Can't see new v3.5 selection...

[Cor'e =)]

I'm trying out PDN 3.5 and my eyes really can't easily see the new selection outline, like i could from the previous builds, i have the hardest time now. IMO i should see a selection outline quickly & easily, or it slows down work flow. Anyone know how to turn the moving/animated selected outline back on? Any idea, or any plug-in?

[Lance McKnight]

The marching ants animation that has graced v 3.36 has been eliminated in v3.5, and now uses Xor blending. The reason: it saves the computer from having to work too hard. There's no way to bring that one back. Give yourself some time and it'll grow on you.

[Cor'e =)]

Sorry, i can't easily see the new xor blending when using the magic wand. At least they could have given us some option for the color of it, i cannot easily see whatever it's doing probably because it is light gray?

[Lance McKnight]

I don't think it is configurable. I would suggest you try to calibrate your monitor. I have no problem seeing the selection it's done. I often forget to deselect.

[Cor'e =)]

Monitors are calibrated very well, we pay attention to that, it's this change of outline that is the issue.

[david.atwell]

No, it's not. I have no issue seeing the selection area on my (properly calibrated) monitor. Yours is the one at fault here.

[Cor'e =)]

There's little need to say monitors are not calibrated, we both see the same thin faint white&blue outline pixels. But i agree with my lab users, they and I cannot easily determine what parts have been selected during the new static magic wand selection outline and it was easier for us in the previous animated version for some reason, perhaps the area bounded/highlighted was also shaded more as well, i do not recall. Differentiation between areas selected & non-selected are very hard to see/determine now. It'd be nice to be able to adjust the selection shading and coloring to suit our needs.

[Sarkut]

Cor'e =).

As a work-around, make a new layer and name it "Darken".

Fill it with black, set its Opacity to 140 - 150.

Keep this as a top layer and check or uncheck it

in the Layers window, as needed.

This will darken the image without darkening the

selection outline, making the selection easier to discern.

[Cor'e =)]

Thanks for the fix idea Sarkut, i've looked at this more as it is come to be so much of an issue here, it appears we can see the selected areas as shaded, and once it is shaded we cannot determine the original pixel values. Which is confusing us because what we want to see is the differentiation of the areas selected and not selected.

Somehow we thought this was more intuitive in the last version, we're going to setup a test system with the older version and roll back to it if we feel it meets our needs better than this version. That'd be okay since we have not found anything v3.5 does better than the past version yet. Mostly we were hoping that v3.5 would show better memory management so it'd support more layers, functionally we see little difference, and with Rick holding back from releasing the PDN sources anytime soon we'll just stick with what can work for us.

[Sarkut]

Cor'e =),

Switching to a non-selection type tool after

making a selection should remove the shading

from the selected area.

[Cor'e =)]

That's feasible, we can change from Wand(S) to Pan(h), to toggle and see both the selection and the true values, now all we need is a way to do the macros.

Update: We tried putting this back in the cycle, but we're back to square one, we cannot easily see the outline. Turns out that we've been doing this for quite some time (going between Pan etc. and Wand) in our editing & work flow, but in the older version the animated outline was very visible easy to see, now it is not. Hopefully there'll be a fix for this outline issue in the future, we'll roll-back to the previous working version until fixed.

[david.atwell]

Roll back if you like. But keep in mind that there is absolutely no technical support for any version but the current one.

[Rick Brewster]

That's feasible, we can change from Wand(S) to Pan(h), to toggle and see both the selection and the true values, now all we need is a way to do the macros.

Update: We tried putting this back in the cycle, but we're back to square one, we cannot easily see the outline. Turns out that we've been doing this for quite some time (going between Pan etc. and Wand) in our editing & work flow, but in the older version the animated outline was very visible easy to see, now it is not. Hopefully there'll be a fix for this outline issue in the future, we'll roll-back to the previous working version until fixed.

I'll need a sample image from your workflow to be able to investigate this at all. On all the images I've worked on, the selection outline is always clearly visible. Actually I found one case where it wasn't, but it was only when the pixel grid (View -> Pixel Grid) was enabled.

[Rick Brewster]

... since we have not found anything v3.5 does better than the past version yet.

:shock: Have you even looked at the release notes on the website?! 3.5.x is a significant upgrade over 3.36. In fact, some egregious performance issues were stomped out of the Magic Wand tool and the selection outline renderer.

http://www.getpaint.net/roadmap.html

http://blog.getpaint.net

Mostly we were hoping that v3.5 would show better memory management so it'd support more layers, ...

It does use less memory. That is a fact. There are three things you should know, however. One, the reduction in memory usage is only apparent when multiple images are opened. If you're only working with 1 image (albeit with "many" layers), there may not be much difference. Second, is that a memory leak was just fixed in the v3.5.2 release (I just uploaded it a few minutes ago). It may have been affecting you. Third, on a 32-bit system you will always be limited no matter what. If you are using Paint.NET for important things™, then in my opinion you should also upgrade to a 64-bit OS. Paint.NET is much happier and faster on a 64-bit system, and the likelihood of getting an out-of-memory error or crash becomes slim.

[Cor'e =)]

All points considered. We always have the Grid=On, as we manipulate the pixels mostly, each layer needs to perfectly match up, like a multi-layer jig-saw puzzle. We work with images that have about 100+ layers per image/file (we see crashes past 100 in the old version, wish we could go to ~150-200 layers).

I'll try and test v352 on a 100+ layer mock file, i'll take some time for that. Grateful you guys care about our issues, best regards, thxs for all.

[aitkenj]

I agree, there are occasions when the new, static selection is difficult to see (I don't have 20x20 vision!). I was going to post a new thread, but found this one.

However I also like the associated performance improvements. I wonder, therefore, whether it would be possible to have a View menu option(e.g. View->Animate Selection) that turned on the old mode, for those occasions when there are problems with seeing the static selection. The new method should always be the default at start-up; i.e. the animated selection is not a preference, but something that is actively turned on when needed.

[Cor'e =)]

We need it during Grid=On, which for us is the default most of the time.

How about, it could auto-animate when Grid=On, would that be what you need or want? Which way would you prefer?