First off - congrats on an amazing app. I’ve been loving ArtStudio Pro since it was recommended to me when I got an iPad.
I’m a concept artist coming from years of work in Photoshop and I have a few requests for the Mask mode to have it a bit more streamlined.
As a concept artist/matte painter I tend to paint more on Mask Layers instead of normal ones, when prioritizing shapes and value, so having that mode be as intuitive as possible is crucial. Right now, there are a few things that break the flow.
PROBLEM: When clicking on a mask, to paint on it - color selection remain in the paint mode (currently selected color, for example light blue). This result: painting on a mask with a color (light blue), that is converted to BW. In order to change it to clear black or white I need to open a color wheel, select and then I can mask. This requires constant manual swapping of black/white colors while loosing previously selected color in the paint mode.
EXPECTED BEHAVIOR: When selecting mask to paint on it, color swatch should switch to black or white value by default (depending if the mask was made using hide all or reveal all). This way you can immediately, reveal or hide by painting on a mask.
While having mask selected, it would be amazing to have a hotkey exposed to swap between black/white color quickly. Photoshop does it by hitting ‘X’ to swap between primary/secondary color. This would enable user to hide with a stroke (black), hit hotkey (switch to white), and reveal with another stroke. This workflow is crucial when working with masks.
When exiting mask painting mode (selecting normal layer), color swatch goes back to previously selected color in painting - this is also how photoshop does it. That ensures, that the color that you painted with before clicking on a mask is preserved.
Please note, that I’m not trying to suggest to make ArtStudio Pro closer to Photoshop - in fact, I prefer many of the solution you have came up with. It’s just about the amount of clicking that is required to get clean black/white colors to add/remove from mask that makes it really slow to use.
Let me know what you think of this idea and if there are any other users looking for a feature like this.
Wojtek
