Why won't Delete (or Cut) antialias?

[anderpainter]

Hey guys,

 

Don't get me wrong... I love PN and use it every day, despite a few pet annoyances I've been asked not to post about here anymore.  ;?)  I have a question I haven't asked, though (and which seems innocent enough not to draw fire from administrators for seeming too critical, LOL):

 

When you make a selection on a layer and delete (or cut it, why won't PN antialias the edges to the layer below it? It'd save a tremendous amount of time blending the new edges with the colours below it (which I guess is the whole idea of antialiasing, right?).

 

I know PN could do this, because its Eraser tool does it excellently. But it'd be soooo much easier if it could occur automatically, as part of the deletion, so I wouldn't have to zoom in and manually erase. All. Around. The deletion. Each. Time.

 

I know effects plugins have been written to do this as a separate operation—and depending on the situation, sometimes they work okay. Why should they be necessary, though, when PN can already antialias so well?

 

I also don't understand why the Select tools have a setting for "Antialiased selection quality" (or "Pixelated selection quality") when it doesn't seem to affect the selection at all. Would it make any sense for that to determine the results (antialiased or not) when the selection was moved or deleted? Or could another toolbar button be added that could turn automatic antialiasing on and off? (Naturally, you'd probably want it to be off by default, as that seems to be the preferred behaviour.)

 

This seems like such basic, useful functionality, I also realize it could already be part of PN somehow, and I've just been too thick to find it.

 

Thanks, A.

 

Edited November 17, 2020 by anderpainter
Final thought

[toe_head2001]

55 minutes ago, anderpainter said:

I also don't understand why the Select tools have a setting for "Antialiased selection quality" (or "Pixelated selection quality") when it doesn't seem to affect the selection at all.

 

It is working as expected for me. If it's not working for you, please post a video demonstrating the issue.

[MJW]

2 hours ago, anderpainter said:

 

When you make a selection on a layer and delete (or cut it, why won't PN antialias the edges to the layer below it?

 

Is it that deleting isn't done with antialiasing, or that the selection, itself, isn't antialiased? Selections made with the Magic Wand are, unforgettably, not antialiased; so when a selection made with the Magic Wand is deleted, the result won't be antialiased. Perhaps that's what you're seeing.

 

If none of the selection tools antialias, are you sure you have antialiasing enabled? A silly question, perhaps, since you specifically mentioned the antialias settings, but one must always first determine that the appliance is plugged in when investigating why it's not working.

[MJW]

2 hours ago, anderpainter said:

Don't get me wrong... I love PN and use it every day, despite a few pet annoyances I've been asked not to post about here anymore.  ;?)  I have a question I haven't asked, though (and which seems innocent enough not to draw fire from administrators for seeming too critical, LOL):

 

It does appear to me that you've basically asked this question previously; so perhaps the hostility you perceive is not due to asking unwelcome questions, but from repeatedly asking the same questions when you don't get a response that satisfies you.

[anderpainter]

On 11/16/2020 at 8:52 PM, toe_head2001 said:

 

It is working as expected for me. If it's not working for you, please post a video demonstrating the issue.

 

You're right—I just tried it again, and it works! I can't imagine what I was doing wrong. Anyway, sorry to bother you about it.

 

On 11/16/2020 at 10:10 PM, MJW said:

 

It does appear to me that you've basically asked this question previously; so perhaps the hostility you perceive is not due to asking unwelcome questions, but from repeatedly asking the same questions when you don't get a response that satisfies you.

 

"Asked this question previously"? You mean about antialiasing? I don't think so...

 

I have, over the last 15 years or so, posted messages wondering why PN's dialog boxes persistently opened in the center of the editing area, requiring them to be moved each time they were used (rather than "remembering" their positions).

 

But I never asked more than once per PN version. And eventually, you asked me to stop asking, which I did—though I still don't understand why the behaviour persists, or why it isn't at least as an option to change it. (And no, this isn't another post about it, just a reference to past posts!) Is it possible that's what you're thinking of?

 

Cheers, A.

[MJW]

10 hours ago, anderpainter said:

 

"Asked this question previously"? You mean about antialiasing? I don't think so...

 

Well, the title of the earlier thread of yours I linked to is "Automatic antialiasing, lack of?" In that thread, Rick Brewster explained that the Magic Wand doesn't produce an antialaised selection, which is the exact issue for this thread.

[Rick Brewster]

The "selection quality" (aliased vs. antialiased) affects how the selection is rendered, it doesn't change the selection itself.

 

You can see the difference if you zoom in on a non-rectilinear/non-"pixelated" selection and toggle the toolbar button. Rectilinear means axis-aligned line segments, aka only up, down, left, right and only 90 degree angles. Pixelated is a PDN specific term (in the code, never seen in the UI) that means that all vertices are on integer (whole pixel) coordinates; it's a superset of rectilinear. In the code it's mostly used for a whole bunch of performance and memory usage optimizations.

 

Antialiased vs. aliased selection quality for a circle selection that's been zoomed in on: (yes there's a glitch where sometimes the top/left/right/bottom edges of the outline don't draw in the alised mode; it's purely cosmetic)