[Forkjulle]

While Gimp is great, one of its biggest downfalls is the way in which it handles resizing and rotating images.

- Open a new image.
- Draw / manipulate / play with your image.
- Add layers, colours and images included.

Now, let's say you want to trace an image that's at the bottom of your layer stack. But that image is the wrong size, so you select the area you want to trace, drop its transparency down to 10%, and attempt to scale it to the size you've been sketching on the layer above it. The moment you attempt to scale / rotate it, it shoots back to 100% transparency, which is unintuitive because you can no longer see what's beneath the layer. In Photoshop, an area that is being scaled / rotated stays at the transparency you gave it.

Is there a way to make this NOT happen?

[ofnuts]

Forkjulle, on 22 August 2011 - 12:11 PM, said:

While Gimp is great, one of its biggest downfalls is the way in which it handles resizing and rotating images.

- Open a new image.
- Draw / manipulate / play with your image.
- Add layers, colours and images included.

Now, let's say you want to trace an image that's at the bottom of your layer stack. But that image is the wrong size, so you select the area you want to trace, drop its transparency down to 10%, and attempt to scale it to the size you've been sketching on the layer above it. The moment you attempt to scale / rotate it, it shoots back to 100% transparency, which is unintuitive because you can no longer see what's beneath the layer. In Photoshop, an area that is being scaled / rotated stays at the transparency you gave it.

Is there a way to make this NOT happen?

No, the transformed layer will always go to the top when worked on, but to mitigate this the scale/rotate tools and some others have an "Opacity" slider in the "preview" section in the Tool options...

[billps]

Forkjulle, on 22 August 2011 - 12:11 PM, said:

While Gimp is great, one of its biggest downfalls is the way in which it handles resizing and rotating images.

- Open a new image.
- Draw / manipulate / play with your image.
- Add layers, colours and images included.

Now, let's say you want to trace an image that's at the bottom of your layer stack. But that image is the wrong size, so you select the area you want to trace, drop its transparency down to 10%, and attempt to scale it to the size you've been sketching on the layer above it. The moment you attempt to scale / rotate it, it shoots back to 100% transparency, which is unintuitive because you can no longer see what's beneath the layer. In Photoshop, an area that is being scaled / rotated stays at the transparency you gave it.

Is there a way to make this NOT happen?

When you first click on the image to scale or rotate, change the opacity in the Tool Options dialog. Then when you rescale or rotate you will be able to see through it. Remember - GIMP isn't Photoshop - GIMP is different!!

[Forkjulle]

billps, on 23 August 2011 - 12:12 PM, said:

Forkjulle, on 22 August 2011 - 12:11 PM, said:

While Gimp is great, one of its biggest downfalls is the way in which it handles resizing and rotating images.

- Open a new image.
- Draw / manipulate / play with your image.
- Add layers, colours and images included.

Now, let's say you want to trace an image that's at the bottom of your layer stack. But that image is the wrong size, so you select the area you want to trace, drop its transparency down to 10%, and attempt to scale it to the size you've been sketching on the layer above it. The moment you attempt to scale / rotate it, it shoots back to 100% transparency, which is unintuitive because you can no longer see what's beneath the layer. In Photoshop, an area that is being scaled / rotated stays at the transparency you gave it.

Is there a way to make this NOT happen?

When you first click on the image to scale or rotate, change the opacity in the Tool Options dialog. Then when you rescale or rotate you will be able to see through it. Remember - GIMP isn't Photoshop - GIMP is different!!

Okay thanks. Will try that.

I understand that Gimp is different, but surely it makes more intuitive for the layer to respect the user's opacity settings, when scaling / rotating?

[billps]

Forkjulle, on 23 August 2011 - 12:36 PM, said:

Okay thanks. Will try that.

I understand that Gimp is different, but surely it makes more intuitive for the layer to respect the user's opacity settings, when scaling / rotating?

I have to be honest, because I've used it for years I am now used to GIMPs form of intuition. Call it quirky if you like - almost every tools settings are in the Tool Options. So if you use your new found "GIMP intuition" instead of your "Photoshop intuition", be sure to look in there first.

I use Photoshop too, and I agree the differences can be quirky. Even I can get confused from time to time - it's a bit like speaking French and Spanish and mixing them up sometimes.

LOL

This post has been edited by billps: 23 August 2011 - 08:55 PM

[ofnuts]

Forkjulle, on 23 August 2011 - 12:36 PM, said:

I understand that Gimp is different, but surely it makes more intuitive for the layer to respect the user's opacity settings, when scaling / rotating?

More intuitive != more useful. Take for instance grafting someone's face over someone else's. In the final result, the grafted face should be fully opaque. But if you want to position/size it correctly, it's better if you can still see the eyes/nose/mouth of the covered face, so during the transform you want the grafted face to be quite transparent.

[Forkjulle]

ofnuts, on 23 August 2011 - 11:18 PM, said:

Forkjulle, on 23 August 2011 - 12:36 PM, said:

I understand that Gimp is different, but surely it makes more intuitive for the layer to respect the user's opacity settings, when scaling / rotating?

More intuitive != more useful. Take for instance grafting someone's face over someone else's. In the final result, the grafted face should be fully opaque. But if you want to position/size it correctly, it's better if you can still see the eyes/nose/mouth of the covered face, so during the transform you want the grafted face to be quite transparent.

Yes, because grafting faces is what most Gimp users do.

Look, whenever Gimp is criticised, it's funny how defensive adherents become. I'm simply saying that if I change the transparency of a layer, then it should respect that and stay like that until I change it. Otherwise, I might as well have not changed its transparency.

[ofnuts]

Forkjulle, on 24 August 2011 - 06:03 AM, said:

Yes, because grafting faces is what most Gimp users do.

I did pick that example because that's a very frequent question by newcomers in Gimp forums. Of course doing it correctly requires a lot of skill.

Forkjulle, on 24 August 2011 - 06:03 AM, said:

Look, whenever Gimp is criticised, it's funny how defensive adherents become.

Just showing you the other side of the coin.

[Forkjulle]

ofnuts, on 24 August 2011 - 07:52 AM, said:

Forkjulle, on 24 August 2011 - 06:03 AM, said:

Yes, because grafting faces is what most Gimp users do.

I did pick that example because that's a very frequent question by newcomers in Gimp forums. Of course doing it correctly requires a lot of skill.

Forkjulle, on 24 August 2011 - 06:03 AM, said:

Look, whenever Gimp is criticised, it's funny how defensive adherents become.

Just showing you the other side of the coin.

Not trying to cause a flame war; just discussing the unintuitive way in which Gimp uses layer transparency with rotating / scaling.

Why is it silly to want the layer to respect the transparency I set? Seems logical enough to expect that, if I set a layer to 20% transparency, and then scale it, that it remains at 20% transparency while I'm scaling it.