avim1968 Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 @avim I do a lot of image mods and cutting out of images and have never used it,I prefer to use the line tool and alphamasking ( once you use these tools you will wonder how you managed without them ) Hi minners71 I'm sure that everyone has his own opinion about everything ;-) and we all use the tools in a way which is good for us learning more uses from others or experiences as we go forward. I'm using alphamasking too but there are differences in what you can do with each tool. For my some/kind/type of work I do, the freeform tool works best. and for other kind of images/work other tools/plugins work better. I hope that Rick would keep it :-) Avi "DDAP=Don't Drink And Post!" :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celestine Posted November 22, 2012 Share Posted November 22, 2012 I actually did use the free form tool to create the corona effect for a solar eclipse I used as part of a design. See my thread 'Tutorials for a Special Project' : I hope they don't get rid of it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minners71 Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 @Avim could you explain why you use the freeform rather than the paintbrush tool to trace an image? I am wondering if I am using it wrongly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitenurse79 Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 Personally I find the lasso select tool to be the most difficult one to use. I would love to see some changes made on that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minners71 Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 What do you find hard about it NN ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitenurse79 Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 I just find it difficult to make any form of accurate selection, I end up either going over what I want to select or I will miss parts out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minners71 Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 ^Try not to think about the connecting line when using it and think of it more like the paint brush tool. Take the following example. You want to copy the red circle but not the blue one, the rectangle selection will be no good for this and lets pretend for this example that the eclipse selection doesn't exsist. With the lasoo selected place your cursor somewhere on the green line ( here just for a visual guide )and trace all around it,once completed it anything inside will be selected. You can then paste this into a new layer or project. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrewDale Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 How do you get it to do that minners71 ? when I use it I get one side of the lasso as a straight line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ego Eram Reputo Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 Keep tracing the outline DrewDale. The straight line closes the loop, so if you keep outlining the straight line will eventually be quite short. This discussion is leaving the original topic of the Freeform SHAPE Tool , now we're discussing the Lasso tool - which is different ebook: Mastering Paint.NET | resources: Plugin Index | Stereogram Tut | proud supporter of Codelab plugins: EER's Plugin Pack | Planetoid | StickMan | WhichSymbol+ | Dr Scott's Markup Renderer | CSV Filetype | dwarf horde plugins: Plugin Browser | ShapeMaker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avim1968 Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 @Avim could you explain why you use the freeform rather than the paintbrush tool to trace an image? I am wondering if I am using it wrongly. HI minners71 I'm on a tight timeline to finish a project, so I don't have much time to search for an example I have somewhere. so I ask your forgiveness. I can give you general idea of when i use it. 1st of all I use it in "filled shape mode" and when I need to fill or create an outside/inside template/mask of a shape/area in an image with irregular shape and get into the small "cracks" and around other objects with ease., using this with a little planning automatically fills the shape with the foreground color. this save me the time to fill that shape using fill bucket that does not help or using the other shapes/brushes to fit the irregular shape i need. its kind of hard to explain since it's per image and shape complexity in the image. also I use the lasso selection tool in the same way to get an accurate selection of the irregular shape if needed. again the main use is with the fill option selected and not just to "trace" with a regular line. one more place i use it when I work with the pen tablet , to trace a shape/image out of a paper placed on the tablet. Avi "DDAP=Don't Drink And Post!" :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cr88192 Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 although... a person can just trace with the paintbrush, and close the loop by, you know, the lines touching... apart from the little line on the end, there is no other significant difference, and otherwise the line is either straight and ugly, or the lines are pretty much touching anyways, so it isn't really clear what difference it makes. provided the region is closed, things like bucket-fill, ... will work either way. granted, if the tool became something more useful, for example, a set of control-points with a line following a spline, well then, this might be a little more useful (then a person can grab and move control-points to more accurately trace something). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pdnnoob Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 (edited) If freeform shape was removed, the alternative would be to select the area with the lasso selection, then press backspace to fill with the primary color. Since selections will have anti-alias capabilities in v4.0, this would be almost exactly the same as freeform shape is now, and it would only be one keystroke extra. I say go ahead and remove it. Keeping it will just be redundant Edited November 27, 2012 by pdnnoob No, Paint.NET is not spyware...but, installing it is an IQ test. ~BoltBait Blend modes are like the filling in your sandwich. It's the filling that can change your experience of the sandwich. ~Ego Eram Reputo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avim1968 Posted December 4, 2012 Share Posted December 4, 2012 If freeform shape was removed, the alternative would be to select the area with the lasso selection, then press backspace to fill with the primary color. Since selections will have anti-alias capabilities in v4.0, this would be almost exactly the same as freeform shape is now, and it would only be one keystroke extra. I say go ahead and remove it. Keeping it will just be redundant Hi selections is not the way to do what i do, also mostly because the selection tool makes selection lines (like ants) and it makes it hard work with in small places and delicate traces. also why use the selection if the free form tool already does it better filling the area as i go ? I think this tool is good and should be left in the Paint.Net tools arsenal :-) Avi "DDAP=Don't Drink And Post!" :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telemosaic Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 (edited) I use it constantly and now see it is gone in 4 beta. I found this thread by searching for "freeform shape tool missing paint.net 4". I use when doing just that, drawing freeform shapes esp. when I am drawing over things that need to be erased/corrected. Also the lasso tool/fill does reproduce it exactly because the freeforrm shape allows point-line-point drawing by clicking and the lasso does NOT do that... Also I see Escape doesn't deselect anymore, that is a shame as well. Edited March 8, 2014 by telemosaic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trax rInfo Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Kind of useless, actually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ego Eram Reputo Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 This thread is well dead. Rick has the information he wanted. <locked> ebook: Mastering Paint.NET | resources: Plugin Index | Stereogram Tut | proud supporter of Codelab plugins: EER's Plugin Pack | Planetoid | StickMan | WhichSymbol+ | Dr Scott's Markup Renderer | CSV Filetype | dwarf horde plugins: Plugin Browser | ShapeMaker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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