This is a simple newbie question,

I use a filter, say a drop shadow for example. later I think the dropped shadow is too much or in the wrong position. how can I go back and edit the filtered layer without having to delete it and re-create it?

Thanx!

On Fri, 2010-01-01 at 19:42 +0100, GoldStandard wrote:

I use a filter, say a drop shadow for example. later I think the dropped shadow is too much or in the wrong position. how can I go back and edit

the

filtered layer without having to delete it and re-create it?

Filters render to a layer or mask. The current version of GIMP has no equivalent of layer effects as you may have seen in Photoshop. However, there are some things you can do with rendered layers and masks to edit the effect created by the filter.

For a drop shadow you can move the layer to reposition it. If the shadow has too hard of an edge you can blur it. If the shadow has too soft of an edge you can sharpen it. If the shadow is too dark you can decrease the layer opacity. If the layer is too transparent you can duplicate the layer and merge the two shadow layers together.

You cannot, however, change the settings on the filter and have it apply to the previously rendered effect. If you need to change the settings in the filter than you need to rerun the filter. In the case of the drop shadow this is easy enough since the shadow exists on its own layer and that layer can be deleted without impacting the rest of the project.

Thank You all for the answers!
I use Photoshop and Fireworks and both allow me to edit a filtered layer after the fact. I will now learn to do it the Gimp way as well.

Thanx!

On 1/1/10, GoldStandard wrote:

This is a simple newbie question,

I use a filter, say a drop shadow for example. later I think the dropped shadow is too much or in the wrong position. how can I go back and edit

the

filtered layer without having to delete it and re-create it?

You don't really need to merge shadow layer with upper layer in the first place. And while GIMP doesn't allow changing filters' options at a later time, you definitely can delete layer with shadow and reapply the filter (well, it's a script really) to the source layer.

Alexandre

Thank You all for the answers!
I use Photoshop and Fireworks and both allow me to edit a filtered layer after the fact. I will now learn to do it the Gimp way as well.