On 06/09/2013 12:11 PM, Eduard Braun wrote:

Hello everybody,

I don't now if this is just a stupid question or if this is a software limitation or if there is even a setting for it I haven't found yet but why are we not able to edit layers outside the canvas?

I often create images were the canvas size is fixed (e.g. display resolution). I then add layers to it that are often larger than the canvas. I would now want to select the superfluous parts of the just added images (e.g. to make them transparent), but I can't select parts of the layers that are not on canvas!

I also can not see any layer content that is off-canvas. A workflow I'd prefer would be copy everything somewhere (not necessarily inside the canvas) and then align it layer by layer, which is hard when one can not see the content of the off-canvas layers.

I hope my question is clear and am looking for your answers!

Hey Eduard,

I don't think we can do much other than apply a layer-wide filter, to edit image content that is off the canvas.

In situations where I need to work with things that are off the canvas, I make the canvas large enough to hold everything that extends past the intended "final" dimensions of the image, then crop the image or restore the original canvas dimensions later.

To keep track of the original canvas boundaries, add guides by doing control-a (select all), followed by image > guides > new guides from selection, followed with control-shift-a (select none) and image > fit canvas to layers.

The guides mark the boundaries of the original and/or final canvas, and make it easy to crop the image to those dimensions. Or, select the area marked by the guides and do Image > Fit Canvas To Selection to restore the original canvas dimensions and preserve the off-canvas content.

:o)

Steve

On 06/09/2013 11:14 AM, Steve Kinney wrote:

On 06/09/2013 12:11 PM, Eduard Braun wrote:

Hello everybody,

I don't now if this is just a stupid question or if this is a software limitation or if there is even a setting for it I haven't found yet but why are we not able to edit layers outside the canvas?

I often create images were the canvas size is fixed (e.g. display resolution). I then add layers to it that are often larger than the canvas. I would now want to select the superfluous parts of the just added images (e.g. to make them transparent), but I can't select parts of the layers that are not on canvas!

I also can not see any layer content that is off-canvas. A workflow I'd prefer would be copy everything somewhere (not necessarily inside the canvas) and then align it layer by layer, which is hard when one can not see the content of the off-canvas layers.

I hope my question is clear and am looking for your answers!

Hey Eduard,

I don't think we can do much other than apply a layer-wide filter, to edit image content that is off the canvas.

In situations where I need to work with things that are off the canvas, I make the canvas large enough to hold everything that extends past the intended "final" dimensions of the image, then crop the image or restore the original canvas dimensions later.

To keep track of the original canvas boundaries, add guides by doing control-a (select all), followed by image > guides > new guides from selection, followed with control-shift-a (select none) and image > fit canvas to layers.

The guides mark the boundaries of the original and/or final canvas, and make it easy to crop the image to those dimensions. Or, select the area marked by the guides and do Image > Fit Canvas To Selection to restore the original canvas dimensions and preserve the off-canvas content.

Another method I've used is to create a new layer the required canvas size named, e.g. TargetCanvas, filled with anything you want. This layer simply sits behind the background, and is made invisible until you need to trim the canvas for export.

Then, as Steve suggested, create a larger canvas big enough for all you need to do. Do all the manipulating you want, and when you're done, then save the xcf file so you can go back where you were in the editing phase and fix it if it turned out wrong.

Then, make the TargetCanvas layer visible and active, Select All, crop to selection, turn off the TargetCanvas layer, and export (e.g. to png or jpg). At this point, don't save (to the xcf file) because if you now save this working version your oversize work canvas will be lost.

I find this workflow quite comfortable.

-- Burnie

The workflow is reasonably clean, and

On 06/09/2013 07:24 PM, Eduard Braun wrote:

Thanks for the workarounds, I appreciate them very much!

But to summarize, this seems to be an issue not just for me, right? So is there a reason GIMP doesn't support off-canvas editing out-of-the-box to make such workarounds unnecessary? I mean, would there be any downsides of allowing editing content outside the canvas borders? Are there any design limitations of the underlying code that make it hard to impossible to implement such a feature?

I'm guessing this is something nobody thought much about. Very few GIMP tools "go wrong" when working on and past the edges of a canvas-sized layer - Gaussian Blur with a high radius and the Healing Tool come to mind.

I wonder about how the interface would represent the edge of the canvas, without shading image content that goes past the edge - a problem if editing that content - or drawing lines effectively the same as guide lines to show the canvas boundary. In the latter case, a plugin that automates the processes outlined earlier might do the job for users who need to do this over and over.

:o)

Steve

On 06/09/2013 06:14 PM, Steve Kinney wrote:

On 06/09/2013 07:24 PM, Eduard Braun wrote:

Thanks for the workarounds, I appreciate them very much!

But to summarize, this seems to be an issue not just for me, right? So is there a reason GIMP doesn't support off-canvas editing out-of-the-box to make such workarounds unnecessary? I mean, would there be any downsides of allowing editing content outside the canvas borders? Are there any design limitations of the underlying code that make it hard to impossible to implement such a feature?

I'm guessing this is something nobody thought much about. Very few GIMP tools "go wrong" when working on and past the edges of a canvas-sized layer - Gaussian Blur with a high radius and the Healing Tool come to mind.

I wonder about how the interface would represent the edge of the canvas, without shading image content that goes past the edge - a problem if editing that content - or drawing lines effectively the same as guide lines to show the canvas boundary. In the latter case, a plugin that automates the processes outlined earlier might do the job for users who need to do this over and over.

:o)

Steve

With my limited experience, the behavior of off-canvas editing strikes me as reasonable as it is. Simply fitting canvas to layers usually works, but in the special case that the original canvas size (print, pixels, etc) wants to be preserved, the "workarounds" (i.e. specified workflows) require very few extra steps.

One downside to allowing off-canvas editing is that an inexperienced person might assume the edits outside the canvas are going to be a part of the picture. When that person finishes, exports the image, and closes the file, the off-canvas work is all lost. Is that what he or she wants?

-- Burnie