Don’t loose hope too quickly, there is still a chance to rescue the old edits and spare some digging work… 
Great! Thank you for your efforts. it looks promising!
About the images - I can see the difference between Intersection and Multiply, and the latter looks better, at least in this case. Union looks a little weird in the places I marked below - it seems like the transition from one mask to another is not smooth at the contact point. Some red is intervening between the two white shapes. When I jump between the first/second image and the Union image it seems like the union subtracted a small piece where the arrows are marked.
Some updates about the ongoing re-writing of the UI… the part I have been working on is the interface for the layer masks.
Layer masks are still accessed by double-clicking on the rectangle at the right of the layer name, or by using the Ctrl-Shift-M keyboard shortcut:
This changes the contents of the layers list widget, which shows the mask layers associated to the “main” layer whose mask is being edited. One can go back to the main layers by either clicking on the “back” button or using the Ctrl-Shift-L shortcut:
A “show mask” check button allows to toggle on/off the visibility of the mask itself. The mask preview always shows the combination of all layers in the mask:
What do you think?
I will commit those changes after a bit more testing…
Here is a quick preview of the new layer opacity mask editing UI:
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I have updated the packages in the GitHub continuous release, which now provide the latest UI changes as shown in the screencast from the previous post.
For OSX and Windows, one should pick the packages labelled *20161209*, while for Linux one should pick the 20161208 AppImage.
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Mr Penguin does your beard never grow? So now I HAVE TO mask everything and make little baby masks with holly unions and multiply and populate the digital realms till there’s nothing more to intersect 
Thanks god we can hide the histomountains, with such a rapidly growing family every inch is sacred land, eya eya ho ho!
#VERY NICE 
VERY THANK YOU#
on a tiny obnoxious and totally inconsequential UI pick, effects’ window opens by default in same place that main wondow does. Moving once the main window is something one doesn’t even think about it but it does when having to “travel” every time we call an efx’s window. If the screen is big it’s more noticeable. May I suggest same behaviour of open window, in the center?
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That’s a good suggestion, thanks! I’ve just modified the code, next version will behave like you say…
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{granny at the warmth of the fireplace poisoning apples} Where did you hide the save/load preset little rectangles than one pushes? 
Right click somewhere in the layers list area.
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Exactly!
@RobA @Carmelo_DrRaw silly me, thank you guys 
, wana an apple?
Couple other things: when installing a new version of PF, the presets (to be applied as “default” to each image) stored in the .photoflow/config folder disapear, right?
When un/checkingg a background if there’s a image group it automatically expands.
le other
BTW 've been messing around with some ideas, basically trying to implement the old mitoki concept gurgulhu which translates as go like running chicken without head. If someone feels like the horsepower is not put to work…
PF_soft-guey_01.pfp.zip (1.4 KB)
Main idea orbitates around soft “curtain of light”… comme ci comme ça. A couple examples
I M P O R T A N T
1 // for anyone trying it is NOT a good idea to use raw images, already power hungry as it is, adding a raw module could cause a stroke, but hey maybe you’re a massochist 
2 // There’s a copy of whatever you’re using as Background, named BGD dark trail, in that layer one has to reselect the path to background image.
3 // Finally in an humorus attempt of some organization, I’ve started the “messing with” layers with capital letters.
All examples here are without tweaking, as the presset was created and saved. If one tweaks and twist things a bit, it might get even worse, I mean better; also the settings are a matured compromisse {couldn’t find the beheading ax} between portraits (with quite different lighting conditions/setups) and landscape. The version in gimp’s even better, also uses lum masks and the PS’ action… uy purito frijole frito!!!
From botton to top
- background - - - - - - - - - - image holder
- HL control - - - - - - - - - - lowers the brightness, masked to HL
- SET soft/overlay - - - - - - - this is a clone of what ruski call gulash
- L diffussion - - - - - - - - - that’s a hype name for a simple screen oper
- - - - - - - Details back (group)
- BGD dark trail - - - - - - - - a multiplied background, once a tech guru told me refuse to create anything with less than 10 layers, so…
- reco details - - - - - - - - - - those are wavelets, for good mood and some features back
- all 3 gaussian layers are pimping the light in different ways, poor light
- SATU reducer - - - - - - - - - it’s the trimming of the excessive added saturation. This is soooo much easier, accurate and quick to do with luminosity masks… well that’s it
{wher is my poney, where is my poney?}
A last lanpapper xample. Again settings untweaked, before
und after
Source images
https://www.pexels.com/photo/bench-nature-love-people-50592/
https://www.pexels.com/de/foto/person-frau-bunt-bunt-116235/
landscape.jpg.php — Photo via Good Free Photos
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Hi! Interesting technique, I am still trying to figure out all the steps you have in the preset, also to see if something can be optimized/simplified…
A first suggestion concerns the BGD dark trail layer: instead of opening the same image twice, you can take advantage of clone layers, which allow to copy a given layer anywhere else in the layers stack.
Here is what you should do:
- add a buffer layer just above the background one; call it soft guey input
- put a clone layer at the place of the BGD dark trail layer, and select the soft guey input as source:
- set the blend mode and opacity of the clone layer the same way you did for the duplicated image
The buffer layer above the background image should be included in the preset… this way, the preset can be inserted at any place in an existing edit, without any need of manual intervention.
Concerning speed and performances, there is definitely some over-computation going on, which explains at least part of the slowness of the preset. I will probably submit a fix after the Christmas break…
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Most kind of you to take the time, mean it 
I’ll do buffer/clonning as you say =)
There are a couple different matters about the presset complexity.
One is the limitation(s) of (any) platform. IMO luminosity masks or HSL qualifiers and “merging” ability /// and LUTs /// would reduce the layer count. I’ve done simillar WFs in many apps; e.g. gimp with gmic’s dream smoothing where layers flattern from visible, yet I’m not able to create a macro for it. And that’s another issue, if you flattern the layers any presset’s invalidated as a one step repeatable solution. In that sense I think that despite this being a valid presset (regarding the aeshetic result if one will), it totally fails to be practical within the platform that hosts it; took PF like an hour to procces and export this image, the horror the horror 
On the other hand is user handling, in this case me. Maybe I’m spolied in my ways but nevertheless it’s also true I’ve got a tendency to develop quite complex structures. For instance, when I’m grading in davincy it is easy for a single shot to have 20 nodes through out complex pararell and mixing techniques; normally though, I’ld merge those regarding luma and chroma without masks into a LUT and then things become simpler and of course create families (groups) that automatically sync and memories that can be “pasted”… so in the end after dealing and creating an approach for the hero shot, things speed up exponentially. I wont even go into PS, because despite I think it’s quite interestiing to learn from stablish platforms I’m affraid of the witch hunters {rockabilly steam punk score}
I really like photoflow and having in mind its limitations and particularities the question I post myself is how do I go about creating pressets for PF?
That’s me own homework 
Image source:
https://www.pexels.com/photo/rocks-covered-with-green-moss-near-waterfalls-25943/
PD
Found an example of node complex
and gimp
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This is of course not acceptable, and gives me a good test case for checking where things can be optimized…
In fact, luminosity masks are already possible in PhF. There are at least two possible ways to introduce a luminosity mask:
- adding a clone layer inside a mask, selecting as input the layer from which you want to get the luminosity, and then add a curves layer to adjust the luminosity range
- adding an HSL mask layer inside a mask, and adjust the L curve
Concerning the GIMP example, one has to take into account that in GIMP each layer contains the already-processed data, instead of processing the pixel values on-the-fly… and that’s where things get ore complex.
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I had a closer look to your preset, but I still do not fully understand the role of some of the adjustments, particularly the large blurs in grain extract/grain merge mode… I have the feeling that there is some mistake in the way the layers are used. Did you take inspiration from some web tutorial?
Concerning the performances, the main problem is that your preset is chaining five large-radius blurs (approx. 200px each) plus a 7-levels wavelet smoothing. Unfortunately, this is quite overkill for the non-destructive processing engine of PhF, and I have no (simple) ideas for the moment on how to improve the code…
Nevertheless, I’m quite convinced that we could find a more optimized way to achieve the same result… if you like, I’m ready to help you out on that, all I need is a short description of the goal and expected result of each of the adjustments.
While trying to improve the UI, I am also integrating RawTherapee’s RAW decoding into PhF, so that it can be used in parallel with the current one from Darktable.
The first practical result of this integration is that now PhF is able to open and process floating-point DNGs from HDRMerge. This new functionality will be probably committed to GitHub after the Christmas vacations, as I still need to add some code for handling RT’s white balance coefficients (or better color temperatures).
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but I still do not fully understand the role of some of the adjustments,Neither do I, but I respect them the same :P
Did you take inspiration from some web tutorial?Well, I'm a crushing machine, so I take a little bit of this and a little bit of that... that's why my projects resemble [graveyards](https://youtu.be/KeSAFGWzft8) And as if that was not enough, I try my best to infect them all with same virus, poor photoflow had to "suffer" kidney transplants from my experiments with the gimpo and gmico bros.
Concerning the performances, the main problem is that your preset is chaining five large-radius blurs (approx. 200px each) plus a 7-levels wavelet smoothing.C'won that's just the couvert :turkey:
and I have no (simple) ideas for the moment on how to improve the code... Nevertheless, I'm quite convinced that we could find a more optimized way to achieve the same result... if you like, I'm ready to help you out on that, all I need is a short description of the goal and expected result of each of the adjustments.Look brother, don't waste your time with me, at least with this preset (too green), honestly; the fact that I cannot read or write code doesnt mean I'm not gonna figure out how to get around limitations and still do things. I do heartfully appretiate the offer though =)
Also and in full disclosure mode - it’s so nice this place at the candlelight, don’t you think? - I know for a fact that it will take way longer to explain myself, which means I would have to analyze my own processing (which painfully I seldom do, no filter, intuition to the power!!) and then translate the scanned data into something “neutral” and understandable by you… a good example is the feather to the inside in github, ha ha ha that was funny; BTW I was surpissed to see that recent LR update started using radial filters feathering to the inside, just a footnote.
Anyways the clone and buffer layers and using them (with curves) as a luma mask already helped… those will kept me entertain for a while. Thank you. I wonder how many secret compartments has PF?
Cheers mate
Is the “inside feathering” available for arbitrary shapes, or just for circular/elliptical shapes? In the latter case, something equivalent will come in future PhF versions…