crosswalker

You could always just draw the line on its own layer and then move it as a selection. Then it remains editable by itself.

out of curiosity, does anyone know of a good algorithm to fix a blur like that?

Sure, except you still have to mess with the tolerance to compensate for anti-aliasing. Aye, that's a possibility...sept you lose the makeitlookgood effect of anti-aliasing. :wink: Works well for a simple shape, not so much if you're attempting to mask things like people or trees. :?

Here's my conundrum: For some tasks (mainly alpha masking) that require a custom filled shape, I have to do two things, draw the the subject outline, and then fill the shape with a color. Currently, after drawing a custom outline using the line and/or brush tool, I use the paint bucket tool :PaintBucketTool: to fill the object and have the tool's tolerance set at 70 to compensate for the anti-aliased edges of my outline. I'm just wondering if it would be possible to have the paint bucket recognize when it reaches an edge of the same color (in this case, the custom outline) and automatically adjust itself to compensate for anti-aliasing (without having to adjust the tool's tolerance manually.) The effect would be the same as setting the tolerance of the paint bucket tool to 70 and left-clicking, but the tolerance wouldn't have to be messed with (if you go above 70, the whole image gets filled.) Not really a necessity, but it could be a time saver and a bit more intuitive.

You'll get better results(for anti-aliased text) if you use the Alpha Mask Plugin suggested above. Your basic method would be as follows. 1: Make your gradient. 2: Add a new layer :AddNewLayer:, and on it, type your text in black. 3: Double click the text layer :Properties: (in the layers window) and adjust the opacity down to around 50% (so you can see through the text but still see it's outline) 4: Move your text around until you like the gradient that you see through it. Set the layer opacity back to 100% (255) 5: With the text layer selected, press ctrl+a to select all. :SelectAll: 6: Press ctrl+x to cut the selection and ctrl+alt+v :PasteNewImage: to paste it into a new image. 7: Add a new layer :AddNewLayer:, fill it with white :PaintBucketTool:, and move it below your text layer. :Down: 8: Save the image as a png :Save: (in a place where it will be easily accessible, like the desktop) 9: Go back to your gradient image, delete all layers except for the gradient. :Delete: 10: Select Effects->Alpha Mask and use the text image you just created as the mask (You'll have to check the invert mask box) :Save: Save your finished image and you're done! Given the # of steps, it seems like quite a bit of work, but once you get used to using keyboard shortcuts, it really doesn't take that long at all.

In the keyboard/mouse controls page. Copy is listed as ctrl+x and cut as ctrl+c.

My recommendation would depend on what kind of filters and effects you're going for. If you just want basic photo manipulation, management, and effects such as sepia, tints, etc. I'd say go with Google Picasa. If, however, you're wanting to do advanced edits to your pictures, I'd highly recommend Paint.NET. One thing to keep in mind is that not all image editors/managers are the same or have the same purpose, with that thought in mind, it may not be a bad idea to download a couple different ones and give them a try, if you like it, keep it, if not, try another. I'd recommend you start with the above two and make your way from there. Hope that helps!

Non-destructive editing generally refers to a form of editing where the original content is never changed. You apply filters and edits, and when viewed in the editing program it appears that the image has been changed, but the content remains the same unless you export it to a png or otherwise. Google's Picasa photo manager is a good example of this, you can crop/tune pics in Picasa, but the effects don't change the base picture, and can be undone at any time. To define by negation, destructive editing is when any change that you make to an image (or other document) immediately(or upon saving) affects the image permanently. Usually non-destructive edits require a specific file type and program that recognizes the edits contained therein. @Rick: I totally agree layers are definitely the base of non-destructive editing. I guess I'm more suggesting a special type of layer, like Adobe's smart filter. I just saw the Photoshop CS3 smart filters demo and it looked incredibly useful so I thought I'd throw it out there for consideration.

If you're looking to blend two images together, I'd recommend using the alpha mask plugin You can then simple draw a black to white gradient (if you're looking for a simple linear blend) or something more complex, save it to a png, and import it as an alpha mask on your to-be-blended images. Once each image has the right shape and fade to it, just drop them into a base image, and your done!

Just thought I'd throw this out there. Obviously I'm not expecting non-destructive editing to make it to PDN for a while, but it would (or will) be a great feature nonetheless.

You're not missing anything. It's not currently possible in Paint.NET This would be an excellent addition to PDN though.

although really, it wouldn't be that hard to do, the flames effect that uses the dents plugin is quite simple to produce.

To change black to colors, you could also use the curves adjustment. Play around with different modification points to get different colors (use the rgb mode, not luminosity) Make sure you uncheck 1 or 2 colors before you make changes though (if they're all checked your image will only change shades of gray) Note: This won't work on pitch black (#000000) but it will work on various shades of gray (which is more likely to be in a photo)

How to take a screenshot Press prt sc or print screen on your keyboard and then open up paint (or Paint.NET if you can still access it) and press ctrl+v to paste it in.

Anytime, that looks great Kirk