When I go to crop something, Gimp crops it very nicely but, unlike, PS, the image is then impossible to do anything else with as I now have a floating layer. My instinctive response was to flatten and save but flatten was greyed out. Then I discovered this anchoring layer command and that has solved a lot of problems. Anchor, then flatten, then save is pretty good. This also seems to come into play when I cut and paste. The frustrating thing there is that I seem to be able to cut, paste and move once but they flatten into one image after I do that. I suspect I need to do something every time I do a paste that converts the paste into its own layer. PS does this automatically. So far this floating selection and the vagaries of cut-past and then move have been my major pitfalls but I think this is merely because they don't work like PS does when doing these tasks. I also can't use the text tool but that is because I need to do some reading about it and, again, it works very differently from PS's use of text tool. That something works differently from PS doesn't mean it is either better or worse than PS. It is just different and that means there is a learning curve on it. I would rather there be no learning curve but realistically that is not how software programs work.

i'm on a Mac and I think my version operates a little differently from what most of you are using. It seems most of you are on Windows or Linux.

Here's the download situation if you are on a Mac for Gimp:

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

This may tell you what I can and cannot do.

carol

On 9/29/07, rcook@pcug.org.au wrote:

When I go to crop something, Gimp crops it very nicely but, unlike, PS, the
image is then impossible to do anything else with as I now have a

floating

layer.

Strange!

When I do a
Image->Crop, it just gives me a new image. using 2.2.13 Image->Crop to Selection in 2.4rc2

Owen

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: carol irvin
Date: Oct 1, 2007 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] floating selection To: Greg

It kept happening no matter what I tried UNTIL I tried this anchoring. Then I flattened after I anchored. I could then save it with any file extension. Remember that I am using the Gimp version for Mac on my macbook so that possibly makes my experience a bit different from a Windows or Linux Gimp user. If you see "floating selection" appear over in the layers palette as its own layer in your version of Gimp though, anchoring will solve your problem.

carol

On 10/1/07, Greg wrote:

--- carol irvin wrote:

When I go to crop something, Gimp crops it very nicely but, unlike, PS, the image is then impossible to do anything else with as I now have a floating layer.

Interesting. Does this happen with GIMP's file format and/or others? I was cropping and editing a bunch of .BMP files yesterday and had no problem re-saving them as jpegs.

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The Mac doesn't have right click. Instead, you use with your left hand the control key and with your
right the mouse bar on the macbook (or a left mouse button if you were using an actual mouse). I have
used this on the floating layer and no context menu comes up. so i think that one limitation I have on
the Gimp is that I have to use the menus. So I can go into the layer menu and make a new layer with that.

Initially I really missed right click. However, I screwed up my thumb last summer using right click on my
windows laptop without a mouse. I had to do a twisting motion with my thumb on the mousing device
on the laptop. Anyway, I ended up having to go into physical therapy for several months because of this,
with ultrasound and exercises plus anti-inflammatory rx. By using the Control (left hand) Click (right hand) on the Mac, there is no way I can re-injure myself like that.

so, i do not bemoan loss of some features when I compare how much pain and work I had to go through to get my right thumb back in service!

For those of you who are developers, putting the context menus on the mac version with control click would be a very nice improvement, however.

thanks for the welcome!

carol