I often find having to clean up around an image in a graphics editing programme is a pain-staking chore, particularly as it's part of my job and they don't pay me enough (hence my present HB-ward meanderings).
You see, it's the circular brush I have a problem with; the majority of stuff you need to cut out or clean up is convex. Just like magnetic poles, convex doesn't like its own kind. It wants concave to smooth it's way around it. With the circular brush, you eat into the curves you're trying to protect. Undo, do it again, gah! Undo, do it again slower, gah! Undo FOREVER.
So – enter stage desktop – the incredible Cavex graphics brush! Dum dadadum daaaa!
It's not hard this: The brush is adjustable in size, rotation and... er... curviness. So, holding down < and rolling the mouse scroll will increase and decrease the size; holding down > and rolling will adjust the rotation; holding down ? and rolling will morph the brush from a full moon to a croissant moon or vice versa.
Simple, effective brush manipulation to ease still the most mind-numbing part of graphic design.-- theleopard, Sep 14 2011 http://www.photosho...masking/masking.htm is this any help? - maybe I'm not understanding the problem? [xenzag, Sep 14 2011] http://www.imageski...ndremover.html#lloe one of several [xenzag, Sep 14 2011] http://www.vertustech.com/ fluid mask [xenzag, Sep 14 2011] MS Paint http://www.albinobl...om/tutorial/mspaintNot quite as naff as you might think. [DrBob, Sep 15 2011] Paint.NET http://www.getpaint.net/ [DrBob, Sep 16 2011] Nice idea. It's slightly disappointing that the mouse itself doesn't detect rotation - i.e. so rotating the mouse slightly on the desktop would be mapped to a rotation of the tool.-- hippo, Sep 14 2011 I thought Photoshop would let you shape your own brush?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 14 2011 I think so yes, but it's a static shape. If you're cutting a complex shape out, it's no use at all.-- theleopard, Sep 14 2011 I always use a combination of channels, masks, blending modes and layers. - Cutting out with a brush... I admire your time and patience. You don't really ever have to do it that way. There are even programs that let you (for example) separate an image with fly away hair from a grassy background. Try drawing around that with a brush.-- xenzag, Sep 14 2011 Sorry, not a comment on the invention, but I have a question for [xenzag], and if he has the answer, it may help with your photo-editing.
What is the tool you are refering to that can easily separate flyaway hair from grass? I was just trying to do that the other day. I've tried methods similar to your link, but I usually end up going full manual with partial transparency to get decent edges. I actually exentually copied some flyway hair from a different photo with a background more similar to the final background because I couldn't separate it from the background well enough. I would not be satified with the final photo shown in the link. The red feathers on the lower right have black edges. The light pink feather in the upper right has black showing through it as well as two glowing white orbs, etc...
I can imagine some algorithms that might make it realtively simple to erase background areas. Oversimplified example: if we are erasing black, and there is a 50% gray pixel between a black and a white pixel, the black pixel should become transparent, the white pixel should be unchanged, and the gray pixel it should become white with 50% tansparency. When the background is replaced you will get the same semi-transparancy or soft focus as before but with the new background showing through. Do you know of any tools that will help do that semi-automatically? Thanks-- scad mientist, Sep 14 2011 I like the idea of having shortcuts for quickly adjusting brush size/shape. + The biggest challenge is probably going to be making users aware that the feature is there without annoying all the ones that don't want to use the feature.-- scad mientist, Sep 14 2011 Thanks for the links [xenzag]. I try to use channels, but I always find the result needs manual clipping and trimming to look professional. Perhaps I need more practice, but I still think this would be useful.-- theleopard, Sep 15 2011 Like it [+] Alternately, how about an //Undo FOREVER.// button?-- zen_tom, Sep 15 2011 //Undo FOREVER button //
I recommend against pressing that...-- theleopard, Sep 15 2011 I think users generally would have trouble controling such a brush with its many parameters.
I'm no expert, but rather than covering the background, can't you cover the image then invert?-- Loris, Sep 15 2011 DrBob, did you ever see Paint.NET?- it's a more powerful version with layers. I think it was the one that got away, and for some reason wasn't included in Windows, so we got the basic version.-- Ling, Sep 15 2011 No, I didn't but now that you've pointed it out it looks like a splendid thing, doesn't it! (link added).-- DrBob, Sep 16 2011 random, halfbakery