Here are two features I think would be nice to have in ProMotion
Zooming in/out with Ctrl+SPACE and then mouse or pen drag. It’s how almost all other art programs handle zooming and it’s so ingrained in my muscle memory probably as much as Ctrl-Z and panning with SPACE.
I do have the keys remapped near the usual wasd keys for faster zooming, but it’s just that every time I switch to promotion, it takes a while to stop pressing ctrl+space.
Another feature is pixel filtering or blurring. Which is nice to have for those who draw pixels for retro platforms. Just a general bilinear texture filter, nothing fancy, to simulate the look of pixels on CRT screens.
ProMotion kind of already has this supported - whenever pixel size is large like 5:5 or whatever, when it zooms out below the single pixel threshold, it blurs the image. It would be nice to have it as an official feature.
Just pitching in.
Zooming in/out for me is holding Ctrl+Alt then mouse/pen drag in other programs.
So my workaround in PMNG is activating the zoom tool before a mouse/pen drag.
As for the filters, would be nice if it was implemented via the non-destructive layer effect setting.
Layer effect settings is a seriously powerful feature that is vastly, vastly underused, imo. Transferring common blend modes here instead is just one example.
Yeah, I currently have zoom in/out keys remmaped to Y and X, and then use W to quickly shift between zoom levels. It’s just the matter of convenience. IIRC, ProMotion didn’t have SPACE-panning until 6.5 or so… Stuff like that is not deal breaking, but it’s definitely convenient and keeps the workflow smooth.
As for filters, I had in mind just the presantational side - how things look on screen. Image data shouldn’t be affected at all. Similarly to how pixel aspect ratio works: it shows deformed pixels on screen but image still uses standard oixels (unless told otherwise). Bilinear pixel filtering is essentially free and requires no advanced shader support. It’s been the standard in texture processing for decades now and almost every image display software uses it by default anyway.
In the long run, it would be nice to have shader support for the canvas, to simulate the look of a CRT monitor. Like drawing in Deluxe Paint on real hardware. Like this image.
