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So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

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Removing the crop frame Justin Gombos 07 Aug 08:46
  Removing the crop frame Sven Neumann 07 Aug 11:28
   So it's a layer border - not a crop frame Justin Gombos 07 Aug 17:31
    So it's a layer border - not a crop frame Sven Neumann 07 Aug 18:05
     So it's a layer border - not a crop frame Alan Horkan 08 Aug 03:34
    So it's a layer border - not a crop frame Carol Spears 08 Aug 09:41
     So it's a layer border - not a crop frame David Neary 10 Aug 00:05
      So it's a layer border - not a crop frame John Dorfman 10 Aug 04:06
       So it's a layer border - not a crop frame Carol Spears 10 Aug 06:58
     So it's a layer border - not a crop frame Justin Gombos 10 Aug 05:01
      So it's a layer border - not a crop frame Carol Spears 10 Aug 07:12
Justin Gombos
2004-08-07 08:46:23 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Removing the crop frame

I've been motivated to join this list by a problem that's been driving me nuts. At some point I activated a yellow and black crop frame, and it seems there is no way to turn it off. I would at least expect SELECT::NONE to do it, but that only unmarks regions other than the crop region. I'm about to trash this image and start over just to get rid of the crop box. It cuts off everything that crosses the line. The reset button in the crop tool window does not work. If I set the origin of the crop tool to 0,0 and set the offsets to the image size, it's only temporary for that command, and the old crop region continues to cut things off.

It seems there is a different cut-out box for each layer.

Any ideas?

Sven Neumann
2004-08-07 11:28:04 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Removing the crop frame

Hi,

Justin Gombos writes:

I've been motivated to join this list by a problem that's been driving me nuts. At some point I activated a yellow and black crop frame, and it seems there is no way to turn it off.

Yellow and black crop frame? That's the border of the active layer, not at all related to crop.

Sven

Justin Gombos
2004-08-07 17:31:23 UTC (over 19 years ago)

So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

* Sven Neumann [2004-08-07 06:59]:

Yellow and black crop frame? That's the border of the active layer, not at all related to crop.

Thanks for clearing that up - and thanks to those who privately replied. I guess I discovered the layer border at the same time I was playing with crop. And to add to the confusion, floating layers were trimming my image at the border, as if to be cropping. So I've spent a maddening few hours trying to use crop to manipulate what was really a layer border. For the record, the solution is to do a "layer to imagesize."

As a suggestion to any developers who may be following this thread, it would be really nice if there were a mouse-over that tells the user that the yellow/black line is a layer border. I then guess that would annoy the users who already know what it is.

Maybe a novice mode w/ mouse-overs? I know a photoshop user who is an open-source gnu fanatic, and really wants to switch to gimp, but insists that gimp is too difficult to use, and has some missing functionality. There's a good chance that the "missing functionality" is really a case of him not finding it.

Anyway, thanks to all who helped. Besides this issue, I've been quite pleased with gimp.

Sven Neumann
2004-08-07 18:05:37 UTC (over 19 years ago)

So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

Hi,

Justin Gombos writes:

As a suggestion to any developers who may be following this thread, it would be really nice if there were a mouse-over that tells the user that the yellow/black line is a layer border. I then guess that would annoy the users who already know what it is.

Tooltips on the image window would indeed be very very annoying.

Maybe a novice mode w/ mouse-overs?

I don't think so. But it would be nice if the help files explained this detail better. Perhaps you want to add a comment about this to http://wiki.gimp.org/gimp/GimpDocs or perhaps even contribute a section to the docs?

Sven

Alan Horkan
2004-08-08 03:34:19 UTC (over 19 years ago)

So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

On Sat, 7 Aug 2004, Sven Neumann wrote:

Date: 07 Aug 2004 18:05:37 +0200
From: Sven Neumann
To: Justin Gombos
Cc: gimp-user@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

Hi,

Justin Gombos writes:

As a suggestion to any developers who may be following this thread, it would be really nice if there were a mouse-over that tells the user that the yellow/black line is a layer border. I then guess that would annoy the users who already know what it is.

Tooltips on the image window would indeed be very very annoying.

The status bar could probably be used more often to provide more information in general.

For targets as small as the layer boundary neither tooltips nor status bar messages are a great solution though.

- Alan

Carol Spears
2004-08-08 09:41:24 UTC (over 19 years ago)

So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

On Sat, Aug 07, 2004 at 09:31:23AM -0600, Justin Gombos wrote:

* Sven Neumann [2004-08-07 06:59]:

Yellow and black crop frame? That's the border of the active layer, not at all related to crop.

Thanks for clearing that up - and thanks to those who privately replied. I guess I discovered the layer border at the same time I was playing with crop. And to add to the confusion, floating layers were trimming my image at the border, as if to be cropping. So I've spent a maddening few hours trying to use crop to manipulate what was really a layer border. For the record, the solution is to do a "layer to imagesize."

and what does this get you? you only need to do this if you need the extra space on the layer.

i suggest that you want to use Photoshop; a not as complex graphics app that has been built for people who cannot understand (or hope to learn to understand) different sizes of layers.

does anyone know if photoshop has a tooltip explaining the reason they need the same size layer everywhere?

As a suggestion to any developers who may be following this thread, it would be really nice if there were a mouse-over that tells the user that the yellow/black line is a layer border. I then guess that would annoy the users who already know what it is.

Maybe a novice mode w/ mouse-overs? I know a photoshop user who is an open-source gnu fanatic, and really wants to switch to gimp, but insists that gimp is too difficult to use, and has some missing functionality. There's a good chance that the "missing functionality" is really a case of him not finding it.

nothing that a little experience would fix. the gimp is not photoshop so it is a mistake to approach using it as if it is.

one thing that i do not understand is the need for floating layers. i dont think that this term is being used properly here. is there any reason that there needs to be the extra step to make pasting directly to an existing layer easier? it is so rare that i paste anything to an existing layer. it makes more sense to me to make the extra step for those rare occasions that you do paste right to an existing layer.

thanks,

carol

David Neary
2004-08-10 00:05:00 UTC (over 19 years ago)

So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

Hi Carol,

Carol Spears wrote:

does anyone know if photoshop has a tooltip explaining the reason they need the same size layer everywhere?

Actually, photoshop just keeps layers the size they need to be to hold their contents. If you draw over the edge of a layer, it will grow to accommodate what you draw. I'm not sure, however, if it shrinks the layer when you erase things.

There is even a bug open against the GIMP for this functionality, which would be quite nice. It would certainly lower the learning curve for beginners. "Why is nothing happenning when I draw?" must be one of the most common questions from a beginner who just happened to create a new layer.

one thing that i do not understand is the need for floating layers. i dont think that this term is being used properly here. is there any reason that there needs to be the extra step to make pasting directly to an existing layer easier?

I don't think so. I believe there is (or was) a bug about that too. IMHO, when you paste, you should paste above the active layer, into a new layer, and be done with it. People can then move the layer & merge down if they really want to, but as you say, once people discover layers they rarely anchor to the original layer directly.

Cheers, Dave.

John Dorfman
2004-08-10 04:06:15 UTC (over 19 years ago)

So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

one thing that i do not understand is the need for floating layers. i dont think that this term is being used properly here. is there any reason that there needs to be the extra step to make pasting directly to an existing layer easier?

I don't think so. I believe there is (or was) a bug about that too. IMHO, when you paste, you should paste above the active layer, into a new layer, and be done with it. People can then move the layer & merge down if they really want to, but as you say, once people discover layers they rarely anchor to the original layer directly.

Hi,

I'm new here and probably won't post often, but I think I have an answer to the origin of the floating layers. I was recently looking though the GIMP 1.3 manual. And if I remember correctly, it said something like this. There was a time in GIMP or some software that inspired GIMP where there were not layers. Thus for pasting, floating layers were born to crop and move, I believe, the pasted portion to the appropriate dimensions before anchoring. Hope this was what you were looking for!

-John

Justin Gombos
2004-08-10 05:01:20 UTC (over 19 years ago)

So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

* Carol Spears [2004-08-08 07:23]:

and what does this get you? you only need to do this if you need the extra space on the layer.

Unfortunately I discovered the float layer option _before_ I discovered the move tool, so I was trying to float everything that I needed to move. Combined with not knowing about the layer boundary, it was a disaster.

Now that I've come upon the move command, I actually prefer to have conservative layer borders and use the move tool. I have abandoned the float tool, but that's not to say that I won't find a use for it sometime.

i suggest that you want to use Photoshop; a not as complex graphics app that has been built for people who cannot understand (or hope to learn to understand) different sizes of layers.

Yes, photoshop from what I understand is much better for users first encountering this type of tool, because it requires very little understanding. They can accomplish layer manipulation w/out needing to study some of the esoteric details.

Gimp obviously requires people to grasp this foreign concept. This does not mean they "cannot understand," as you put it, but that they will not gain an adequate understanding of this from the gui interface. Until the GUI accommodates, this understanding is acquired via explanation.

nothing that a little experience would fix. the gimp is not photoshop so it is a mistake to approach using it as if it is.

As far as I'm concerned, Gimp is Photoshop, simply because I'm not doing anything complex enough to go beyond the basic functionality that's offered in both packages. Furthermore, I would hope to see Gimp get to a point where it can replace Photoshop. As it is now, it seems Photoshop is a superset of Gimp.

one thing that i do not understand is the need for floating layers. i dont think that this term is being used properly here. is there any reason that there needs to be the extra step to make pasting directly to an existing layer easier? it is so rare that i paste anything to an existing layer. it makes more sense to me to make the extra step for those rare occasions that you do paste right to an existing layer.

I can see how floating a layer could be useful in some rare instances, but now that I've switched to moving layers as opposed to objects on layers, I could also live without the floating capability.

If a majority of users agree that the floating capability is not very useful, maybe a good approach would be to remove it from the standard builds, and require users to proactively compile that option in if they want it.

Carol Spears
2004-08-10 06:58:58 UTC (over 19 years ago)

So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

On Mon, Aug 09, 2004 at 09:06:15PM -0500, John Dorfman wrote:

I'm new here and probably won't post often, but I think I have an answer to the origin of the floating layers. I was recently looking though the GIMP 1.3 manual. And if I remember correctly, it said something like this. There was a time in GIMP or some software that inspired GIMP where there were not layers. Thus for pasting, floating layers were born to crop and move, I believe, the pasted portion to the appropriate dimensions before anchoring. Hope this was what you were looking for!

this is exactly what we needed.

it is a historical thing, not a useful one -- this floating layer business.

i am going to forward this to the developer list with the suggestion that we drop the whole thing.

thanks for the research.

carol

Carol Spears
2004-08-10 07:12:03 UTC (over 19 years ago)

So it's a layer border - not a crop frame

On Mon, Aug 09, 2004 at 09:01:20PM -0600, Justin Gombos wrote:

* Carol Spears [2004-08-08 07:23]:

Unfortunately I discovered the float layer option _before_ I discovered the move tool, so I was trying to float everything that I needed to move. Combined with not knowing about the layer boundary, it was a disaster.

yeah, sorry it is there at all.

Now that I've come upon the move command, I actually prefer to have conservative layer borders and use the move tool. I have abandoned the float tool, but that's not to say that I won't find a use for it sometime.

unless you have disc space issues, saving an xcf with all of your layers in tact is a good thing, especially when going back to edit and such.

i suggest that you want to use Photoshop; a not as complex graphics app that has been built for people who cannot understand (or hope to learn to understand) different sizes of layers.

Yes, photoshop from what I understand is much better for users first encountering this type of tool, because it requires very little understanding. They can accomplish layer manipulation w/out needing to study some of the esoteric details.

Gimp obviously requires people to grasp this foreign concept. This does not mean they "cannot understand," as you put it, but that they will not gain an adequate understanding of this from the gui interface. Until the GUI accommodates, this understanding is acquired via explanation.

the gimp is more like real life i think. the layers would be like a collage going together.

if you start with gimp, it is just as difficult to go to photoshop to do things as it is for you right now to go the other way. at least it is/was for me.

nothing that a little experience would fix. the gimp is not photoshop so it is a mistake to approach using it as if it is.

As far as I'm concerned, Gimp is Photoshop, simply because I'm not doing anything complex enough to go beyond the basic functionality that's offered in both packages. Furthermore, I would hope to see Gimp get to a point where it can replace Photoshop. As it is now, it seems Photoshop is a superset of Gimp.

well we get told both all the time. just like photoshop, not as good as photoshop. photoshop does this and that better. crap. gimp isnt photoshop. i know gimp runs on much smaller and older computers than photoshop and they both render graphic images.

carol