PLACE AND MERGE

[admin]

Like Merge but with position rotation and scale.

[Arwin Profile]

Is it on purpose that a place and merge node erase selections ?

I stumbled on this today, let me explain.

I've created some neon effects, with a fix Merge node, to use this effect you need to make a selection first, with the Select Area tool. When applied the effect you can re-use the selection for a new effect by hovering over the effect gallery button and choose for 'subject' or 'not subject', this is a great ability to re-use masks!

But when I use a Place and Merge node at the end of my effect, I don't have those options anymore, even when I change, for test purpose, the field 'Area' in the node to 'subject' or 'not subject' instead of the default 'Whole Image'.
Another thing I found, is that when you start the effect with a Place and Merge node, the selections are gone, you can't use the nodes 'Invert Selection' and 'Selection to Image' anymore.

It looks like the Place and Merge node is breaking down something with selections or do I miss some knowledge here?

Hope it is a bug, otherwise I need to re-think the effects, or go for it without the Place and Merge..

Kind regards,
Arwin

[admin]

Hi Arwin,

The answer is Yes and No. Simply put, selections flow through from the top input not the bottom one, so when you're adding new stuff into your original image, you won't loose any selections, but if you're placing your image on top of another one, it's the other one's selections that get saved.

Hope that helps

Tony

[Arwin Profile]

Hmm to bad.., than I can't use the place and merge node in this case

But thanks for the clarification on this issue!

Arwin

[Arwin Profile]

Lol finally I got it to work correct 'with' the use of a Place and Merge node, but after all I can't use it

I completely understand why, because the selections stays as they are, so when you shrink down your image and move it around, the selections don't shrink or move, so they are more or less useless in that case (effects applied to those selections are not on the right place, because I did shrink the image and moved it..)

The reason why the selections did not transfered when using the Place and Merge node, was because of a Solid Color node that I used, direct after Effect Input node, which was connected to the Place and Merge node, I do think it was the combination of those two that broke the selection transfer, because a normal Merge node instead of the Place and Merge did work ok.

Finally I did a 'normal' merge with the Effects Input node and the Solid Color node, which than was again connecten to the Place and Merge node, this gives me the 'Subject' as selection in return, after that I reconnected the normal merge node to the Invert Selection node (instead of the Effect Input) and that gives me back the 'Not Subject' selection too!

But as I already started with, can't use it. I do think that the re-use of the selections are more important and usable than a shrink and moveable image. So I will create the new Neon effect without the option to shrink and move.

I did write it down, because maybe someone can use this information in case they stubled upon the same issue when creating an effect

Arwin