Re: [Gimp-developer] QuickMask vs. Show Layer Mask

["gespertino gmail com" <gespertino gmail com>]

2012/2/9 Richard Gitschlag <strata_ranger hotmail com>

Can the QuickMask tool be tweaked to allow configuring two display colors/opacities - one for the "unselected" end and another for "selected" end of the channel?  Currently (well, 2.6.12 anyway) the QuickMask essentially displays as a color-to-transparent gradient map on top of your image.  Which works, but a FG-to-BG type gradient would be more flexible.

I think the idea behind quick mask is to give a glimpse of what gets masked out with a selection. The quick mask color covers the transparent areas, leaving the solid pixels visible or vice-versa.
Having a custom color/opacity for one end of the quick mask is all we need, and it's already available (by right-clicking the quick mask icon when it's active).
Quick mask does what it advertises: applies a quick, temporary mask based on the selection.

 

Contrast "Show Layer Mask", which overlays a 100% opaque black-to-white gradient and whose colors/opacity (as of 2.6.12) cannot be configured.  Can that be made configurable?  Sure, the 100% solid gradient is useful, but there've been a few cases where I would've liked a less-than-opaque value (say, 80%) so I can still see some hint of the layer underneath the mask.

To my understanding, the layer mask is the layer's alpha channel, and I'm fine with it being a grayscale image when you display it.
It's not a "quick mask" but a real mask, making pixels actually transparent or opaque, so I get the final result when it's active.
Changing its color goes against what most of us understand as an alpha channel (a grayscale channel used to set the opacity of RGB pixels)
Changing its opacity... I don't know. Honestly, I never felt the need of this, but I understand the point.
I use quick mask when I need to see through the mask and use a layer mask when I think the selection is ok and I need to see the final composite output.
Maybe adding an opacity selector to the layer mask view would be useful in certain situations, but I guess that since it's so specific and we have the quickmask for that nobody will really miss it if it isn't there.