle shown in the Color panel or everywhere the preview can appear (like in a 2 column Tools panel or the square versions in context toolbar drop-downs for vector shapes & in the Color Chooser window), about if or how the noise should be previewed, & even if there should be just the one slider shared by the noise & opacity settings.

About the only thing everyone agrees on is that the circle can't represent the end result of applying the color to some part of the document, taking into account blends, layer opacity, etc.

I think this is just one of the several things that there will never be complete agreement on.

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5 minutes ago, R C-R said:

About the only thing everyone agrees on is that the circle can't represent the end result of applying the color to some part of the document, taking into account blends, layer opacity, etc.

I think this is just one of the several things that there will never be complete agreement on.

I think that's a good summary.

And I have a much better understanding of the difficulties involved than I had before this discussion. So my thanks to everyone involved :)

 

-- Walt
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At this point I wish that Serif would chime in with facts or questions or apologies.

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5 hours ago, Jowday said:

At this point I wish that Serif would chime in with facts or questions or apologies.

Serif will be in to comment at some point. We have been told that creating a new topic in the bug forums creates a trouble ticket, and that the trouble tickets are handled in order by the staff responsible for handling that product.

So, we should see a response when the trouble ticket for this topic reaches the front of its queue. It can take awhile when the staff are very busy.

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  • Staff

Hi guys, sorry for the late response.

This is something I spotted a while back and reported to development. It does seem to be very inconsistent throughout the UI. My suggestion was to display them as R C-R and Pšenda mentioned. However maybe a Colour Panel toggle to display them as Base Colour or Base Colour + visual transparency.

I'll pass on your comments to development.

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On 7/8/2019 at 3:50 PM, Sean P said:

Hi guys, sorry for the late response.

This is something I spotted a while back and reported to development. It does seem to be very inconsistent throughout the UI. My suggestion was to display them as R C-R and Pšenda mentioned. However maybe a Colour Panel toggle to display them as Base Colour or Base Colour + visual transparency.

I'll pass on your comments to development.

It may be clear that it's not my choice to show transparancy in the COLOR-preview. So I'm surprised and a little dissapointed by this.

There's also a big difference between premultiplied alpha vs straight alpha. When using premultiplied alpha, like how it looks now in the UI, the color-previews don't show the right colors, because they are all multiplied by the alpha (for opacity). So what's the use of having a preview of COLORS when the colors aren't right?

I just don't get why anyone would like to see transparancy in a COLOR-preview so badly. Transparancy has nothing to do with color. To me this is a very bad design choice that just doesn't make any sense in pro software. I hope some developer or designer at Serif with real knowledge of colorsystems will decide otherwise and understand why I ask this.

 

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  • 3 years later...
On 6/29/2019 at 10:39 PM, walt.farrell said:

It seems to assume a white or transparent page underneath the brush. And, personally, I think that's better than simply showing the color as a full-opacity value.

Yes, and yet the color picker picks a greyish color from this precalculated button, not the saturated color with opacity. Personally I would like to see the color I use, exactly as I see the real pigments of my real paint tubes. because even the real paint pigments doesn't change with thinning.
Unfortunately my eyes cannot decode transparency values just color, so I can't make difference between a greyish color and a saturated semitransparent color on a grey primer, so I don't like this argument.

 

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