So I'm finally experimenting with Krita. This is probably a really simple one but I don't see it. When I erase I want to erase to my white background not the chequered one, where's the setting to do this?

Thanks.

Well, that's a difference between krita and gimp or photoshop: in krita there is no layer without a transparency channel, so erase to background color doesn't make much sense.

If you want to have a white background, then the thing to do in krita is create an image, lock the first (white by default) layer and create a new layer and sketch on that. Then the eraser will do what you expect.

Ok, thanks for that, boudewijn. That makes sense. Fix first layer, add the second and so on. I can manage that.

I actually always create a new layer and lock the background layer when I start a new picture. This isn't so much because of the checkered background when erasing, rather I feel very silly if I draw say... a head and then I want to add a background layer, only to find that there's no easy to get rid of all that white the "head" layer is on. It's easier to start with a transparent layer in the first place.

Is that what the chequered background is? Transparent? If so, it's a PITA to work on. When I look at Layer 1 information I see the padlock which is self explanatory, the gwenview 'eye' icon before it, the chequerboard icon after it and something like a fat infinity symbol after that. But there's no 'on the fly' hover over meta data telling me what these things do / are. I click them and they all seem to give the chequerboard background....

I should probably RTFM

We are nowhere near creating a head yet, can you tell?

Yes, like most (if not all) paint apps, Krita shows a checkered background when parts of the image are transparent.

Here's more info: http://userbase.kde.org/Krita/Tutorial_ ... management.

However, you're right that the four toggles can be a bit confusing, since the tutorial confuses alpha lock with alpha inheritance

The layer box toggles do:

eye: visibility of the layer
padlock: lock for editing
checkerboard: alpha lock. This means that you can only paint on non-transparent parts of the layer
alpha: inherit alpha channel: only those parts of the new layer that over non-transparent parts of the underlying layer are shown (inside the current group)

I've made the name sin the tooltips cleared:

Checkered icon: Alpha Locked. Locks the current alpha channel (i.e., you cannot paint over transparent areas)
Alpha icon: Inherit Alpha. Toggles inheriting the alpha in the current group layer stack.

Ah! Boud, I was always a bit lost as to how to distinguish Transparency-locking and the alpha icon feature, and I'm afraid my tutorial may be similarly confusing. What would you think of the following "official" terms then:
- Alpha-locking: your basic transparency locking.
- Alpha-inheritance: the feature covered by the alpha icon.

If those terms seem like a good idea, I can "fix" the corresponding tutorial (I'll also have to dig up where else I use the wrong terms...).

valerievk wrote:- Alpha-locking: your basic transparency locking.
- Alpha-inheritance: the feature covered by the alpha icon.

+1

Yes, that would be good. I've also changed the strings in Krita itself to reflect that.

Wiki link seems clear and to the point. If you could sharpen that alpha symbol up a little, like the padlock, would be good (might be this catalyst driver tho). I'll just take it one step at a time and RTFM as I go along. Thanks again.

Just one precison:
"Alpha inherit" is good to describe the effect of the "alpha" button, but the technical thing it does is disable/enable alpha (as shown in the "channels" docker, the Enabled/alpha switch is exactly the same thing).

^ Alright, I've edited the Deviantart version, and since the wiki version was already updated before I started, I changed the first description of alpha-inheritance to this:

Alpha-inheritance locks the visibility state of a layer to only areas visible on all the layers below it, in the same stack. Basically, the layer "inherits" their visibility. Technically, this enables or disables the layer's alpha (as shown in the "channels" docker).

I also updated the images.

I also updated the terms in the Color Smudge tutorial. I think that's the only other place I've mentioned it?