JAA

I am using the fantastic addon Outline Selection (Effects|Selection|Outline Selection). What it does is for the selected area (even kooky strange selections) it will paint a buffer (eg 10 pixels) in a selected colour on the inside border. I do this in my special case in a yellow. This is great. I would prefer 14 pixels in my special case, but all I do is just then select the inner area and do another 4 pixels. The tool only goes up to 10 pixels. However, I really need it to be a dashed border, ie a dashed line of yellow and red. That means I have to then manually go over this border, measuring 12 pixels (with the line tool) and putting a red dash along that border at whatever weird angle that border is at that point. Then I measure 12 pixel length with the line tool and leave the yellow already there. Is there any way I am not aware of to speed this up? Could I get the Outline Selection immediately drawing the dashed yellow/red line (at the dash length of my choice)?

Sorry. Found it. It is Effects|Object|Paste Alpha by BoltBait

Is this possible? I have 2 layers. One is a Picture. One is a Greyscale. The Greyscale represents what alpha value I want on the Picture Layer. Ie 255/255/255 on the greyscale represents a 255 alpha on the picture, where the picture retains the same RGB value. A 0/0/0 on the Greyscale represents a totally see through pixel on the picture. The other varying levels of grey indicate the other possible alpha values. Is there there a way I can merge the two layers so the greyscale alters the alpha on the picture layer?

I got the addon working 😀 Hoozah. (4 - I messed around and its only the dll and dlc that needs to be copied. The rar can stay where it is.) Sadly, the Parallel Lines does not allow me to specify the breaks in the dotted lines as you suggest. ☹️ Edit: Actually, I think it does where I want to make the solid and gap BOTH 12px (with width 16px). But, I cannot bezier curve the line afterward with the nodes. So, anyone else know any addons that might do the trick?

I have put all files in the directories as suggesred in this post. It still does not work. It was very kind of you to suggest this addon as a possible solution to my original query. So thank you. All there seems to be is a problem with getting this addon to register on my computer. Hopefully @midora can help. Thanks again for your help so far. I think once before I could not get an addon (suggested by someone in one of my previous questions) to register. I think that was extracted from a zip file. Other addons that go through some type of install process from an exe work every time. I am starting to get a hunch it might be related to that in some way.

The only ParallelLines files I have anywhere in my Paint.Net folder are in the two folders shown in the pictures. (I moved OptionBasedLibrary vX.X.dll/.dlc out of my main Paint.net folder when you first suggested I do so.)

I am confused. The Effects folder is my second picture (the one with '64 items' in the bottom left corner). In which case ParalleLines.Effect.dlc and dll are the 2nd and 3rd file in the picture.

I was on version 4.3.10, but have just updated to 4.3.12. Here are the two screens. (Sorry for the delay, it took me a little while to work out how to do them.)

As per your suggestion, I have tried this, but still it does not work. I am using the Classic version if that is important.

Thanks for the reply, but I cannot seem to get the addon appearing in Paint.Net when I restart. 1. I download the zip and unzip it. 2. I put the two OptionBasedLibrary vX.X.dll/.dlc into my main Paint.net folder. 3. I put the two ParallelLines.Effect.dll/dlc into the Effects folder. 4. I check for any need for unblocking. (The button did not exist, so that seems fine.) 5. When I restart, the effect is not there: Menu->Effects->Render->Parallel Lines and Patterns Any idea what I might be doing wrong?

I need to draw a dashed line with a bit of the bezier curve action. However, I need to set the length of the gap between the solid bits myself (I need 12px) and I also need to set the length of the solid bit (also 12px in my present requirement, but might differ in future requirements). (The width of the line has to be something different entirely, namely 16px in the present case.) Is there any way to set the lengths of the gap and solid bit of a dashed line to both 12px? Is there any way to set the length of the gap to 12px and the length of the solid bit to something else, eg 24px? I need to do this where I can curve the line afterwards with the bezier node point things.

AVIF: This was ok, but did not work on Edge (at least with the standard setup). However, it did have some blurry areas when the file size was reduced to 'happy' levels. WebP: This was a bit better, but with slightly higher file sizes. Had a lot less blurry areas. But when there was something in the image that was notably different from its surrounding, we had the blurry area issue. So at the moment, even though the file size is slightly higher than I would have hoped, I think I will try the 8 bit, 0 dither as that gets the picture looking exactly as I hoped, but with an acceptabley, but not perfectly, lower file size. Octree vs Median Cut: These appear to be good, but I am concerned I may need to set the palette myself to have the same palette over multiple pictures. Your second sentence appears promising. So the question now is, 'Is there any way by addons to force a palette of my choosing on my picture PRIOR to the save, so I can have a consistent palette across pictures?'

I want to save a 4000x4000 pixel graphic. Very detailed. Since this is for the web, I want it to be as low memory as possible. I have tinkered with all the saves. 1. JPEG gives me loads of artifacts with higher compression. (The picture needs to look clean looking as it will be viewed at higher magnification in the web page.) 2. GIF does the same. 3. 24/32 bit png are waaay too high memory. (Over 20mb) But the good thing about this save is the pixels in the result can be made to look clean. However, the 8 bit png save with 0 dither (whatever that is) looks great. For me its 4.75mb. Its a bit higher than I would like. If I resize the pic to 2000x2000 some of the detail is lost so does not look as good, but could be considered acceptable. The 8 bit, 0 dither save comes in at 1.39mb. The best CLEAN resizing is Nearest Neighbour. However, 1 px lines can sometimes disappear with the 50% resize obviously. Are there any addons that give other options for resizing? 1.39mb would be a great save size, but as I say the 2000x2000 loses some of the detail which will be viewed under magnification on the web page where it will live. The Questions So how do I define the palette in the 8 bit save? At the moment I have 32 colours in the colour window. Is that the palette that is being used in the 8 bit save? I think I can see how to create more palette entries. How do I get a consistent palette with multiple picture saves? Are there any better Resize addons to result in a CLEAN (less blended) results that do not hide 1px lines?

This worked a treat. I have been going crazy creating loads of effects with this method. Its great fun. I am going to have to show you what I am doing with all this once I finish.

Thank Pixey. I will try this tomorrow. Looks great.