Masks - stretch to target?

[terrypin]

Do masks automatically stretch to the size of the target image?

In PSP8 I opened my target, 1615 x 1066 px:



Then, following the instructions from Help, I opened this circular mask, 450 x 450 px:



But after completing the procedure my result looks like this, with an elliptical 'see through' area instead of a circle:



If this is by design, how would I get the circular effect I want please?

Note that this was part of my learning. I appreciate that there are simpler ways of doing it for an all black/white mask.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[LeviFiction]

Well you could make your own mask.

And there are any number of ways to handle that

1) Grab the ellipse selection tool and make an ellipse the size that you want it. Then Right-click inside of the selection to move the selection to a new location. You can then create a mask showing only the selected area.

2) You can create a vector ellipse and resize and position it however you want. Make sure that it has a fill color turned on or this won't work quite right. Then go to the selection menu and select "Selection from Vector Object" which will then create a selection based on this vector. And you can make a mask again by only showing the selected area.

And there are even more ways but those are fairly easy.

[terrypin]

Thanks, but I did make my own mask, that circle. My question is, why is it stretched to an ellipse when I use Layers > New Mask layer > From Image?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[hartpaul]

Levifiction has explained carefully how to get that effect with the image you have mentioned as source.
To answer your question when you make the mask from an image which has different proportions to the final image it is stretched to suit the final image and this is not in proportion.
If you do a square crop of your map image and repeat the procedure then you will get the mask you want.
If you do not want to crop your image then you will have to do it one of Levifiction's ways.

[LeviFiction]

Oh, in that case I have two options for you:

1) Tthe "Load Mask" dialog has three options.

Fit to Canvas
Fit to Layer
As Is

Choose As Is and it won't stretch the mask. Though the mask will offset to the top corner of the image so you'll need to move it around to put it i place.


2) Another option is to simply save all of your masks as a PSPImage file. When you need it just open the image and coy the mask layer from one image to the other. No stretch unless you want it to stretch and it'll attempt to paste it in the center of the canvas.

[terrypin]

Thanks for sticking with me on this, LeviFiction.

I didn't like method 1 much. First I had to edit the path so that I could use my simple home made mask. Then the non-standard browser hindered selection:



And the result as you say is strangely not centred.

But method 2 works just fine, many thanks! At least, I think the following is what you meant? "Use Layer > New Mask Layer > From image, just as you were doing, but first make sure you save your JPG (or PNG/BMP/etc) mask as a PSPimage file. It then works as you'd expect, with no stretching." That indeed is what I've tried and it's exactly what i want.

Seems odd there's no As Is/Fill canvas options in that dialogue, which would allow any image file type to be used. As it stands I have a lot of conversion to do...

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[terrypin]

Levifiction has explained carefully how to get that effect with the image you have mentioned as source.
To answer your question when you make the mask from an image which has different proportions to the final image it is stretched to suit the final image and this is not in proportion.

Except when the mask is a PSP file, thankfully!

If you do a square crop of your map image and repeat the procedure then you will get the mask you want.
If you do not want to crop your image then you will have to do it one of Levifiction's ways.

No I wouldn't want to crop in a real life case of a 'faded' circle or ellipse, because I'd want the whole map or whatever to be visible (in varying degrees) at its original aspect ratio.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[LindaSue]

I would have just placed the circle mask in the center of the map image on a new layer then created a new layer below that and filled it with white. I'd merge the circle layer with the white layer which would create a mask exactly the size and shape I wanted. If I wanted to use this same mask for other images, I'd just copy and paste the mask layer as a new image and save it.