Re: [Gimp-user] Path Tool Annoyances

[akovia <akovia1 eml cc>]

> The problem could be a result of drawing curves with too many nodes:
>  When drawing with Bezier curves, I consider a node without handles
> a redundant node.  

I always try to use the least amount of nodes necessary, but there are
times when tracing around a low res image with lots of jaggedness like a
straw hat, where I will just trace around by placing nodes instead of
trying to pull out every handle a micrometer. I do think this is more
about workflow though. Some people will place a node and adjust the path
for that node right then. Rinse, repeat. I tend to place all my nodes
first and then come back around and adjust the path. It's when laying
down my "outline" nodes that the handles get pulled out from time to
time. When I come back to adjust my paths, there are times like on
straight lines where a path doesn't appear to need adjusted so I just
move past it. Not until I try my stroke do I find out that a handle is
out. 

> When turning sharp corners, I zoom in and place  the corner node's handles on the lines leading away from 
> the vertex.

This is exactly the problem. The only way to ensure this is to zoom in
to almost max extents on every single node. This is very cumbersome and
time consuming and was not required before. I've already done a few
things with my workflow to try and compensate for this, especially if I
know ahead of time I will be stoking the path, but it's been difficult
to completely change everything about how I work after doing it
successfully for years a certain way without problems.

The other part of my workflow is that I tend to grab the path itself and
not the handle for some adjustments. If I do this now and don't grab the
path very close to the base of a node, it will inevitably drag out the
opposing nodes handle ever so slightly, but you really don't see it
happening while working. I've been working hard to only adjust a path by
pulling out the handle explicitly, but my muscle memory is hard to
overcome. :P

 
> The errors I see when stroking paths usually happen when paths turn
> sharp corners; this is fixable by adjusting the mitre limit in the
> stroke style dialog.  I have had to tweak this fairly often when
> stroking the perimeter of vectorized text elements.  It may be
> possible to use this adjustment to remove unwanted kinks when
> stroking paths where nodes have 'unintended' handles.

I've used this adjustment quite a bit for text like yourself,
unfortunately I am not seeing any difference when using it for this
problem.


If this can't be fixed to work like it used to be, maybe something can
be done to change the nodes to visibly show when a handle is out by
changing the color or something? 

Here is the workfile for the example I posted above. It's a big file but
this is the scale I'm usually working with. 
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93550827/temp/Mnemosyne%20-%20Render.xcf



-- 
  akovia