The future of selections and masks in Krita

[Boudewijn Rempt]

On Monday 31 July 2006 21:39, Casper Boemann wrote:

> Another use case against per-layer selection is when the user has created a
> selection on the wrong layer (which happens quite often). It will be very
> nice to be able to just switch layer and have the selection following
> along.

Or even nicer to just move the selection to the other layer? 

> The solution Bart, Cyrille, Thomas and I have come up with is to have:
>   - a single global selection
>   - display masks per layer
>   - abillity to convert selection to mask and back
>   - ability to edit the mask (it's just an alpha colorspace after all)

That's basically what Photoshop and the Gimp have -- which they do not have 
because of any design, but because of the way the history of Photoshop has 
progressed from Mac Paint type selections, which turned out to be 
insufficiently powerful when layers where added, but which couldn't be 
removed (the global selection) to masks -- which are just per-layer 
selections, nothing else -- to vector based shapes.

I stand by what I have written in the todo for 2.0 about selections, and what 
we discussed during the Krita hackathon: one or more masks/selections (there 
is no difference) per layer that can be copied and moved between layers.

I do not think that is complex: not more complex than making an artificial 
distinction between selections and masks. The case for "unconventional" for 
Arthur here simply boils down to "cannot use my photoshop manual with Krita". 

I think that nothing can be simpler than having just one mechanism for 
selecting pixels; making that visually explicit by showing the selection mask 
in the layer box and making it possible to manipulate it exactly like a layer 
(copying, pasting, painting, filling, moving up & down).

I have not seen a usecase for a global selection: I certainly have not seen 
one where it is less complex to add functionaly to convert between masks and 
a global selection.

In short, I disagree with the solution proposed here.
-- 
Boudewijn Rempt 
http://www.valdyas.org/fading/index.cgi
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