Re: [Gimp-developer] Request for Change 0 Free Select Behavior
Guillermo, Thanks for taking the time to reply to my request. It appears that you and I have a fundamentally different point of view on how to best select regions in an image. Let me throw out a couple of observations before I address some of your points in the hope that I can avoid starting a religious argument about which technique is better (especially if my side is outnumbered). - In most applications most of the users focus on about 20% of the options and capabilities in a given tool whether it is an office tool, or an engineering Design Automation tool. I suspect this is true of almost any tool that is fairly flexible. This does not mean that the 80% that any one user doesn't normally use aren't valuable as different users solving different problems. - It is important that the work on an image has an intuitive feel. No one methodology or selection method works best across all of the images you might encounter. Users will develop favorite methods based on their own success and failures with features of a tool. Failure with a feature of a tool is not a reflection on the feature, it just points out that a variety of robust features are necessary for a well rounded tool. - The “enhancement” that I am asking for is for the current mode of operation to perform in a manner that would be expected by a reasonable user. When the user selects a mode of operation using the menu and switches, it seems reasonable for the tool to honor those choices rather than making a unilateral decision to change modes based on cursor location. The fact the behavior is called out in the specification doesn't really change the fact that it is kind of user unfriendly. Let me try and address your points: The Bezier tool is better suited to the tasks you're describing. Using freehand tool as a precision tool (i.e. for background extraction) is a bad idea. If I believed this I would not have bothered to ask for the enhancement in the first place. I think of using the freehand select for precision work as part of my methodology rather than a bad idea. When I started using Gimp I tried the Path / Bezier tool but in practice I really haven't found much use for it. The notion that it is “better” is subjective and is not in line with my experience. Freehand tool is intended to make coarse selections or tweaks in selections that don't need too much precision. This may have been the vision when the tool was put together, if it was I would say the Freehand select exceeded the original expectation. I believe that it is the best selection mode in Gimp for making precise selections. - How fine your control is for defining a selection line is determined by the level of zoom you are at, not whether you are drawing the line or defining it with a series of dots. The freehand select is as precise as the picture and tool will allow. - Describing a line with a series of dots is not inherently quicker or more precise than just drawing the line. If you have to start inserting more dots or fiddling with the handles to reshape the line, you are going to waste lots of time. The trick with Freehand select is to do a rough selection and then do the precise work using small closed strokes to add or subtract onto the selection. The feedback is immediate, and is easy to draw a precise line with the mouse as long as it is short. - The selection using a path matches the line in the path, which may be what we are referring to as precise, but this is actually due to the path selection being less flexible than a Freehand selection. In a Freehand select you can get a selection that matches the line you draw, just like the path select, if you turn of the “Feather edges”, but instead of being precise, it is precisely what I don't want. When you select people in your image without feathering the edge and paste them back on a background that has been blurred, they have a cut out with an exacto knife look. There may be a way to get feathered edges and antialiasing with the path tool, but this is still a problem because you can't see what you actually selected. The actual selection depends on the amount of feather (radius), the radius of curvature (shape) of the selection line. - The feedback from a freehand select is immediate. You can see what your selection is as you make it without having to wait until after you have completed a long path description. If you are able to feather the edges on a path, most likely with a time consuming post processing, it won't be the precise edge you described with the path. It might not fully include everything you want. - In my opinion the freehand tool is more intuitive for all but the very experienced user. Making the freehand select work the way most user's would expect would lower the learning curve for new users. The idea of adding to, subtracting from, or intersecting with the current selection is fairly straightforward and powerful. - The fact
Re: [Gimp-developer] Request for Change 0 Free Select Behavior
David, Thanks for the reply. I am using the Windows version of 2.2.17. In this version the issue that I am having an issue with can be reproduced in any image by selecting the freehand select tool, draw a circle in the image creating a selection, press the subtract from current selection mode button, move the cursor inside the selected region, depress the mouse button to start defining the region you want to subtract, and when you move the mouse you move the selection as a floating section instead of defining what you want to subtract. If there is a fairly stable version of the tool that has a fix for the issue I am having, that would be great. Which version should I be using? Your comment See the Channels dialog -- that's exactly what it is for. for a providing a selection stack capability sounds interesting. Do you have a link or reference that elaborates on this? Thanks Stephen - Original Message From: David Gowers [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen Kiel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Guillermo Espertino [EMAIL PROTECTED]; gimp-developer@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 5:37:29 PM Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Request for Change 0 Free Select Behavior On 7/27/07, Stephen Kiel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Guillermo, Thanks for taking the time to reply to my request. It appears that you and I have a fundamentally different point of view on how to best select regions in an image. Let me throw out a couple of observations before I address some of your points in the hope that I can avoid starting a religious argument about which technique is better (especially if my side is outnumbered). - In most applications most of the users focus on about 20% of the options and capabilities in a given tool whether it is an office tool, or an engineering Design Automation tool. I suspect this is true of almost any tool that is fairly flexible. This does not mean that the 80% that any one user doesn't normally use aren't valuable as different users solving different problems. - It is important that the work on an image has an intuitive feel. No one methodology or selection method works best across all of the images you might encounter. Users will develop favorite methods based on their own success and failures with features of a tool. Failure with a feature of a tool is not a reflection on the feature, it just points out that a variety of robust features are necessary for a well rounded tool. - The enhancement that I am asking for is for the current mode of operation to perform in a manner that would be expected by a reasonable user. When the user selects a mode of operation using the menu and switches, it seems reasonable for the tool to honor those choices rather than making a unilateral decision to change modes based on cursor location. The fact the behavior is called out in the specification doesn't really change the fact that it is kind of user unfriendly. The 'enhancement' that you describe, in my experience, has been included in the GIMP for at least a year. I cannot reproduce the problem you describe (and for the purposes of getting this changed, you will probably need to come up with some reliable way of reproducing it.) Let me try and address your points: The Bezier tool is better suited to the tasks you're describing. Using freehand tool as a precision tool (i.e. for background extraction) is a bad idea. If I believed this I would not have bothered to ask for the enhancement in the first place. I think of using the freehand select for precision work as part of my methodology rather than a bad idea. When I started using Gimp I tried the Path / Bezier tool but in practice I really haven't found much use for it. The notion that it is better is subjective and is not in line with my experience. Freehand tool is intended to make coarse selections or tweaks in selections that don't need too much precision. This may have been the vision when the tool was put together, if it was I would say the Freehand select exceeded the original expectation. I believe that it is the best selection mode in Gimp for making precise selections. - How fine your control is for defining a selection line is determined by the level of zoom you are at, not whether you are drawing the line or defining it with a series of dots. The freehand select is as precise as the picture and tool will allow. That doesn't even make sense. The freehand tool and path tool have both exactly the same level of precision -- they both render polygons, so they're infinitely-precise; freehand can be faster if you have a steady hand; paths is more precise because it can draw shapes with holes in them in the same step as drawing the outside - freehand select must do such things in two steps, because it makes some assumptions about how the user wants to use it. Freehand select works under the exact same rules as path tool - including eg
[Gimp-developer] Request for Change 0 Free Select Behavior
to layers and merging the layers, but this doesn't work as well as I had hoped for the following reasons: 1) It is real hard to see and control what is going on, the visual feedback is awkward. 2) The merging of layers only gives you and “Add” mode. 3) The Feathering of edges can create unintended voids in the selection. You would almost always want the Feathering to be on the border (perimeter and holes you might cut) of the resultant selection, not within the selection itself. Anyway thanks in advance for considering my request. I understand that you have to weigh these request to create the best usage for the entire user community and even though I feel these changes would make a better and more usable tool, that is really for you to decide. Thanks Stephen Kiel Choose the right car based on your needs. Check out Yahoo! Autos new Car Finder tool. http://autos.yahoo.com/carfinder/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list Gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
