Wayne, Eky, Freebird, thanks I've taken a lot of flak over this issue including being thrown off the Painter List which prides itself on being a serious forum but is in fact the worst forum I've ever seen anywhere.

Wayne, lol, you got lost. Don't worry I only gave a very rough description of the problem as I wanted to get it up on the forum. It would only be intelligible to users who have some knowledge of the Vis Mask. But fear not I will make a little explanation/tutorial soon.

The full explanation is a little mindbending and actually a rather fascinanting journey. For me this problem started way back when I did the "Flashbak" logo, on the wood one I tried to make one of the rings go behind and I wanted to use the Vis Mask to do this...when I erased too much and restored a bit I found that black pixels got into my layer.

I was new to Painter and I spent many days trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I couldn't understand I tried different states on the Vis Mask, eg invert etc. I thought it might have something to do with preserve transparency... it went on and on. It was a chance discovery that made me realise the sad truth. This will astound you. The logic is unrefutable. Unfortunately Corel seems to have a bunch of cronies on forums all over the place who defend Painter to the death, these people cannot follow a reasoned argument and will brook no complaint against Corel.

It can be a confusing issue to talk about because people get their terms mixed up. Photoshop has a Layer Mask, also Alpha Channels which are used to store selections.

Painter has a Visibility Mask which at first glance appears to be like a Photoshop layer mask, in fact most people refer to the Painter vis mask as a layer mask, We will not do this as it leads to the most confusion. But as we shall soon see the Painter Vis mask is a strange beast that has gotten loose. Painter also has a User Mask, this is exactly like a Photoshop alpha channel and is used for the same purpose ie storing selections.

When discussing this issue people who can't follow the logic and want to defend Painter by
confusing the issue purposely mix up all these terms, so instead of discussing the issue I have to end up correcting mistakes, then I get a bunch of insults, then someone like Jinny Brown will write in saying that there is notthing wrong at all. This has been the usual pattern and indeed it has been repeated yet again recently on the Corel news group. Thank's Jinny do Corel pay you? They should.

Anyway back to the fun bit. The confusion comes when you think that the Vis Mask is analogous to a Layer Mask. it isn't. In fact Photoshop has a vis mask as well and it is this that the Painter Vis Mask is emulating.

Pause

What, do I hear you say that Photoshop doesn't have a vis mask? Well to be sure it does have one but it doesn't let the user see it or to have access to it. How can I say this. I know sounds mad doesn't it. Well I discovered it by accident and when I did suddenly it all fell into place. Because Painter will let you see Photoshops vis mask.

Do this, open a new file in Photoshop. Make new layer then paint a red stroke. Now get the eraser and rub out the middle of the stroke. Now save it in PSD. Close and reopen. Now there no way to restore the middle of your erased stroke is there? Not in Photoshop. You see the stroke has not been erased it has been covered with a vis mask. But you wouldn't know this because Photoshop won't let you see it or use it. It doesn't need to because if that's what you wanted to do you would have used the layer mask that it provides for you wouldn't you. But for whatever reason Photoshop keeps all your information about the original stroke somewhere in the depths of its viscera.

Close the Photoshop file with the stroke, now open it in Painter, highlight the layer with the stroke. you will note that it has a corresponding Vis Mask (BTW a Vis Mask is distinguished from a User Mask by the fact that it is italicised) Now highlight the Vis Mask in the Masks subpalette. Now you have TWO layers highlighted, "Layer One" in the Layers section and "Layer One Mask"in the asks section. Now leaving the mask highlighted turn of the EYE only on the Layer One Mask.

Now if you select a brush or pen and paint with black on you canvas where the missing stroke is you will restore your stroke. Because what you are in fact doing is you are painting on the Vis Mask, you can see the Vis Mask by turning it's eye on.

So there is the proof that Photoshop never actually got rid of the bit of the stoke that you erased.

What does this all mean? It means this, Metacreations knew they were going to sell Painter and they were in a hurry to develop P6 so instead of building proper layer mask they merely gave the user access to the Vis Mask that should in fact be hidden. Because it CANNOT work that the software and the user both paint on the same mask.

Corel didn't notice, they were done like kippers. However now that they have released P7 and Tanya Staples from Corel tells me that they haven't done anything about it in P7 it is fully Corel's baby now. This is not a little annoying but it is a cock up of major proportions and it treats users like mugs.

I'm late for work now gotta go, hope this gives you something to think about.

thelonious

PS here's a little message to JB. after all the crap I've had to endure from you on this topic over the months I wonder if you would be so sad as to still read this post to the end, my bet is you would. wouldn't you. Can't answer this can you without giving it away. Ha Ha so you just have to read it and fume. The truth will out.

[This message was edited by Thelonious Hink on August 21, 2001 at 00:54.]