Quoting Asif Lodhi :

I've begun using Gimp again after a long time. IIRC, one (more?) tool of Gimp had an option of making a selection that went through all the layers right to the bottom layer. And, IIRC, having made that type of selection in one of the top layers and performing an operation on it would carry out the operation on the combined output of all of the bottom layers. May be I am wrong here but I do vaguely recall such an option after reading on this list about non-destructive editing features of a commercial photo-retouching applications.

To my knowledge, there are no operations which behave that way.

If you have installed the GAP (GIMP Animation Package) then you can use the "Filter All Layers..." command but this is limited to only those filters which are specially registered with this capability (i.e., it does not work with "tools" such as Move or Rotate, nor with most "third-party" scripts). It is a very useful utility and nearly all of the GIMP's core filters ARE available.

In version 2.4 of the GIMP (which is in the final stages before release), if you have a selection and the active layer is linked to other layers, performing a Transform (rotate, scale, perspective, skew, or flip) will affect the contents of the selection on the active layer but will affect the entirety of the other linked layers. I can't recall if version 2.2 behaved this way.

The Move tool behaves differently in that it is not possible (in version 2.4) to use it to move the contents of the selection; and the established method of doing so (using the Selection tools) does not honor layer linkages.

In order to Move or Transform the selection contents across multiple layers, I have written a Script-fu which will "float" the selection for each linked layer. Once they are floated as separate layers, the floated layers can be Moved or Transformed as a group (the script links the floated layers) and subsequently merged back down to their original layers.

My script is quite a kludge: you must be careful with any changes to your layerstack while the selections are "floated", and some blending modes of layers will not behave as expected. If interested, you can read more about the script at
http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/topic.php?t=13996&start=1

In general, if you find yourself operating in a manner such that this script is useful then I would recommend that you rethink your overall approach to what you are editing and try not to have objects which you wish to treat separately sharing the same layer to begin with.

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 08:32:47 +0500 "Asif Lodhi" wrote:

Hi,

I've begun using Gimp again after a long time. IIRC, one (more?) tool of Gimp had an option of making a selection that went through all the layers right to the bottom layer. And, IIRC, having made that type of selection in one of the top layers and performing an operation on it would carry out the operation on the combined output of all of the bottom layers. May be I am wrong here but I do vaguely recall such an option after reading on this list about non-destructive editing features of a commercial photo-retouching applications.

Any help/hints?

The crop tool cuts through them all.

http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-crop.html

Owen