Zebra mode

[derekfountain]

I was just having a play with zebra mode, trying to work out what it does and what it's useful for.

Firstly, there appears to be a clash between using the Alt key for zebra mode, and the normal Windows usage for it which is to select the main menu and hence enable keyboard navigation of the menus. Using Alt to see the zebra mode only works every other time I press and hold it. It also appears to get stuck somehow, with the stripes showing and no curve point selected, when I use Alt-Tab to switch applications.

The beta page says of this mode that "the area affected by those control points will flash in a zebra stripe pattern". What does "affected" mean in this context?

For example, I go to my Lab curve and set a point in the middle doing nothing: input of 50, output of 50. I select that point and hold Alt. Since that point has no effect, I'd expect no stripes, but I do get some. What it appears to do is highlight the pixels that have a lightness around the curve output value at that point. Is that right?

I think I get the idea: if I create two points on the curve and make the curve between them flat, I get a nasty colourless area on my image. Selecting the two points and using zebra mode highlights the area where those points are stripping out the contrast. This appears to be an implementation of a feature I asked for on the 2.x wishlist. I like it! :) Still not sure of its function with a single selected point though.

I've been playing with it for a few minutes as I create this forum post, and it's very useful. I don't like the rippling dots though - a solid colour like the gamut warning might be preferable. On the other hand, if I could see it switch on and off quickly as I press and release the Alt key the rippling dots might be fine.

[-default]

Yes, I do seem to recall you were the one who asked for this feature.  Triggering zebra mode needs some work, since alt is used for other things. Probably the simplest thing would be an explicit button and/or key combination to toggle it on and off - the problem with this is that the curve in question needs to be selected for the button (or alt) to work.  So, perhaps a button for each curve would be best, or a context menu item.

I did consider doing a quick-mask style overlay, but there is no guarantee that a single color would show up consistently across various colors, so I went with the "zebra" stripe pattern.

[ggroess]

OK now you have my attention...Can you say Skin tones??  So I need to play with this...Alot...

Greg