PDA

View Full Version : Merging layers.



hamer1952
01-17-2018, 12:59 PM
I was doing a pastel painting and I had about five or six layers and then when I went to go merge all the layers I noticed the painting was little out of focus. Is that normal for it to do that or did I miss out on something or merge just a little at a time or just don't merge all the layers at all.

HannahRage
01-17-2018, 01:40 PM
That doesn't sound right. Your painting shouldn't change when you merge layers, unless you used layer blend modes (which interact between layers, and don't change the actual paint) and that should not affect the 'focus'.

It sounds like one of these things might have happened:

1) you transformed a layer and possibly lost enough data quality to lose the crispness of the image (this can happen if you are working at a very small size, or make drastic changes, as there are not many pixels to change safely).

2) You didn't step back and look at the entire image until now. Pastels are soft and fuzzy by nature, so can often look out of focus.


If merging layers IS affecting your image, that's something we need to fix.

hamer1952
01-17-2018, 03:03 PM
Well I did a test on it with pastels with three layers then I merge all the layers then I went back and forth with the undo and redo and I didn't see any difference between the two. I guess I did something that I didn't realize I did.

HannahRage
01-17-2018, 06:18 PM
That's good to hear - but if you do see any similar issues in future, come back and let us know!

hamer1952
01-22-2018, 05:11 PM
I just finished a oil painting and I'm guessing when I save it in artrage it makes a copy of the painting and sends it to the gallery in my tablet, there was quite a few of them in the gallery both oil and pastel, some of them were out of focus and some of them weren't. What causes the one that are out of focus.

HannahRage
01-22-2018, 10:29 PM
The image in the gallery will be the preview image used for ArtRage's gallery. It should not be out of focus, can you tell me what version of the app you are using (Help > Settings) and on what device?

Can you tell me what image type (PNG or JPG) the out of focus images are? Is there any pattern that you can spot? (Do the out of focus ones appear after saving a new painting, after exporting, after viewing the image in the ArtRage gallery?)

hamer1952
01-23-2018, 09:01 AM
I'm talking about the gallery folder that came pre-installed with my tablet.

HannahRage
01-23-2018, 05:07 PM
Yes, that gallery displays all the photos and pictures on your device, including the preview images that ArtRage uses inside the app gallery (because nothing else can display the PTG painting file it creates an extra image). If the picture in your normal Android gallery is blurry, then ArtRage either created a blurry preview, or you exported an image that was blurry for some reason.

hamer1952
01-23-2018, 07:39 PM
Samsung gallery Tab A 10.1 with S Pen Android version 7.0. Again Artrage version 1.2.0. I'm not seeing any particular pattern. The out of focus image is in PNG. There's no pattern that I can spot. You said (Do the out of focus ones appear after saving a new painting, after exporting, after viewing the image in the ArtRage gallery?) The answer to all of those is no. Why is it when I export an image to the Android gallery folder it takes awhile for it to appear in it.

HannahRage
01-27-2018, 11:33 PM
Okay, still not sure what is going on here. Your exported images should appear instantly.

Are the blurry images *definitely* exported? For example, can you:

1) create a new test painting
2) save it and go to the ArtRage gallery from the menu in the canvas view
3) switch out of the app and look in your Android gallery. Can you see a new image from your new painting? Is it blurry?

If there is no blurry image:

4) Go back to the ArtRage gallery. Tap on the painting you just saved to fullview it.
5) Go back and check your picture gallery again to see if there is a blurry image now.

If there is still no blurry image:

6) Go back ArtRage. Use the 'share' option to Share > Export PNG to Pictures.
Go check the picture gallery and see what is there.

hamer1952
02-01-2018, 06:09 PM
The images in the Android gallery the resolution for the sharp image is 1920 by 1200 and the path for that is internal storage> artrage> preview, again for the blurry image I checked the details for that in the Android gallery and the resolution is much smaller around 300 to 200 and the path for that is internal storage> artrage> preview> small. It seems to me that the paintings should not be going into the small folder.

DaveRage
02-02-2018, 09:45 AM
Thanks for the info. What you're looking at there are not the actual Artrage paintings, those are just previews in the gallery generated by the app. The actual paintings are stored in internal storage> ArtRagePaintings. When you open the painting from the gallery, it will be at the same resolution you created it at, so your painting is not affected. If some previews are small this could mean that ArtRage was unable to generate a large sized preview image for that painting.

If you have some blurry previews inside ArtRage's own gallery ( within the app ), you can try the following to update them within ArtRage:

-Close and restart ArtRage
-in ArtRage, tap the menu button at the top right of the gallery and choose 'refresh gallery list'. This may take a few moments.

if that doesn't work:

-In ArtRage's gallery, tap one of the previews which is blurry. This should open a fullscreen preview. If it still looks blurry, wait for a few moments to see if ArtRage is able to build the higher resolution preview.
-If that doesn't happen, rotate the painting to the right using the right hand arrow at the bottom left of the screen, then rotate it back using the other arrow. This prompts the preview to be rebuilt.

If you still have problems, feel free to email us at [email protected] for further troubleshooting and we'll be happy to help directly.

hamer1952
02-02-2018, 11:23 AM
I'm not getting a blurry images within artrage but when I do save a painting what happens is artrage will send two copies of that image one Sharp and one blurry into the Android gallery that was pre-installed on my tablet. Why is it that the blurry image that comes from the artrage small folder being sent into the Android gallery that came with the tablet, that should not happen.

DaveRage
02-02-2018, 12:13 PM
Thanks for the clarification, sorry for the misunderstanding.

What should be happening is that ArtRage writes a .nomedia file to the internal storage> artrage> preview> small folder but that doesn't appear to be happening, so we'll look into that for the next update. That should prevent the small images from showing in the Android gallery.

In the meantime, if you drop a blank file into that folder named .nomedia that should prevent this from happening.
You can create one in a number of ways. For example: On Windows, if you open Notepad, then with a blank file go to File -> Save As, change the 'save as type' field to 'all files' and name the file .nomedia, you could place that in the folder on your Android device.

I hope this helps!

hamer1952
02-02-2018, 01:43 PM
No problem on the misunderstanding. Should I put a period in front of nomedia and should I delete all the images that in the small file. I know how to create a folder Within artrage but what path would that folder be in.

MattRage
02-02-2018, 02:14 PM
Yes, you should put a period in front of 'nomedia' and you don't need to delete those images, your Android media gallery should stop displaying them when the .nomedia file is in there. You don't need to create a folder in ArtRage, all you need to do is create the file mentioned, and the path is the same path you identified the small images as being in.

hamer1952
02-02-2018, 04:11 PM
Well I did what you said, I create a file in Notepad on my PC and put the folder in my Android tablet. By the way I tried to put a watercolor painting that I did in the gallery forum I did everything that I thought I was supposed to do but it wouldn't allow me to upload it because everything was grayed out and I was logged in.

DaveRage
02-07-2018, 09:57 AM
Can you tell me which web browser you are using when you attempt to upload an image, and which operating system?

hamer1952
02-09-2018, 08:02 AM
Google chrome, Samsung gallery Tab A 10.1 with S Pen Android version 7.0.

DaveRage
02-09-2018, 11:40 AM
Thanks for that. Unfortunately that won't work with the forum system we use from a web browser on Android, due to differences in the way that browsers work on Android devices. You'd need to copy the images you want to upload to a computer, then upload them from the computer. Sorry for the inconvenience!

hamer1952
02-11-2018, 12:28 PM
That's what I thought.

Pop Alexandra
03-21-2023, 05:59 AM
Is the functionality working currently cross-platforms or is it still browser dependent?