Hi,
I'm trying to turn color values into selection, in such a way that I can adjust which pixels get selected intuitively. Since there's no interactive "select color range" tool that I can find, I figured I'd just copy the whole image I'm working on to clipboard, paste that as a selection mask and then use brightness/contrast curves or levels to adjust the resulting selection. I can't find a way to do this.

Can I somehow paste into a selection mask? Am I approaching this all wrong? How do people do lightness-based selection masks in Krita?

Edit: basically I'm looking for what Photoshop's quick mask workflow offers, a quick way to create temporary masks based on pixel data, preferably in such a way that all filters work on the mask just as they would on regular layers, and that the mask can be previewed as it's being modified.

Hi hulmanen,

I am not sure I understand what you are trying to achieve. To make it short, yes, you need to find an alternative way to do what quick mask in Ps does.
- You say you want to select parts of your mage based on value. You can duplicate the layer, and desaturate the lower one.
Then create a filter mask (similar to an adjustment layer in Ps) and select your desired filter. Make your selection using contiguous selection tool, adjusting feather radius and fuziness if you wish, and return to your original layer to do your work. You can always return to the filter to make changes and adjust the values of your mask.

Taking this one step further, you can split parts of your image (like background, middleground, foreground) into different layers. Go to the part you want to work on and just "select opaque" to select the entire layer. Again, go back to your working layer and paint.

As far as I know, you cannot paste into a mask. You have to paste into a new layer, convert the mask into a paint layer and merge the two. Then convert it back to a transparency mask or filter mask.

I hope it helps clear things out a bit.

Honestly I don't know how Photoshop's quick mask works but I have some advices.

You can enable global selection mask (Select>Show global selection mask). I don't see the way to insert to that mask but you can paint on it or use brightness/contrast curves. I guess you can try to combine "select opaque" or "color selection" with the mask.

Also you can enable different selection view by clicking on small icon at bottom left of the krita window. For better feedback that is selected and that not.

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately, these aren't what I'm looking for.

The Contiguous selection tool isn't an option, as it doesn't select areas that are not connected to each other.
The "Select similar colors" tool does select regardless of continuity, but the interactivity is poor IMO - you have to randomly select a fuzziness value, click somewhere (hopefully in the rigth spot, sometimes this can be hard) and then apply a filter or paint in the selection to see if you got it right. If not, select a different fuzziness and try again. Also, it doesn't seem to create semiopaque selections, pixels are either selected or not.


Now "show global selection mask" is definitely useful, but it seems you can't paste bitmap data into this mask. The PS workflow is simply:
-press q to toggle quickmask mode (same as "show global selection mask" using the red overlay in Krita)
-Paste image, paint, use filters
-press q to turn the mask created into a selection.

This is very useful because of how quick it lets you create textured masks for painting over specific areas etc.


Edit: OK, I found that you can copy something to clipboard, paste it into a new layer, convert that layer into a selection mask and then switch "show global selection mask" on to kind of get the functionality I'm looking for. This is a bit long-winded though.

For me Contiguous Tool dosent work in version 3.1.1. Only subtract works, other dosent.