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CHAPTER 5 SELECTION 211 When you re satisfied that you have everything aligned just right, it s a good time to crop the image. The idea is to get rid of any overhang from either original that might be noticeable around the borders. For instance, the netting-covered tree on the left side of Figure 5-43 doesn t blend well with the bush to its right. Now it s time to tune the mask a bit with a little hand-painting. Notice the area under the ostrich s neck where the layer is partially transparent and doesn t blend well into the giraffe s chest? Remember, a mask is just a black-and-white image. You can paint on it with paint tools, just as you painted on the QuickMask and channels earlier in this chapter. Anywhere you paint white will become opaque. Choose a fuzzy brush with the Paintbrush tool, or use the Airbrush, and paint in the area where you want more of the upper image to show up (Figure 5-45). You may find it helpful to flip back and forth between Show Layer Mask mode and normal mode to see what you re painting. A quick way of doing that is by Alt-clicking on the layer mask preview (Alt-Shift-click will also work on systems that use Alt-click for other purposes). The border of the preview will go green to show that you re seeing the layer mask itself, not its effect on the image. If you ever need to disable a layer mask temporarily, a quick way to do that is to Control-click on the layer preview. The border will turn red, to show the mask is disabled. Of course, you can always show, hide, enable, or disable layer masks through the context menu you access by right-clicking in the Layers dialog. Figure 5-45. Use Show Layer Mask while painting. Use painting tools to touch up areas where the gradient isn t quite enough.
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210 CHAPTER 5 SELECTION Notice the layer mask preview has become fuzzy on the bottom: this is the gradient that has been drawn on the layer mask. To see the layer mask at full size, use Show Layer Mask from the right-click menu in the Layers dialog (Figure 5-44). A shortcut for Show Layer Mask is to Alt-click (or Alt-Shift-click) on the layer preview; another Alt-click will show the image normally again. Notice that the layer mask s boundary changes to green in the dialog preview. Also notice that the layer mask applies only to the area where the ostrich image is; the edges, from the giraffe photo, are not affected. Figure 5-44. Show Layer Mask Now play with the image. You may want to change the location of your gradient slightly (by drawing a new gradient higher or lower), or use the Move tool to adjust the relative positions of the two layers. (Don t forget to select the layer, not the mask, before moving.)
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CHAPTER 5 SELECTION 209 It s fairly easy to forget in which direction to draw a gradient, and end up blackening what you wanted to whiten, and vice versa. (Remember, the layer mask preview will show you a thumbnail of what the mask looks like.) Fortunately, that s easy to fix: just draw another gradient in the opposite direction. You don t even need to undo! Don t forget that holding the Control key down as you drag a gradient constrains it to a multiple of 15 degrees. That s an easy way to get a gradient that s exactly vertical or exactly horizontal. Once you ve drawn on the layer mask, the image doesn t look that different, because of that translucent top layer. It s finally time to slide the opacity of the top layer back to 100%. You could have done that earlier, but without being able to see the bottom layer it would have been difficult to see where to place the gradient. With the top layer made fully opaque again, now the image becomes Figure 5-43. Figure 5-43. A gradient on the layer mask, and top layer back to fully opaque
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208 CHAPTER 5 SELECTION Now try drawing on the layer mask, to see for yourself how it works. Gradients are particularly useful with layer masks. I m going to keep the head, neck, and back of the ostrich, while making the legs invisible. The ostrich s upper body should blend in to the giraffe s lower body. That means I need the top of the ostrich s layer mask to be white, the bottom black, and a fade (a gradient) in between, right where I want the two images to merge. With the layer mask still selected, I choose the Gradient tool in the Toolbox and drag a vertical line where I want the fade (Figure 5-42). Figure 5-42. Drag where you want the gradient to be.
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CHAPTER 5 SELECTION 207 Figure 5-41. A preview appears for the new layer mask. First, it shows you what the layer mask looks like. The new mask is all white, so it looks like a white rectangle. Once you start drawing in the mask, you ll see that the preview will give you an approximate idea of the mask s appearance. Second, and more important: the border of the preview is white, indicating that it is active. That means if you draw in the image, you ll be drawing on the layer mask (just as you drew on the QuickMask or on a selection channel), not on the image itself. This can be quite confusing. An image normally shows no visible indication of whether there s a layer mask active. When working with layer masks, it s important to keep the Layers dialog visible. Use the preview border colors to tell you whether you re working with the layer or with its mask. The one that has a white border is the one that s active. You can select the layer at any time by clicking on the layer preview in the Layers dialog. Click again on the mask to select it. Or use Edit Layer Mask in the context menu to toggle between the two. Caution When a layer mask is selected, drawing isn t the only GIMP operation that will be affected. The Move tool will move the mask, not the layer (if you had the mask lined up with the layer, it won t be lined up any more). Fortunately, Undo fixes minor mistakes like that. Also, saving to some file types will issue warnings if you try to save when you have a layer mask selected. You can cancel the save, go back and select the layer, and then save again.
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206 CHAPTER 5 SELECTION Figure 5-40. Adding a layer mask The Add Layer Mask dialog lets you specify the color of the new layer mask. The default, White, means the full layer remains visible at first (until you change that by painting some black on the mask). This is almost always what you want, but the other options are there if you need them. The new layer mask shows up as a thumbnail preview in the Layers dialog (Figure 5-41). There are two important points to note about the layer mask preview.
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CHAPTER 5 SELECTION 205 Figure 5-39. Make the top image translucent in order to line up the two images. Now it s time for the layer mask. Right-click on the ostrich layer in the layers dialog and select Add Layer Mask… (Figure 5-40).
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204 CHAPTER 5 SELECTION Figure 5-38. A giraffe Start by pasting the ostrich onto the giraffe image. Copy from the ostrich photo, paste over the giraffe, then go to the Layers dialog and click the New Layer button. Rename the layers so you ll remember which is which. The next step is to line up the two images. But that s hard since you can t see the giraffe once the ostrich is on top of it. The Opacity slider in the Layers dialog saves the day. Set opacity to about 50% (or whatever makes it easy to see both images), and it s no problem to line them up (Figure 5-39).
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CHAPTER 5 SELECTION 203 Layer Masks A layer mask defines how much, and which parts, of a layer will be visible. Layer masks are not actually a selection tool. But you can use them in many of the same ways you d use a selection. For some jobs, a layer mask may be easier and more intuitive than using a selection. A layer mask is actually a black-and-white image, like a channel or the QuickMask. It represents the alpha channel of the layer. The whiter the mask is, the more the affected layer shows through the less transparent it is. Wherever the channel mask is dark, the image will appear transparent. It may help to think of the mask as a film negative placed on top of your image. Anywhere the film is black, you can t see your image; anywhere the film is clear (or in this case, white), the layer can be seen. Layer masks are particularly useful when combining images. For instance, I have an ostrich (Figure 5-37) and a giraffe (Figure 5-38). What if I want to make an ostraffe? Figure 5-37. An ostrich
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202 CHAPTER 5 SELECTION Figure 5-35. Channel Attributes. Click on the color button to bring up a color dialog. Figure 5-36. The channel s overlay is now a different color.
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