Quality of life features for comic book colorists

Develop Feature Requests
1

These are all feature requests pertaining to selection, and each of them potentially makes the coloring process much quicker.
The first two requests are functions that are currently available in Clip Studio Paint, which makes it appealing for colorists.

  • Reference layers

I’m not talking about a layer with a similar function to the reference tool.
What I am talking about is having layers refer to a specific layer.
Example: I have a flats layer and want all my actions to refer to it.
The usefulness for this function is explained in the next feature request.

  • Select from selection option on the contiguous selection tool

Currently we have a number of options on the contiguous selection tool:
Replace, intersect, add, subtract and symmetric difference.
What I’m requesting is yet another option that makes the tool select from an active selection.
Combined with the feature requested before this one it becomes a very powerful tool for colorists.
When these two features are combined you don’t need to be very meticulous while selecting because it will never select outside the intended area at large.
Ideally it would have the possibility of setting a shortcut for it as well.

  • Feathering option on all selection tools

This is a feature that I have requested before, but is dear to my heart because I use it on any selection that doesn’t imply direct lighting.
Which in practice means a majority of my selections for rendering.
The option is currently exclusive for the contiguous selection tool, and I would like to request to have it available on all selection tools.
This would remove the need to press the shortcut on each selection, making it a toggle instead.

  • Hiding but still active

I would like to request the possibility of having a layer still be refered to, even though it’s set to invisible.
The way I use this is in having a flats layer for selections alone, and not wanting it to be visible.
Currently this can be achieved by grouping the layer and then setting the group to invisible.
It would be great to not have to group a layer to achieve this, because it would declutter the layer stack.

2

Krita already has this reference layer feature, It’s called “Colored Labled Layers” and available in the fill and selection tools. It requires you to add a color label to layers you want to use as a reference layer first.

3

I am aware, in fact I use it all the time!
Strangely I hadn’t considered that this in fact does let any layer reference it.
It would be great if we could now select within the resulting active selection.

4

How do you think the selection outline should work with these other tools with feathering? Like if you use the rectangle selection tool and have feathering enabled would you expect the “marching ants” to be exactly as you set? Or would that be the start of the “feathering” and the “marching ants” would extend a little paste your selection? I feel like these other selection tools would feel weird to extend your selection since you select it exactly. But also thats the behavior for the contiguous selection tool so it would also be inconsistent not to do that. What do you think?

5

Isn’t any selection supposed to be exact?
Like when I use my freehand selection tool I try to select as precise as I can.
At any rate my personal preference would be that the selection is shown as exact even when feathered.
The purpose of feathering to me is to soften the mediator line on my shading/lighting.
I would like to note here that I only use feathering for rendering purposes, so this may not be useful for anyone.
The first few times I really needed to adjust myself to the marching ants going ‘out of borders’
We should be wondering if moving the outline even has a function for drawing/painting