P: Gradient Eraser Request

PS - Nik's U-points are kinda-nice, because sometimes they select just what you want. When that happens its very exciting. However, all too frequently they get too much or not enough. In the former case, you're only recourse is to drop "anti-selection" U-points, to kinda block the selection U-points. Sometimes this works perfectly - and when it does its very exciting. All too often however, it doesn't! Anyway, its my hope that Adobe will innovate a revolutionary auto-masking technology. Maybe make this technology available in Photoshop too, and put Nik out of business ;-}
R

PS - Nik's U-points are kinda-nice, because sometimes they select just what you want. When that happens its very exciting. However, all too frequently they get too much or not enough. In the former case, you're only recourse is to drop "anti-selection" U-points, to kinda block the selection U-points. Sometimes this works perfectly - and when it does its very exciting. All too often however, it doesn't! Anyway, its my hope that Adobe will innovate a revolutionary auto-masking technology. Maybe make this technology available in Photoshop too, and put Nik out of business ;-}
R

My biggest hope for Lr4, is for Adobe to come up with a killer (auto)masking technology (that includes user intervention all along the way, for "hinting" to the auto-mask, as well as explicit manual intervention to adjust imperfect masks), that can be used with the adjustment gradient, or the globals (making everything now locally applicable). Add the ability to do this in layers, (or "adjustment step pseudo-layers", like Nx2, and we'd really be having things...

Well put TK. And, I too see this as part of a bigger picture: How can one target adjustments just to desired stuff and not others? In Photoshop, there are magic wands, with tolerances..., and in Nx2, there are U-points, with no control options (except more U-points). Presently in Lightroom, there are two auto-masking technologies:
1. brush auto-mask, that tries to confine brush strokes to "like" areas.
2. sharpen masking, that tries to confine sharpening to "edgy" areas.
Personally, I am hoping that Adobe will come up with a controllable auto-mask technology for Lightroom, that allows user intervention whilst applying adjustments, to specify a whole host of criteria along the way to guide the mask. In the case of a gradient, one could then simply define a mask, then drop a gradient over it. So, really, the root is the ability to define arbitrary masks in Lightroom, subsequently applying an adjustment gradient is just the icing on the cake... So, design-wise its about de-coupling the masking from the local brush - let us define general masks, then decide what adjustments to overlay - gradient, or paint, or "globals" (in quotes, because once masking is generally available, all globals are essentially local).

Just to clarify what may not be explicitly clear to all visiting here:

It is possible to undo the effect of a graduated filter with an adjustment brush (by using the inverse settings of the graduated filter for the brush and careful "graduated" brushing using the flow/density settings) and the brush strokes have the advantage of staying in the same place even when the filter is moved around (e.g., they will still be covering the same mountain top that hasn't moved), but when the graduated filter is moved/stretched, the "counter" brushes will no longer match the previous filter effects. A compensation by adjusting the brush effect settings is cumbersome and will not always work.

What PSDiva is essentially asking for is a way to achieve irregularly shaped graduated filter masks. Moreover, the FR implies that it will be possible to change the graduation (graduation slope and extent) independently from the position/shape of the erased part.

Ultimately, graduated filters and adjustment brush strokes (and potentially more tools in the future) should be combinable to create arbitrarily shaped and arbitrarily graduated masks which then can be used to apply any effect from the development panels (not just a select few available from the adjustment brush and graduated filter panels). It seems like layers (as in Bibble 5) would be a useful concept, but perhaps LR can support them less explicitly than Bibble 5 or PS do.

I feel that adjustment brush stroke sets (associated with adjustment brush pins) can also be regarded as layers but LR does a great job of dealing with the "layers" implicitly. I believe the "adjustment pin" concept could be extended to encompass more complex masks without importing a "layer paradigm" into LR's user interface.

Although one can theoretically do everything with a brush that one can do with a gradient (with or without the gradient eraser), it would sometimes be more convenient to be able to use a gradient and erase some stuff. Couple this with some killer auto-masking technology - so I could guide Lightroom to "perfectly" avoid foreground objects and such, and we'd really be having things...

Brushes and gradients are different, but a gradient can be quickly simulated using a brush by adjusting the Flow and controlling how often you brush each area of the image.

Locking the mask in place would work. That hadn't occurred to me. I was thinking that the mask would move with the gradient, but it doesn't need to. Good thinking!

A brush and a gradient are very different and I was hoping that erasing could mask the gradient - so that an option to lock the mask into place would allow a user to shift or adjust the gradient as needed.

I think this is much better handled by brushes instead of gradients. What happens when you move or resize a gradient that's been partially erased?