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Alpha only gradiants not working in Alpha3 build


BoltBait

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Steps to reproduce:

1) Open Paint.NET

2) Create a new layer and select it.

3) Fill that layer with a color (black)

4) In the color window, set your secondary color alpha to 0

5) Draw a gradient with alpha only selected.

Notice that the entire layer goes transparent.

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Some more explanation is in order though. I've optimized the UI to minimize the number of clicks it takes to draw an alpha gradient. By default, opauqe black is the Primary color and opaque white is the Secondary color. A naive attempt at drawing a transparent gradient will be futile, and I believe many users would give up.

So I experimented with various ways to calculate the starting and ending alpha values for transparent gradients. The first one was to use the color's intensity. This worked great because black yields 0 and white yields 255. However, I felt at that point it was unintuitive that changing the color on the color wheel would have seemingly random changes in the realized alpha values. I also tried using maximum value of the red, green, and blue channels. This just make this all 255 all the time when clicking on the color wheel.

I finally settled on using the inverse of the alpha value of the primary color for the starting alpha value, and the unchanged secondary color's alpha value for the ending alpha value. This has the effect of requiring very few clicks to start drawing a transparent gradient, and also requires you to adjust the alpha of the primary/secondary colors in order to affect the alpha of the gradient that is drawn.

The Paint.NET Blog: https://blog.getpaint.net/

Donations are always appreciated! https://www.getpaint.net/donate.html

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So I guess you can think of it this way: the gradient always starts at 0 alpha and ends at 255 alpha. You can then adjust the primary and secondary color's alpha values to change how each side of the gradient is blended into the existing pixels on the layer.

The Paint.NET Blog: https://blog.getpaint.net/

Donations are always appreciated! https://www.getpaint.net/donate.html

forumSig_bmwE60.jpg

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OK, *NOW* I understand.

I can live with that. I'll just have to retrain my brain.

Yes, this will definitely be in the help file :) Like I said though, it's optimized for someone being able to go, "Oh what's alpha mode? OH COOL" as opposed to "Oh what's alpha mode? Nothings happening. Wtf. Back to my pirated photoshop." Plus it reduces clicking for someone who knows what's happening too.

The Paint.NET Blog: https://blog.getpaint.net/

Donations are always appreciated! https://www.getpaint.net/donate.html

forumSig_bmwE60.jpg

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So what's wrong with just setting up the same color with 2 different opacities and just turning off alpha blending?

Edit: just in general what is wrong with alpha colors

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So what's wrong with just setting up the same color with 2 different opacities and just turning off alpha blending?

Edit: just in general what is wrong with alpha colors

I have no idea what you're asking here. Your question doesn't make any sense.

The Paint.NET Blog: https://blog.getpaint.net/

Donations are always appreciated! https://www.getpaint.net/donate.html

forumSig_bmwE60.jpg

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What is the point of the Alpha gradient tool? It seems like, to me, the only thing it does is creates a "white to black-with-the-opposite-alpha-value-of-the-primary-color". Why not just make a gradient with white and a black with the desired opacity? I thought the point of Paint.NET was to remove options like these that clutter up the UI.

EDIT: If you're looking for an alpha-replace type effect I believe the thing to do would be something like a black/white gradient with one of the layer filters on. I'm a bit pressed for time so I can't check which.

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pdn30_firstFade.png

So Images Like that can be done easily.

While removing this option would reduce "clutter", options like this are far easier than fiddling around with alpha values and so on.

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