not trying to shout in the title, just want to make this more visible.

currently, when you want to apply, lets say, a gradient mask to an image, you need to make a shape, apply to it the gradient with transparency, then have the image on top of the shape and make a mask from the 2 layers in the layers panel. the problem is that its very hard to control afterwards, to select the image or the gradient layer you need to search in the layers panel, its just difficult. plus figma doesnt (yet, i hope) smooth gradients like photoshop does, so the mask wont even turn out very nice. you should look at how photoshop does it, why not just have the mask strictly linked to the image, or on the image, if you will, without the need for extra layers. for an example, imagine you are working with a irregularly shaped png with transparence - it would be really uncomfortable to apply a fade transparency to that png using the current means, you would create that masking layer under the png, but the png is not a rectangle, it has the shape of a banana maybe, so how do you do it? i know its possible, but not very smooth.