Hello, I don't know if I'm alone in this, but the mask/clip options in vers x.x are very hard to use. The results are hard to predict. Colours of objects will change (depending on fore/back ground order etc). Also, the difference between clip and mask is not clear.
I come from a (distant) background in Macromedia Freehand and in that world they had a concept called "Paste Inside". 1. Now that made perfect sense and was perfectly predictable. One did not have to setup a bunch of "tests" on the side. 2. You could select items within the mask, and easily edit/move them.
In Inkscape 0.44, I get the feeling that those items are new and experimental, perhaps they will get a better user interface - I'm not sure where the coders are at now, I know they move really fast on a thousand fronts.
Anyway, any pointers? /d
Donn <donn.ingle@...125...> writes:
Hello, I don't know if I'm alone in this, but the mask/clip options in vers x.x are very hard to use. The results are hard to predict. Colours of objects will change (depending on fore/back ground order etc).
I never had such problems: No color changes ever happened to me. You are probably not using it correctly - see explanation below.
Also, the difference between clip and mask is not clear.
In both clip and mask, you select two objects, and after applying clip or mask the result is that the lower object is clipped or masked by the upper one. In clip, it is constrained to the shape of the upper object, regardless of the upper object's color/opacity/blur properties. With mask, it is also influenced by the upper object's color like masks in photoshop or Gimp or Illustrator: Where there is a white color in the upper object, the lower will be opaque, and where there is black, it will be transparent. shades of gray (or shades of color) are semi-transparent depending on value. You can use a white-to-black gradient on the upper object to have a gradient mask. the opacity of the upper object is also taken into account, but you'd rather not use that and just use shades of gray. Blur also influences mask.
I come from a (distant) background in Macromedia Freehand and in that world they had a concept called "Paste Inside".
- Now that made perfect sense and was perfectly predictable. One did not have
to setup a bunch of "tests" on the side. 2. You could select items within the mask, and easily edit/move them.
In Inkscape 0.44, I get the feeling that those items are new and experimental, perhaps they will get a better user interface - I'm not sure where the coders are at now, I know they move really fast on a thousand fronts.
AFAIK In 0.45 (and perhaps current test versions) you will be able to do it, but you need to be in outline mode to see the clip or mask object.
From MAILER-DAEMON Tue Dec 05 01:17:53 2006
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 10:17:31 +0100 From: Thorsten Wilms <t_w_@...1631...> To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Message-ID: <20061205091731.GA5432@...1906...> References: <200612050840.45426.donn.ingle@...155...> MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <200612050840.45426.donn.ingle@...155...> Priority: normal X-Mailer: Mutt User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) X-Spam-Score: 0.0 (/) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. Report problems to http://sf.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=1&atid=200001 Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] Mask/Clip is kinda hard to use X-BeenThere: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.8 Precedence: list Reply-To: t_w_@...1631..., Inkscape User Community inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net List-Id: Inkscape User Community <inkscape-user.lists.sourceforge.net> List-Unsubscribe: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-user, mailto:inkscape-user-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=unsubscribe List-Archive: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum=inkscape-user List-Post: mailto:inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net List-Help: mailto:inkscape-user-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=help List-Subscribe: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-user, mailto:inkscape-user-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=subscribe X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2006 09:17:53 -0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Disposition: inline
On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 08:40:44AM +0200, Donn wrote:
I don't know if I'm alone in this, but the mask/clip options in vers x.x are very hard to use. The results are hard to predict. Colours of objects will change (depending on fore/back ground order etc).
I find the results of clipping very predictable. Masking maybe less so, but that's likely just because I tried it only briefly.
Maybe you didn't notice yet that the object that will be used as clipping path or mask has to be on top?
But I often want to clip objects that are entirely contained within the clipping path to then apply blur and have it not bleed outside the desired area. Arranging the smaller object below the clipping object is fiddly business.
Also, the difference between clip and mask is not clear.
Clipping means only the parts of the clipped object that are inside the clipping path will be rendered.
Mask does that too, but the defining aspect of it is that the lightness of the mask is used to determine the alpha of the resut, with black = 100%. Actualy it might be more complicated, as I only tried it with from black to white gradients :)
I come from a (distant) background in Macromedia Freehand and in that world they had a concept called "Paste Inside".
- Now that made perfect sense and was perfectly predictable. One did not have
to setup a bunch of "tests" on the side. 2. You could select items within the mask, and easily edit/move them.
Paste Inside sounds like a very nice concept. Provided you can paste inside and In Place.
An Outliner that lists objects and shows clipping/masking/cloning relations would be helpful :)
-- Thorsten Wilms
Thorwil's Creature Illustrations: http://www.printfection.com/thorwil
I never had such problems: No color changes ever happened to me. You are probably not using it correctly - see explanation below.
I think I was using mask without realising about that alpha effect.
In both clip and mask, you select two objects, and after applying clip or mask the result is that the lower object is clipped or masked by the upper one.
Okay - thanks. That helps. Also, I found an option in the settings to leave the original clip object - which really helps one understand what's happening. Still, that's another diff to Freehand. With Inkscape's approach, there are now two objects - whereas with Paste-Inside there was only one object, as expected. Now, internally the picture may be different, but from the user pov, there was just one. In Freehand, if you wanted to hide the parent object, you simply gave it no outline.
In clip, it is constrained to the shape of the upper object, regardless of the upper object's color/opacity/blur properties.
Cool. Is there any way to interactively move the clipped objects around and see the effect live? Unsetting all the time is rather unfriendly.
With mask, it is also influenced by the upper object's color like masks in photoshop or Gimp or Illustrator: Where there is a white color in the upper object, the lower will be opaque, and where there is black, it will be transparent.
I did not know this until your email. There is no hint in the help files. Cool feature. I tried it out. It's kind of odd though. I found it very tricky to change the fill of the mask so that the opacity of the children could be tweaked. Again, it was a matter of: Unset - Change - Select - Set - Repeat.
Am I doing it wrong?
AFAIK In 0.45 (and perhaps current test versions) you will be able to do it, but you need to be in outline mode to see the clip or mask object.
That's another of my pet peeves - outline mode is also weird! :) It only shows the current selection in outlines - everything else is still normal with fills etc. This makes it impossible to use really. Am I missing something?
Talking about pet-peeves - don't get me started on stamping! :D
Thanks for the feedback!
/d
On 12/5/06, Donn <donn.ingle@...155...> wrote:
In clip, it is constrained to the shape of the upper object, regardless of the upper object's color/opacity/blur properties.
Cool. Is there any way to interactively move the clipped objects around and see the effect live? Unsetting all the time is rather unfriendly.
You can do this if you clip a group, not the object itself, then enter the group and move the object around without affecting clipping.
With mask, it is also influenced by the upper object's color like masks in photoshop or Gimp or Illustrator: Where there is a white color in the upper object, the lower will be opaque, and where there is black, it will be transparent.
I did not know this until your email. There is no hint in the help files. Cool feature. I tried it out. It's kind of odd though.
I agree it's slightly odd, but this is per the SVG standard. It's described in the FAQ:
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#I.27m_trying_to_apply_a_gradient....
AFAIK In 0.45 (and perhaps current test versions) you will be able to do it, but you need to be in outline mode to see the clip or mask object.
That's another of my pet peeves - outline mode is also weird! :) It only shows the current selection in outlines - everything else is still normal with fills etc. This makes it impossible to use really. Am I missing something?
I'm not sure. Outline mode changes everything for me. In SVN, it also treats clippaths and masks better than in 0.44.
participants (3)
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bulia byak -
Donn -
Michael Grosberg