Wishlist for Painter

#181

I’ve got one… how about making PREVIEW.PIX files easy to delete? I don’t know why, but I can’t delete them. (I’m using Painter IX.5 for Windows.) It says that some other process is using the file, but I can’t find any obvious offending process. Even using a tool showing the location from which every process is running, I can’t see any running processes connected to Painter… and yet I still can’t delete my PREVIEW.PIX files! It doesn’t matter if the file is old or new, or if my computer’s been running or if it just started up; I can’t do it. Oh, I’m sure there’s a way to do it – and I’d appreciate knowing that way (I’ve already searched the web and the forums to no avail) – but you shouldn’t have to jump through a hoop to delete such a file, especially such an unimportant one.

Or is this some sort of problem that only I am experiencing?

  • Kef
#182

If you delete the PREVIEW.PIX file in a given folder, there won’t be thumbnails to display in the Open dialog for RIFF files previously saved to that folder.

Also, when you save the next RIFF file to that folder, a new PREVIEW.PIX file will be automatically created to contain a thumbnail for the new RIFF file and any RIFF files you save to that folder later (of course only until you delete that PREVIEW.PIX file and the cycle begins all over again).

#183

I know. But sometimes you don’t need a PREVIEW.PIX file anymore. For example, one time I saved a file directly from Painter into a folder on my hard drive that is part of the local copy of my website, and it created a PREVIEW.PIX file (which I don’t need). When I run my upload script, the PREVIEW.PIX file gets uploaded to my website. If I delete it from the website but keep it on the hard drive, the PREVIEW.PIX file will just get uploaded again; the proper way to do it is to delete it from my hard drive, but I can’t.

I don’t think “You shouldn’t delete them” is a good reason for this behavior.

  • Kef
#184

Hi,

I don’t know why you can’t delete the PREVIEW.PIX file.

Just tested it in WinXP Home SP2 and I was able to delete the file using three methods, all with Painter IX.5 running and the just saved TIFF image open in Painter IX.5:

  1. Used File Save > As a second time after saving the file, right-clicked the PREVIEW.PIX file and chose Delete, then clicked OK when asked if I really wanted to delete it.

  2. Used File Save > As again after saving the file, highlighted the PREVIEW.PIX file and clicked the Delete key, then clicked OK when asked if I really wanted to delete it.

  3. In Windows Explorer, highlighted the file and hit the Delete key, then clicked OK when asked if I really wanted to delete it.

Tested again the same way with a JPG file and it worked as expected. I was able to delete the PREVIEW.PIX file each time.

I have had your problem with other files and don’t recall the circumstances except that I had to close any and all programs I’d been using the file in before the file could be deleted.

Hope this helps.

#185

(taken from http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=3974040&postcount=16)

What would be useful is if the shift key constrained direction worked relative to the screen and not the paper, ie when rotating the paper, make horizontal relative to the screen, therefore straight lines of any angle could be achieved. Currently the straight lines are relative to the page, and so on rotated page the shift key constrains to the angle of the page, and when the page is straightened out a horizontal line is drawn.

May be this could be an additional option in the next Painter upgrade.

Regards,

Phd.

#186

even more useful would be the described behaviour, but when drawing ellipses…it would make it way easier to draw circles in perspective that way :thumbsup:

dunno if that has been mentioned yet, but photoshop’s way of making gradients (click&drag for direction and length) is imo way superior to painter’s, and should be relatively easy to implement while allowing for big workflow improvements.

#187

What would be good for drawing ellipses in perspective, would be to draw a straight line from one point to the another, to represent the minor axis diameter, then a third click to specify the major axis diameter (or half diameter). This would allow drawing circles on perspective grid lines.

Regards,

Phd.

#188

I know this is for the IX patch and I hope it also pertains to IX.5 patch as well.

I noticed that in IX and IX.5 (while zoomed in to your work) when you hold the spacebar to navigate around your work white lines, both verticle and horizontal white lines appear from where the edges had been hidden. They’re just a display issue and don’t really affect your image, but is annoying. If you hold the spacebar and move your work in a circular motion, they go away.

Anyone noticed that?

#189

About the PREVIEW.PIX problem I was having a couple of posts above… today I finally figured out the solution. It turns out that the problem didn’t have to do with Painter at all. It was another program, Konvertor, which was somehow interfering. I don’t know why, since it didn’t interfere with anything else. Ah well… there’s one mystery solved. Sorry for having implicated Painter in this crime. :wink:

  • Kef
#190

(sorry if anyone mentioned these already):

  • fix the Onion Skin of animations so that the current frame is shown at full opacity and previous frames appear ghosted

  • someone said this earlier, but it would be great to have some of the layer blend modes also apply to brushes; i.e. multiply mode, dodge, burn, etc; I know Buildup is sort of like multiply, but it reaches black too fast.

  • some brushes take forever to calculate and resize, it totally ruins the flow when I’m working quickly.

Also, Universal Binary for OSX please!
thanks!
-kook

#191

would die for that personally

#192

I will second these, especially the hotkeys thing.
It is easy to get lost sarching for your fav brush variant, even if one creates a custom palette.
Hotkeys is a must for brushtypes. Heck even the eraser doesnt have one like in PS…

Another section, which I think I’ve mentioned before, is about Scripts.
Such a usefull feature for animating drawings, where so little work has gone into since the very beggining (v4 or so). A shame.
The animate options should become more accurate, not just “every __/ 10ths of a second” as is now, which isn’t even that.
I can have the same script session on a fast PC render only 40-50 frames (unusable) where on an old PC will generate 300-400 frames…
So it is not time accurate, but inverted to the power of the PC…
Also, make the creation of framestacks more reliable. Many times, it offsets the image halfway down and right as if one applied the offset filter in PS, making all the procedure useless.
Make script editing much easier.
Being able to locate a specific line by highlighting it as it plays back-like PS actions palette does.
Also being able to open two scripts side by side and copy/paste, and not in note pad which is the only way up2now.
Finally, being able to give more length to the scripts palette as they did with layers palette.,
The palette expands now, but an open script is only visible for the 8 first lines, no matter if the palette is expanded to all the monitors height…
Enough for now.

#193

I also have a few suggestions:

-Normal zoom levels, 25%, 50%,100 not 26.7%, 56.7%… When I open an image it auto zoom outs to 66.66% or other strange numbers and the zoom keeps the same ratio unless you full view it.

-Anti-aliasing zoom out like Photoshop.

-Ability to save a full brush folder to a BRS library, much easier to share brushes this way since you don’t have to drop the brushes in a far out directory on the HDD or ZIP/RAR them.

-More cursors to pick from.

-A new brush category that uses the same transparency build up of Photoshop pencil tool for example, a bit like how markers actually work.

-Custom pressure adjustments for each brush. Very important to me, like opencanvas does, it saves time and patience not having to go the brush tracking every time you want to adjust the pressure scale for a particular brush.

-Enough with the click to activate sliders, why not trim down some of the borders of the windows and add normal sliders?

-Build-up method needs major work, it goes black way too fast.

-Small color wheel with the hue bar horizontally.

-An interface that is more easy to use and browse.

#194

Something I would like to see, that I’m suprised that others have not requested, is :

When scaling or rotating a selection instant feedback/preview as to the final selection size or rotation position, before finally committing the change. Currently all you see is the bounding box of the selection, with it’s handles. Eg. if you need to cut part of an image and adjust it’s rotation to line up with another part of the image, it’s complete trial and error in trying to get the exact angle to rotate. Equally when scaling, if you need to scale some part in order to fit in with another part of the image, it all comes down to trial and error. Most, if not all, other applications provide some sort of feedback while the tools are active, and only calculate the accurate transformation when committing to the action.

Regards,

Phd.

#195

this must have been one of the first requests pple had. Tranforming ala photoshop et al style. It seems we have to learn to live with some things, just as PS users still lack the rotating canvas…
And althouh Painter has evolved over the years, its core function is still a Painting/drawing application whereas PS is an image editor manipulator.

#196

heres a little something that bugs me:
the reasons may be a little esoteric, but this feature should be no problem to add.

The SHORT version:

Plz give us the option to make “rotate page” a momentary button, so that it switches back to the last used tool, when releasing the hotkey. (just like the hand tool)

OR

Let the hotkey work like an “On/Off” switch so that it switches back to the last used tool when pressing the hotkey again.

The LONG version:

there are a few functions that are a “must bind to tablet” to have a quick workflow. such as
resize brush, color picker, zoom, scroll around canvas and rotate canvas.*
This way its comfortable to tab to fullscreen mode with everything invisible but the canvas and still having all needed controls.
So i need 5 controls that i wanna acces without having to take my eyes off the screen or click in the toolbox.

sounds perfect because the wacom tablet has 4 keys + touch strip.
(i count only the one side of the tablet because the other hand is occupied by the pen, and the remaining keys are unconfortable to reach).

the problem is, that when i use the rotate tool, i need another hotkey to get back to the brush. so i have waste one precious tablet key for the brush tool which i use 99,9% of the time.

*)UNDO and the brush selector menu are another two vital things, but i’ve mapped them to the pen

#197

Does the spacebar+alt not work for you?
Functional on Intuos 3 xpress keys too.
Dunno if u can also assign a custom shortcut through the prefs.
But even hitting E and then B is ok. Better than PS…

#198

funny, works fine for me in 9.5, which is to say I have it mapped to a key on my cintiq and it does switch back to the last tool when released

When scaling or rotating a selection instant feedback/preview as to the final selection size or rotation position, before finally committing the change. Currently all you see is the bounding box of the selection, with it’s handles. Eg. if you need to cut part of an image and adjust it’s rotation to line up with another part of the image, it’s complete trial and error in trying to get the exact angle to rotate. Equally when scaling, if you need to scale some part in order to fit in with another part of the image, it all comes down to trial and error. Most, if not all, other applications provide some sort of feedback while the tools are active, and only calculate the accurate transformation when committing to the action.

yeah would personally appreciate that too

#199

Hi,
I have my Wacom Intuos 3 set up as follows -

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4199380&postcount=3

using the “ALT” key and the “SPACE” key combined (on the tablet), then using the pen to drag and rotate the page, release the Pen and then the buttons, restores the tool back to the whatever was selected before rotating.

#200

haha i cant believed i didnt knew about space+alt.

anyway thx alot guys u just saved my day :smiley: