As my previous suggestion threads got a little off topic and the content was all over the place, I have written my proposals down again in a hopefully clearer format. I might add onto it if i have more proposals and more time to test Krita. But for now there are the 3 main “hurdles” I have faced.
The suggestions come in a PDF that you can download here … http://www.argfx.at/upload/Krita_Hurdles_01.pdf
Maybe some of those suggestions could be picked up along the road.
1- I Disagree so , you want to break modularity of the eraser system over a useless tool on the toolbar that also causes redundancy in the UI. learning the tools to by pass this issue still seems like is not being contemplated even if they can achieve the same results as those requested.
2- This is the only point I somewhat agree but you present your case incorrectly. Krita has the same function and the problem is not one of ease of visual ease but a workflow issue considering certain techniques in order to improve iterations faster. Also don’t expect compatibility with PSD files just because you have clipping masks over another the layer that is a rabbit hole you don’t want to go on and I am actually against PSD compatibility for several reasons but you can read whole threads about that. Furthermore Alpha inheritance works outside of groups too.
3- you need to explore more Krita to understand the ease of use of masks and how great they are! You basically want to kill AGAIN Krita’s amazing modularity over just having 1 mask on the right side of the layer for NO reason yet again beyond “it looks pretty”, this actually upsets me. Masks are fluid interchangeable and very scalable onto big and complex scenes as it presents everything in lists and you want to trash it all in favor of Krita only being able to handle projects a couple of layers deep. I understand that Krita is made for Painters but that is such a step back!
Ignoring function just to make things pretty is a no go from me. Design should elevate function not kill it!
Thanks for the insight.
The pdf is more clearly worded. Thanks. Would it be possible for you to copy paste the contents to the forum post directly? In case in future the link becomes dead, the post will still have your suggestions.
(I’ll start from a bit of nitpicking tbh, the more significant stuff is in the last part).
The “In-herit Alpha” toggle by itself doesn’t do anything
It does, but if the layer below is fully opaque, then inheriting alpha from below will just mean that all pixels are the “allowed” ones. If you do however paint an object and then shade it over a transparent background, you’d see that it does have an effect, exactly the same as in a group, because in Krita groups are used for composition (try using inherit alpha in a group, and then remove all other layers (including background) and ungroup the ones from the group with inherit alpha, then you’ll see it works just the same).
But that’s of course only a technical detail, most people don’t really need that.
This not only takes several actions
What if it was just easier to make? Like alt-clicking, for example?
it visually rivals actual groups that server a logistical purpose
In Krita groups are for both organization and composition (in PS, they are used only for organization, I believe - you can use Pass-through option in Krita to turn it on). Inherit alpha uses the fact that they affect composition. (And you can use other layers in the group besides the layers with inherit alpha turned on).
Ok most of that was nitpicking, but now the biggest thing which is the last one.
I have plenty of (genuine, they will help flesh out the design) questions. Have you used other types of masks in Krita? Do you know that in Krita you can use multiple masks on one layer? (I don’t think it’s possible in PS). How should it look like if a layer had five transparency masks? How should different kinds of masks be differentiated? (Is the different line between the layer thumbnail and the mask thumbnail the thing that will help the user understand which mask it is? If so, how is that better than a small icon if it’s such a small thing too?). Or maybe only transparency mask should be folded like that? And if so, why? Only the Colorize Mask is a bit of “odd one out”, all others are greyscale based just like transparency mask and have similar functions.
My opinion is that it could be sometimes useful to be able to fold like that, with an icon or alriiiight, a thumbnail to be able to select the mask quickly if you need to, but it would be only possible if there was just one mask. And it should be still possible to fold and unfold like it is now; the point of whole idea would be to be able to quickly access the folded mask (since now you have to unfold it first).
Frankly I don’t really see thumbnails as helpful there, if I see the layer, I know what the mask is, I usually paint on a mask without isolating it, so I don’t even know how it looks. And the screenshot you show as a comparison actually makes it worse visually for me, it looks much more messy.
In Krita it looks like another kind of group which is not ideal.
This is a parent-child (hierarchical) relationship within a tree, and the whole Krita’s layer stack is an ordered tree. Making it visually consistent is a pro in my opinion. But I dunno, maybe that’s just because I’m a programmer and I just know what a tree is (in technical context) and I’m comfortable with such structure. On the other hand, I would assume that people do understand the hierarchical structure Krita uses there (which is also something you can do with just groups in PS), at least no one ever complained about the structure itself.
Both putting masks next to the layer thumbnail and implementing clipping masks would break the ordered tree structure. The second one visually, the first one both visually (since it looks like a child relationship to the mask layer, but it’s on top instead of on the bottom) and potentially has bigger consequences in Krita’s compositing code (right now, every new node builds atop of everything below; clipping mask would have to be aware what exact node is just below it - if it was a child of the node, it would make sense to know about its parent, but it can’t be a child because it’s on top…).
I guess the proposal/counter-argument like ratio settles this. It was worth a try. There’s nothing more I can do about it.
It basically boils down to “Its just not for me”. I probably was a bit over-enthusiastic after seeing how keen the developers were about fixing the bugs I’ve reported. Cheers for that. At least that annoying brush flickering bug from way back when is a thing of the past. One step at a time.
Unless Adobe gets around and updates its ancient brush engine, one of the competitors will sneak in and claim the throne as a painting program. At this point it’s hard to say who it’s going to be. Maybe Procreate will have a go at a desktop version. We will see.
Cheers to the open-minded and helpful part of the community.
Cheerio
I think what you really should do for the proposal is to keep it more open. So that people who use photoshop can be used to it like you while also not breaking the current workflow. Cause many like me for example don’t want a dedicated eraser tool, I would prefer less crowded toolbar when possible. I personally just keep my favorite erasers on the right click wheel, so I can go back and forth quite quickly.
So to give an example of how your proposal can be more agnostic.
2 & 3) Are probably better for a plugin then for Krita itself. Personally as someone who came from photoshop, I find Krita’s way more cleaner look. Especially when you start adding multiple masks.
I don’t agree that the transparency mask of PS is better. It only supports one. In a discussion with my friend a few weeks ago, he said that the mask management of PS is much worse than that of AE. So the direction of improvement should be progress towards AE.
I don’t know if it would make you feel better, but such controversies and difficult discussions and disagreements happen even on purely Krita-based proposals too, for example Krita 5 with putting the visibility changes onto the undo stack isn’t even released but there are already people complaining that it breaks previously-possible workflow and making a wishlist item to make it optional: 446889 – [Request] Make layer visibility being included in the undo stack optional . If it was possible, Krita would probably have everything optional 
Regarding the eraser tool though, I’m surprised you haven’t used David’s suggestion to make the eraser behaviour optional and switchable in the eraser button, it would make people who like Krita’s current eraser behaviour happy enough. I personally think it’s the best current suggestion since it will be easy to access for newcommers (no need to “go to Configure Krita → General → Tools → Subsection → subsection of subsection → then press that button and in the new dialog choose the option”), and it will be also easy to switch during work (since sketch + lineart phase might need the PS’s behaviour while during painting phase Krita’s default one might be preferable).
There has been some talk about it just among the team but the general conclusion is that we need to ship Krita 5 first anyway, and then we can actually plan other things. There will be probably a feedback thread if there will be different ideas to solve this problem.
I join this request, having the layer visibility undone with ctrl + z does disrupt my workflow 
Reading the pdf, i thought the other thread about the eraser made clear that having a dedicated tool for eraser is not useful as it would be a complete copy of the brush tool making it redundant. To me if we are making more tools maybe a secondary brush mode would be a much better option as you could set it to any brush instead of just an eraser and it would be more useful.
about clipping masks, there were talks about a simplified alpha inheritance option that would take into account only one layer under it that i think could be a good approach for this problem. Honestly the way i use alpha inheritance makes much more sense to me to have things separated into groups as i use it to paint whole characters so i really dont see how the group is that much of a hassle when you are have more than one layer inheriting the alpha. i also dont understand what you mean by confusing? i think of the group as the container not a parent, from my understanding krita allows for more complex ways to mask things than other programs can due to the alpha inheritance and how groups work, so maybe this possibility is what makes things confusing?
the transparency mask, i guess you want a more compact view? but like others pointed out this kinda breaks how krita can have multiple masks for one layer and different kinds of masks even, if we look at other programs like medibang the approach to show the transparency mask under the layer it affects is also used, so its not just krita.
for most part feels like most of your ideas are basically make things like photoshop even when it doesnt really make much sense considering how krita works differently for many things.
Part of the issue considering all your previous posts is how you want to make transition seamless from photoshop to krita, thats not going to work not for krita or any other software. Having to adapt to how new software handles things is part of learning it, its different approaches that make different workflows possible. i dont think krita goal is to be the the one tool all artists uses i know many artists that went to csp instead cause they felt better using it and thats totally fine. having different options for different people and workflows is good.
I dont think all your ideas are bad, you pointed out some real problems in krita, but the solutions proposed are not the best cause you are trying to go to what you are used to instead of trying to think of a better way to do things that would fit the program more.
ah yeah, i remember being against it when it was proposed i really hope this will be rolled back cause its really annoying.
I hope it will be kept, on my side I can’t count the number of times I did some undo without seeing that I was doing undo on hidden layers because the visibility wasn’t undoed 
I digress.
But it shows there so many different point of view about how a simple thing should be (I remember how the discussion was heated about what exactly have or not have to be undo-eable/optional) that trying to impose an absolute point of view about how things should be because of “photoshop way of life” is clearly not a good argue, especially when facing “old” users used to work with current Krita’s way of operation…
Grum999
The main thing that kept me from using CSP was that the brush engine isn’t as powerful as the one in Krita. But mainly the dual brush option was missing, which is a very powerful feature. But today I found out that the dual brush feature was added to CSP a few months ago and so overall CSP is the better option now. Everything feels more natural there - especially when one uses it side-by-side with Photoshop. I was even able to drag my Photoshop brushes in there and they were converted into CSP brushes - with over a hundred brushes that alone is a huge time saver.
An option to deactivate this feature would then be the best because the truth for several if it is something very annoying 
I think both programs have very good things, in my case I am not finished adapting to Clip, but I use it in conjunction with Krita, there are features that I would like Krita to have, such as the way in which Clip handles the patterns or the options color mixing tool for blending brushes.
I don’t think I will stop using Krita, I like to see how it grows and changes, it is currently much faster and better than before.
@halla didn’t want to make it as an option, you can read her argue here:
Looking how few users here debate about new and/or improvements about functionalities, I can understand that it’s not possible to put everything as an option because I think practically each user wants to have a Krita matching with their own vision of how it should be (including me, of course 
)
Last and final solution: modify code and compile your own Krita (still possible, but might be hard to maintain… 
)
Grum999
I only use simple layers so I cannot say a lot about them. I think an eraser tool would not be bad in the future. i like both eraser mode and eraser present so I made 2 shortcuts or use a plugin. Both eraser types are good!
So I really hope it is reversed 
, if I had the time and a PC with enough power, I would try modifying and compiling my own version of Krita.
A tool as krita treats tools wouldn’t make much sense as would be completely redundant to the brush tool. Makes much more sense to use ten brushes plugin or buli brush switch than make it its own tool. As the problem is not a lack of a tool but a lack of easily selecting a eraser preset and going back to the brush.
yes that is why i use the plugin and add eraser shortcuts. if so maybe we can suggest the plugin in a faq for people looking for an eraser button or something? i don’t mind using shortcut on the keys, a plugin, or a new eraser tool because it only takes some minutes to get used to.
krita kinda already has a switch button for last present but not many people know. maybe on fresh install, the eraser mode (e) can be the switch button with a default eraser set. or anything that makes it easier for people when trying krita.
i guess its kinda like:
the people will not work to understand krita or workaround
vs
the program krita will not work to understand the users
sooooo i feel like its kinda a stalemate 
but I’m not on either side lol.