GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 91941
Layer Move Independent of Layer Mask
Last modified: 2018-05-24 10:46:12 UTC
Currently there is a little "bug" with moving the layer. If the layer has a layer mask, moving the layer, moves the mask as well. See the picture http://www.geocities.com/lasm.rm/layer-bug1.jpg This is what is shown in the layer dialog http://www.geocities.com/lasm.rm/layer-bug2.jpg There is a little refresh problem here as the layer thumbnail should be be moved to the left and upwards. The desired enhancement is shown in this picture http://www.geocities.com/lasm.rm/layer-bug-desired1.jpg Here moving the layer DOES NOT automatically move the layer mask along with it. To accomplish this enhanced feature, it is suggested that there should be a little chain icon in between the layer thumbnail and the layer-mask thumbnail as shown in this composited picture http://www.geocities.com/lasm.rm/layer-bug-desired2.jpg When the chain is broken, the layer mask does not move, only the layer moves. When the chain is toggled to "unbroken", then the layer mask moves along with the layer, as in current "buggy" implementation. Note that this little enhancement will open up a whole new world of possibilities for the user, and it is in fact a standard feature for years in commercial packages such as Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop.
I do not consider the current behavior to be wrong. On the contrary, this is the most intuitive from my point of view: the mask is a part of the layer so moving the layer should move the mask as well. But I agree that in some rare cases it could be useful to be able to move one of them separately from the other one. So I will confirm this enhancement proposal. Note that all of your images are broken. I suspect that geocities does not allow external referers to images, only to top-level HTML pages so that they can display their advertisements. It would be much better if you could attach the images to this bug report so that we can see them easily (even if geocities or your pages disapear in the future).
I am sorry I wasn't aware that the geocities pictures link are broken without logging in. Putting them in a html page seems to work however, so here it is again http://www.geocities.com/lasm.rm/layer-bug91941.html BTW, I haven't seen anyone attach pictures to bug reports, is that possible ?
I strongly vote for this to be implemented. The only way to move the mask independently (if I'm not mistaken) is to select all (ctrl+A) and float the mask (ctrl+shift+L) and then move. It gets problematic if the mask is larger than the layer, since ctrl+A only selects the image size area. I'd love to see that link icon between the layer and mask, but make that on by default, so that moving a layer moves a mask too. But the user is free to move them separately.
lasm: You can easily attach images to the bug reports. If you look around, you will see that several GIMP bug reports already have test images attached to them (among the recent ones, you can look at bug #79023, bug #84640, bug #86290, ...). To attach your image, just follow the link "Create a new attachment" and select the correct type for the image that you want to upload. This would be more convenient than having to go through geocities and get all their advertisements before the interesting images. Jakub: I switched the priority to "High". This will not change much until someone volunteers to implement that, but at least this is now marked as "High priority". Just out of curiosity, how did you get a mask that is larger than the layer?
> Just out of curiosity, how did you get a mask that is larger than > the layer? For example, create a text layer, and create another layer the same size as the image, in which you put a gradient. On the text layer, add a layer mask, copy the gradient layer, and paste it into the mask. The mask is teh same size as the image, the layer is big enough to hold the text. Et voilá. Dave.
Created attachment 16956 [details] Mockup of a mask lock. The upper layer with mask will move the mask independently from the layer. The lower layer with mask has them locked, so they will both move/transform.
Changing to future, it seems unrealistic for this to be done before camp. Dave.
For the reasons given in bug #131163, I vote for closing this one as WONTFIX or NOTABUG.
*** Bug 131163 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Layer Mask Movement Semantics Someone asked what should be the semantics for layer mask movement in bug 131163 which I summarize briefly as follows. A) Layer Mask Linked to Layer When the layer mask is linked to layer, this is the simplest case. There is no change here. The layer will move together with the layer mask, and whatever area that is exposed will be filled with alpha transparency. B) Layer Mask Un-linked to Layer (Independent Move) For this case, the layer mask is free to move independently of the layer itself. When the layer mask exposes new areas, it should be filled with black color (if layer mask was created with Black-full transparency OR created with Layer's Alpha Channel) The exposed region should be filled with white only if the layer mask was created with White (full opacity) When the exposed layers are later covered, the previously stored mask in the buffer should be used to restore the mask. I think there should be a 3x3 matrix for buffering the layer mask, with the centre of the matrix being the currently visible layer mask. If the layer mask is moved more than twice the length of the mask horizontally, the protruding part should be clipped. Similarly if the layer mask is moved more than twice the height of the mask vertically, the protruding region should be clipped and lost. Hopefully this semantics is clear, and as far as I can tell, it is pretty consistent with other programs, including PS.
I suggest marking this bug as depending on bug #93639 (which should allow layers to grow automatically) because growing the mask while it is moved will require some changes in the tile management that are very similar to the ones discussed in bug #93639. Look at my comment from 2003-12-12 and the following one by Daniel if you are confused by some of the earlier comments in that bug report.
*** Bug 136649 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 313395 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Closing at WONTFIX. With automatically managed layer boundaries, there is no need to add any dedicated functionality or code for this.
So - the feature request closed 7 years ago is reopened. While "automatically managed layer boundaries" did not come by (yet), nor do I see how that could provide the features of moving the layer contents separated from the mask, it would be nice if the parties interested in resurrecting this would throw in some more context.
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message -- This bug has been migrated to GNOME's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity. You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/issues/31.