<ul>premises
<LI>we have many talented visitors to this forum
<LI>we have many busy vistors to this forum
<LI>we have many visitors who come here with questions and they hope to find answers
<LI>these sets of people do not necessarily intersect or overlap each other in any or all instances.
<hr>
given that the above are true, I consider it very important for people who post to recognize the needs of the various audiences that gather here.

<LI>I would further point out that if the busy or talented people do stop and diagnose a question or concern that a visitor has, then they should at least do the visitor the courtesy of reading their question or concern in it's etirety. . . .before jumping to a diagnosis. All will be much better served if the plain english that is written here is read carefully before a diagnosis is delivered.

<LI>please appreciate that an off the cuff diagnosis only exacerbates the frustration a user can feel when he or she has plainly taken great effort to illustrate a question or concern.

<LI>of course, it is also customary in civil discussion, to not fly off the handle at visitors who offer their diagnoses in an attempt to salve the injury . . . but sometimes the diagoses or prescribed treatment could be like salt on a wound -- especially if it appears that the suggested treatment has not addressed the source of the problem or only addresses the symptoms.[/list]

With all that said, here are my newest
  1. observations on the vis mask issue.

    <LI>it seems to be OS independent. I have been able to generate similar artifacts (i'll go ahead and use artifacts because for my images, I got grey dots or darker purple dots . . .not black . .. this will cover any dots that are not colored the color that I had intended and are generated by some vis mask activity) in my images when i use a vis mask that does not go from edge to edge. ( i have not tried to simply go edge to edge on a layer and see if the vis mask works flawlessly. Thelonious is using a Mac OS I am using Win ME

    <LI>we have not eliminated that this is not processor dependent. Both Thelonious and I are using non intel processors. this bug could be looking for something that the intel processor delivers (and we know how well intel processors can calculate [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] )

    <LI>whereas Thelonious seems to be able to duplicate this error regularly, I can only duplicate it every now and then. For me, the artifacts appear sporadically. Although I am looking into a link between the vis mask and the zoom tool. I currently suspect a zoom rasterizing problem corrupts tiny fragments of the layer. but this is only a guess. and I would have to run more tests to be more conclusive for my system.

    <LI>this vis mask, when it malfuncions, actually does permanent damage to the layer because when you save the file as a .rif and then re-open the file the artifacts are still visible

    <LI>I have no previous experience with Adobe Photoshop so I have no expectations of what the vis mask should do

    <LI>I do not make it a habit of reading the manual unless absolutely necessary. This particular topic seemed to be obtusely written (unlike other items in the manual that are more clearly written). . .it was not explained the way i would explain it (and this assumes that I have, through fiddling around, grasped what is going on with the vis mask
    <LI>
    1. <LI>when I generate a new layer, we'll call it Bugsy layer Painter generates 2 supporting masks in the mask toolbox
      <LI>these 2 masks are the
      1. <LI>Busgsy RGB mask --- this defines the colors within the vis mask
        <LI>Bugsy vis mask ---- this defines the shape of positive and negative space within the vis mask which ultimately defines the positive and negative space within the layer


      <LI>my observations also note that you can use black ... and i think i read somewhere shades of grey and white to define the shape of positive and negative space in the Bugsy vis mask.
      <LI>whether the Bugsy vis mask is selected is very important in determining if you change the shape of the bugsy vis mask.
      <LI>color selection also seems to play a key role in adding or subtracting to the shape of the bugsy vis mask.
      <LI>whether you have selected the color before or after you select the Bugsy vis mask also seems like an important factor.
      <LI>I was unable to definitively cause artifacts to appear on my layer by erasing and then using the undo last stroke but I did have a mysterious artifact appear in a part of my layer I thought I had not touched with my brush/stylus
      <LI>the Bugsy vis mask is like a stencil i can fill with color by selecting the Bugsy RGB mask. I must have the Bugsy RGB mask selected to color in the Vis mask stencil
      <LI>I think, I can only affect color when I have the Bugsy RGB mask selected.
      <LI>it was while coloring in some fun colors in my bugsy stencil (while having the Bugsy RGB mask selected) that I generated a number of artifacts that showed up within the confines of the Bugsy Vismask
      <LI>I don't know if this is just another bugged feature of the vis mask or an accurate or innacurate reflection of Thelonious' error.
      <LI>If I seem to be on the right track, I will then take the time to generate some step by step images to clarify my experiences.

      <LI>If i have been unclear, please tell me. I would now like to get to the bottom of this.



thank you for your patience and your time

Athena

[This message was edited by T. Athena Hatton on August 28, 2001 at 06:46.]