Hi All,

Have just started using & getting familiar with Gimp. Obviously LOADS of things to learn. I started work on a project - imported a .png to work on. I had this as a background layer with 3 layers stacked on top which had various coloured pencil & brushwork on. My problem is saving & exporting the image (as .png) to a file on my Desktop. When I open the file later to carry on working on it all the layers have gone and it seems to have been 'rendered' to a single layer. Is it possible to save & export the file in it's working state so I can carry on working on it later.

Thanks.

In the gimp, Save and Export are different things. If you save as an xcf file, it should have all the layers. AFAIK a png file cannot have layers - so to "save" to png (or jpeg) you have to use the Export command. You will also find that xcf files are larger than pngs, so make sure you have enough space on your filesystem (probably not a big issue in 2.8, particularly if the dimensions of the png are screen-size, but in 2.9 the xcf files are bigger - I've filled up /home on one of my machines while editing photos and saving xcfs (with different names) at various points).

ĸen

@Ken
Hi Ken - Thanks very much for the reply. Very helpful. I think I have solved the problem. I export the .xcf file to Desktop - then into a new folder. I think I was saving then exporting the file before & it was ending up as a .png file in the new folder! Thanks for helping me clear that up - much appreciated.