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CHAPTER 3 INTRODUCTION TO LAYERS 109 Figure 3-34. The first frame has been pasted. If you ve gotten into good layer management habits, you may be tempted to name each layer, e.g., biplane 1 , biplane 2 , and so on. Although that s usually a very good idea, it isn t worthwhile at this stage. The layer names will change, perhaps several times, before we re through. Next, paste the same image again. (You shouldn t need to copy again first.) You may think that the second paste didn t work there s no visual indication that anything happened. Why not? Because GIMP pasted the second image right on top of the first. You can tell by looking at the Layers dialog that you have a new floating selection in addition to the biplane layer you pasted already. If you drag the new layer (using the Move tool) to its new location, you ll see there s another identical biplane layer right underneath it. Continue pasting, clicking New Layer, and then moving the pasted layer to a new position, until you ve made as many animation frames as you want. Take a look at your creation and decide if it looks like you want it. Your image may look something like Figure 3-35. Figure 3-35. All the planes pasted Note You can also use Duplicate Layer to make each new layer, rather than successive paste operations. Save your work (as an XCF) now. There s potential for error in the next step, so make sure you have a copy of what you ve already done.
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108 CHAPTER 3 INTRODUCTION TO LAYERS New Image (unless you tell it otherwise) will use the GIMP s current background color as the color of the new image. So click on the background color swatch in the Toolbox, and choose a nice light blue similar to the background of the plane. To match a color in an existing image, such as this plane s blue background, you can use a GIMP tool called Pick Colors from the Image (Figure 3-33). By default it sets the foreground color. In this case, we want it to set the background color, so check that box in the tool options. It also pops up a dialog with information about the color (which you can read, ignore, or dismiss). Figure 3-33. Picking colors from the image. Notice that Set background color has been checked. Once the background color has been set, it s time to create the new image, with File . New…, at whatever size is best for your animation. Add the Animation Frames Now comes the time-consuming part: adding each frame of the image. Start by copying (Edit . Copy or Control+C) the biplane image. Paste into the new image, click the New Layer button to turn the floating selection into a regular layer, and then use the Move tool to move it to where you want it for the first frame (Figure 3-34). Remember, the order of layers in the stack is the order in which they ll be played in the final animation, starting with the lowest layer.
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CHAPTER 3 INTRODUCTION TO LAYERS 107 Alpha to Selection Alpha to Selection selects everything in the current layer that is not transparent. The name is a bit confusing, since it suggests that only the transparent parts would be selected. Merge or Flatten Merge Visible Layers… and Flatten Image are two different ways of combining multiple layers into one. Merge retains any invisible layers, and shows a dialog asking what to do about the layer size of the result. Flatten merges all the visible layers, deletes any invisible layers, fills any transparent areas with the current background color, and gives you an image with a single layer and no alpha channel. Flatten is sometimes done for you, temporarily, when you save to a format such as JPEG that cannot represent transparency or layers. Bonus Project: Making Simple GIF Animations Animations are a fun use of layers. An animation is a set of images in which the picture changes slightly from frame to frame. Played one after the other, they make a movie. The GIMP represents each animation frame as a layer. The first frame is the lowest layer; the last frame is the top layer. Since you know how to create layers, there s not much more you need to know to make an animation. So let s jump right in and try one. I have a nice photo of a biplane (Figure 3-32). Wouldn t it be a kick to make it land and take off? Figure 3-32. A biplane. You can make it fly! Create a Base Image First, you need to create an image big enough for every part of the animation. About ten times the length of the plane, and four times the height should give you plenty of room. (You can always crop it later if you don t need that much room.) Usually you ll want to scale animations fairly small, especially if they ll be put on the web. An animation stores quite a few images in one file, so the file size can be quite large even if the pixel size isn t. If you re animating an image that starts as a high resolution digital photograph, you ll probably want to scale it down quite a bit. Also, a flat (single-color) background will compress to a smaller file size. But first, before you create the new image, why not give it a background the color of the sky?
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106 CHAPTER 3 INTRODUCTION TO LAYERS Edit Layer Attributes Edit Layer Attributes… brings up a dialog showing some properties of the layer you can change. Usually all this offers is the layer name. It s easier to change the layer name by double-clicking on the layer s name in the layer stack, so this item isn t very useful. Double-clicking on the Layer preview button is another way to bring up this dialog. Layer Controls New Layer…, Duplicate Layer, Anchor Layer, and Delete Layer have the same meanings as the corresponding buttons. Merge Down combines the active layer with the layer below, using the active layer s mode. Any transparency is retained. Discard Text Information will only appear for a text layer. It changes a text layer to a normal graphic layer. Lots of other operations will also do this as a side-effect. However, there s not much reason to do it before you need to. Layer Boundary Size Every layer has a size, which may be smaller than the whole image. For example, text layers are just barely big enough to hold the text they contain. Layer Boundary Size… lets you change a layer s size. Most often you ll use this to make a layer slightly larger for example, to make room if you want to blur a text layer, make a line longer, or increase the size of a white background area. Layer to Image Size Layer to Image Size is a special case of Layer Boundary Size: it makes the layer as large as the whole image. You often need to do this after increasing image size. Scale Layer You ve already seen Scale Layer…, which makes a layer and its contents larger or smaller. Mask Options Add, Apply, Delete, Show, Edit, Disable Layer Mask, and Mask to Selection, are all tools for working with layer masks which you ll learn about in Chapters 5 and 9. Add Alpha Channel Alpha is a fancy term graphics people use to mean transparency. Add Alpha Channel makes the layer capable of using transparency. It doesn t make anything transparent immediately, but if you use Edit . Clear, or use tools such as the Eraser, you will create transparent areas instead of white. If you see an error when you try to raise the bottom layer in the stack, or the arrow to raise the layer is grayed out, it may be because it needs an alpha channel.
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CHAPTER 3 INTRODUCTION TO LAYERS 105 Layer Context Menus Right-clicking on any layer line brings up a context menu offering operations on that layer (Figure 3-31). Caution Right-clicking on a layer line will also make it active. If you re not careful, it s possible to end up working on the wrong layer. Figure 3-31. The layer context menu The (Sometimes) Text Tool Item If the layer is a text layer, the top item will be Text Tool. Choosing this will display the Text Editor window, so you can make changes to the text. It also activates the Text tool options in case you need to make changes to color, font, size, or other text properties. If the layer is not a text layer, this item won t be there. A text layer is a special type of layer, indicated by a special icon in place of the normal layer preview. Many changes to text layers, such as drawing on them or rotating them, change the layer to a normal graphics layer. After that, you will no longer be able to edit the text in the Text Editor window, nor change the text properties.
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104 CHAPTER 3 INTRODUCTION TO LAYERS Layer Name To the right of the layer and mask previews is the name of the layer. Clicking on the layer name selects the layer; double-clicking allows you to edit the layer name (for example, to change Pasted Layer to Mars ). You can change layer names at any time. Layer Buttons Finally, at the bottom of the Layers dialog is a row of buttons that can create or delete layers, or change the order of existing ones. You can either click on them (to affect the active layer) or drag a layer on top of them. They all have tooltips, so you can remind yourself which button does what. The buttons each correspond to an action in the image window s Layer menu; some of them also have key bindings, which you can learn, or set, using the Layer menu. The New Layer Button New layer, the leftmost button, creates a (surprise!) new layer. You can choose the layer name, size, and fill color. (You ll create lots of new layers in Chapter 4 when you start making drawings.) Dragging an existing layer onto the New layer button creates a blank new layer with the same size and position. New layer can also convert a floating selection into a regular layer. The Raise and Lower Buttons The Raise and Lower buttons move the current layer up or down in the layer stack. If you want something to appear on top of something else, adjust the orders of the layers with these buttons. You can also change the order of layers by dragging a layer preview to a new place in the layer stack. Not only that, you can drag a layer preview out of the Layers dialog into a new image, to add a copy as a new layer in that image. You can even drag to the Toolbox, to create a new image containing only that layer. The Duplicate Layer Button Duplicate layer creates a new layer that is an exact copy of the active layer, or of any layer you drag onto the button. You can then move the layer up or down in the layer stack, or modify it in all kinds of ways. You ll see some ways to use this when you create an animation, at the end of this chapter. The Anchor Layer Button Anchor layer is used to merge a floating selection with whichever layer was previously active. The Delete Layer Button Delete layer deletes the active layer. You can also drag a layer to the button to delete it. Tip If you change your mind about a layer operation and need to undo, if Control+Z in the Layers dialog doesn t undo it, try undoing in the image window.
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CHAPTER 3 INTRODUCTION TO LAYERS 103 Select your drop shadow layer in the Layers dialog, look at the opacity slider, and notice that it s at something less than 100%. Try changing the opacity, and watch the effect it has on the appearance of the shadow. You can use the opacity slider to create all sorts of useful effects. For example, you can render a text layer translucent and make it float over an image. Or you can create a layer that s entirely white, make it mostly transparent, and lay it over the top of an image to create an impression of haze. That s just the tip of the iceberg. Layers List Below the opacity slider is the list of layers in the image (with a scrollbar if needed), one layer per line. This is also called the layer stack, because the layers are stacked one above the other. You re already familiar with most of the items shown, but there are a few you haven t seen yet. The Visibility Eye On the far left is the eyeball Visibility icon. When it s on, the layer is visible; when it s off, invisible. Clicking on the eye toggles the layer s visibility. Shift-clicking makes only that layer visible; another Shift-click brings all the other layers back. The Chain Link Next is the Chain link icon. When several layers display this icon, they are linked together. Moving or transforming any one of the layers (via tools such as Rotate) will work on all of them together. Shift-clicking on the chain link removes any layers that were already linked. This can offer a shortcut if you have a lot of layers linked and want to unlink them. The Layer Preview The Layer preview shows a small thumbnail image of what the layer looks like. You can t tell the difference between two text layers using the preview, but it can be useful for telling image layers apart. Double-clicking on the preview brings up a dialog that lets you edit the layer attributes (mostly, its name). Clicking on the layer preview is one way to select the layer (make it active). It also ensures that if you draw, you will draw on the layer and not its mask. Its mask? Layer Masks To the right of the layer preview is the Layer mask preview (if there is a layer mask). A mask controls which part of the layer is visible. Most layers don t have masks, but when a mask does exist, wherever it is white, the layer is visible. Where the mask is black, the layer will be invisible (transparent) even if that part of the layer has something in it. Clicking on the layer mask makes it active: if you draw with the mask selected, you ll be drawing in the mask, not in the layer. On a selected layer, the border of either the layer preview or the layer mask preview will be highlighted to indicate which one is active. A layer mask is another way of representing transparency. In some cases it s easier to work with a mask than to work with transparency directly. You ll learn how to use the basics of layer masks in Chapter 5.
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102 CHAPTER 3 INTRODUCTION TO LAYERS Title Area At the top of the dialog is the name of the current image, and a small preview of it. This is a drop- down menu: you can switch to a different image using this menu. Next to it, on the right, is a toggle for making the GIMP automatically update the Layers dialog whenever you switch to another image. (You only have one Layers dialog, so it can only show the layers in one image at a time.) Usually this is what you want, but everyone has differ ent styles of working, and some people may prefer to turn this off. Some versions of the GIMP may not show this title area by default. To turn it on or off, click on the icon for the Docking menu (see next section), and choose Show Image Selection. Tabs Below the current image menu are the tabs for any other dialogs that may be docked in this window (remember Docking from Chapter 1?). Typically Channels, Paths, and Undo History are docked in the same window with Layers, though Layers is by far the most commonly used. If you don t have any other dialogs docked in the window, the tab area won t be visible. The Docking menu, on the right just below the tabs, lets you close or un-dock the dialog, or configure the dialog window in other ways. The word Layers to the far left of the Docking menu is simply the name of the current tab. Some versions may also show an x button next to the Docking menu, a shortcut to remove the dialog from the window. If other dialogs are docked in the window, the window itself won t close just the current tab. The rest of the dialog applies to whichever layer is currently active. Layer Mode First is Layer mode. So far you ve only seen layers combined in Normal mode: anything that s opaque in the top layer is visible, while anything transparent lets you see through to lower layers. However, layers can be combined in many other ways, such as Overlay, Multiply, Dodge, or Burn, in which you see the two layers combined according to various mathematical functions. See Chapters 9 and 10 for more information on how to use other modes. Next is a button called Keep transparent. (The checkerboard icon next to it is similar to the checkerboard background the GIMP uses to indicate transparency, and is simply a reminder of the button s meaning.) Its position varies with the GIMP version: it may be to the right of the Layer mode menu or below it, but look for the checkerboard icon. When Keep transparent is checked, you will not be able to draw anywhere that the current layer is transparent. This is very useful for drawing, but is also a common source of confusion. You ll learn more about this option in Chapter 4. Opacity Next is the Opacity slider. In addition to having transparent areas, a layer can be entirely transparent, entirely opaque, or anything in between. You ve seen that indirectly when making drop shadows: the transparency entry in the Drop-Shadow dialog sets the opacity for the drop shadow layer.
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CHAPTER 3 INTRODUCTION TO LAYERS 101 Figure 3-29. The poodle with Mars for a nose A Tour of the Layers Dialog You ve seen how to do quite a few things with layers. Now it s time to explore the other features of the Layers dialog. It s small, but it packs a lot of information (Figure 3-30). Figure 3-30. The Layers dialog with all features labeled
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100 CHAPTER 3 INTRODUCTION TO LAYERS Figure 3-28. Using the Measure tool to measure the poodle s nose Click in the image at one end of what you want to measure, and then drag to the other end. At the bottom of the image window, the Measure tool will report the distance between the two points, the angle, and (in GIMP 2.4) how big a rectangle you d need to use to cover the diagonal. The tool says the poodle s nose is about 75 pixels across. So I should scale the Mars layer to 75 pixels if I want it to be about the same size as the current nose. I ll make it slightly bigger, since I want the nose to stand out. Scale the layer, use the Move tool to move it precisely where you want it and you re done! Figure 3-29 shows the poodle with Mars for a nose.
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