Question about blending with locked transparency

[Slap Happy Larry]

If I lock the transparency of a layer and then use a blend tool to smooth out the colours I avoid blending the edges otherwise white blends into the object.

Is there a setting I've missed where I can avoid this effect?

[HannahRage]

That.... appears to be a bug, good catch! Try changing the background colour to match your paint colour while you blend, that should let you avoid the problem while we look into it as it will blend the new colour instead.

[Slap Happy Larry]

A bug? Seriously? I thought it must have been an unavoidable thing, otherwise I'd have mentioned it back in 2011!

You're right -- changing the canvas colour to the colour of the object is a workaround, but that means a lot of fiddle-faddling about with canvas colour.

Does this mean we can look forward to a fix in a future update?? :p

[Enug]

I never thought of it being a bug - just accepted that was how things worked!:eek:

[HannahRage]

I can't promise it's a fixable bug :p but it shouldn't work that way! This is why you should always complain about weird things, I've used Lock Transparency many times but only for repainting lines, so I never noticed the blending issue.

Changing the canvas colour can be an extra step, but you can select directly from the painting to pick a new colour, so that should help.

[sueellen]

Wow! That would be great! I, too, never thought to mention it, figuring "nothing's perfect". And it's maybe fixable! Yay! In the meantime, I can try the changing-canvas-color workaround, or making stencils of what I want to blend so it doesn't grab the white of the canvas.

[Slap Happy Larry]

Fingers crossed it's fixable. I have faith in the Artrage coding team. :)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who assumed 'Well, that's just the way things work. No software is perfectly suited to my needs.'

Now, what else can I ask about...

[HannahRage]

Wow! That would be great! I, too, never thought to mention it, figuring "nothing's perfect". And it's maybe fixable! Yay! In the meantime, I can try the changing-canvas-color workaround, or making stencils of what I want to blend so it doesn't grab the white of the canvas.

You can also use Edit > Select Layer Contents. It's exactly the same thing as Lock Transparency, for the purpose you are using it for.

[sueellen]

Easier! Thank you.

[HannahRage]

Ok, apparently I'm wrong and this isn't a bug - or at least, it's not a fixable one. Because Lock Transparency doesn't allow the paint to be changed (other than new paint or erasing), it has to add new paint from the canvas when blending.

So Select Layer Contents is usually the best option for now.

[Slap Happy Larry]

Okay. Well, I still got a good workaround.

Thanks!

[MattRage]

Just to clarify: This isn't a bug. In order to preserve transparency there needs to be some paint added when blending with the lock on, and as a 'best guess' we use canvas colour so that you're likely to get some kind of understandable result.