The bucket tool is not very good on its own leaving many white dots. Plus you cant just select a general area and move it with it either. Selection tools are in almost every paint program out there and is even considered a basic tool in painting and one of the most used. Just having it would save a lot of time. For instance lets say you drew someting really good and had to move it but forgot to put it in a new layer. Well SCREW YOU YOU HAVE TO UNDO IT ALL AND START ALL AGAIN HAHAHA
I’d probably use selection tools sometimes. But MasonMac, for your two issues so far, here are workarounds:
The bucket is actually pretty good IF you use hard pixel brushes (at least for the inside of the area you want to bucket fill). You can make a new layer (or copy a layer) and use that to paint up regions to bucket. (That said, bucket filling I often do in another program most of the time – my workflow is sketch in mypaint, flatten in other apps, color in mypaint.)
And for wanting to move something but it’s in the same layer as something else good: copy the layer! in one layer, erase the good thing, in the other layer, erase everything except tthe good thing.
All of that said, if you want to love MyPaint you sooner or later have got to get comfortable with using other tools. It sucks that GIMP’s ora support is so lacking. But. Usually you can do what you want to do with a little work and ingenuity.
Honestly… I agree actually, that selection tools would be useful. One thing I use a LOT in MyPaint is this construct: a layer group with two layers. The top layer in the group uses Destination In, the bottom layer is normal. And then I paint on the bottom layer. The top layer is sort of the “selection”. I set this up via scripts (doing it manually like PeterToybulldog does, that’s unreasonable since I often have twenty, thirty layer groups like this). But… it’s still cumbersome.
I usually use svg layers for these top “mask” layers, and a paintable raster layer for the bottom “paint” layer in each group. For example I might make a hand outline in Inkscape, put it as the “mask” (Destination In) layer, and then I can paint the hand underneath it on the “paint” raster layer.
But setting it up by hand, setting the blend modes, creating the masks etc, that’s such a hassle compared to Manga Studio where you can just have a flatted image, select with wand on a selection layer and then paint within that selection (a la Destination In) on a paint layer.
Since I use MyPaint, I have scripts that set up these “Destination In” layer groups to “emulate” saved selections. Generating the ora files. But, they become big and slow.
Sandra
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I am waiting for MAGICWAND, too :3
I love Mypaint but It spends a lot of time erasing XD
the concept of “Destination In” is very difficult to understand OTL
Its not about selection its about move part of the painting.
When you painting portrait, you found the eyes or the mouth is not in the right position, you can move the eye or the mouth to the right position.
That is how other painting software worked(such as SAI ,opencanvas 6). That is what we need.
Hello,
Just general idea came to my mind: would it be hard to implement SELECTION(marching ants) or MASKING,
that seems v.usefull to limit active sketching area to selected only.
When you need eg. even erase along some filled/sketched area ??
cheers,
gee, I multiplied the topic obviously, kind request to admin to (re)move accordingly.
I am still waiting for selection - transformation tool 
For selection transformation, just select open layer in other app and open it with gimp or krita. It becomes faster if you already have gimp open.
Masking is built in, just start a new layer with destination in or destination out. Put it in a group with the layers you want to be masked.
i know, but isn’t it complicated. If Mypaint got those tools, even simple as select-transform tools in Azpainter, it would be helpful ><
This, a selection and even some basic transform tools will really go a long way.
I’m severely limited in mypaint, especially on windows where edit in an external app doesn’t work.
These are all workflow things that speed up painting immensely. I love mypaint, but there are issues that need to be addressed.
I’m currently looking for a way to take handwritten notes and mypaint is the best program I’ve found so far. (xournal++ is way too sluggish and bloated.) Unfortunately, in its current state mypaint is not really usable for my purpose since I need to ability to select a rectangular area and move it around.
I know that note taking is not really the intended use of mypaint, but it would be great if you could add a simple feature like this (just a simple move a rectangle version, no need for all the bells and whistles mentioned in the feature request in your bug database.).
Maybe nearly the single thing missing in MyPaint to be almost as close to perfect as it can get would be some selection tools and not distort tools, for some basic “cheating.”
But what you describe can be somewhat awkwardly but not all that cumbersomely achieved by duplicating a layer where there’s the content you’d want to select, selecting it with the “edit frame” tool, then “set frame to layer” (kind of “crop selection”), and then move the layer around with the move layer tool. And erasing the original bit with the eraser tool.
You could then even merge the layer(s) later, but I guess it would make sense if the file is getting heavy, and if you’re not that likely to want to move it again, for whatever reason.
But, to be honest, if you’re doing it very frequently, maybe you’d prefer a different drawing program for note-taking.
Hey, so, please from someone informed on this… mostly what we’re looking at is reusing the bucket fill tool code and adding UI right? I can’t promise I can make it work, but if I’m understanding right and know what to look at I can at least try.
No, the later replies mention “destination in/out” layers, which are more effective.
I’ve documented my own workflow at github so something like this can be documented and be better communicated: document selection workflow · Issue #1240 · mypaint/mypaint · GitHub
What I’m doing is creating a new paint layer, switch it to “destination out” mode and paint on it with a thick opaque brush to “select” something, but since its a layer of its own its not permanent (yet) and I can review the selection by switching the mode to see exactly what I selected (“destination in”) or what I covered (normal mode) if its important for fine details.
Once I’ve drawn my “selection” this way I can use the layer visibility toggles together with “create new layer from visible” context menu to capture the “destination in” view into (which displays just the selection) into a new layer where it can be manipulated on its own. I can keep it on its own layer or merge it back after editing.
If I want to erase the selection from the original layer I use the “destination out” mode, toggle the visibility aprropriately and merge the selection into the original layer.
PS: might need to turn off background rendering while using “create layer from visible” or you may get black artifacts
