Simon Roberts wrote:

Hi All,

I'm really sorry this is probably a dumb/rtfm type question but I guess I don't know enough to know what to look for.

I simply want to make a selection transparent. I can make the selection OK, but when I click the little red eraser thingy (for which the tooltip says "Erase to background or transparency" I can't make it make the selection transparent no matter what I try.

Can anyone tell me what I should be doing please?

Many thanks, Simon

Try Layer->Transparency->Add alpha channel. And then just cut your selection (ctrl-X).

Best regards,

Olivier

On Friday 10 March 2006 19:49, Simon Roberts wrote:

Hi All,

I'm really sorry this is probably a dumb/rtfm type question but I guess I don't know enough to know what to look for.

I simply want to make a selection transparent. I can make the selection OK, but when I click the little red eraser thingy (for which the tooltip says "Erase to background or transparency" I can't make it make the selection transparent no matter what I try.

Can anyone tell me what I should be doing please?

Sure.

1. Invoke the Layers dialog. (Dialogs -> Layers).

2. Right click the layer that you wish to make transparent and select "Add Layer Mast". Select "Layer's alpha channel" in the dialog that pops up.

3. Select the layer mask (that's the square to the right in the layer).

4. Select the "Fill with a colour" tool from the GIMP's toolbox.

5. Select a black colour.

6. Make sure that you are filling with the foreground colour, and filling the entire selection.

7. Click the mouse inside the selection in the image window.

8. Right click on the layer in the layers dialog and select "Apply Layer Mask".

-------

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Shlomi Fish

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish shlomif@iglu.org.il Homepage: http://www.shlomifish.org/

95% of the programmers consider 95% of the code they did not write, in the bottom 5%.

On Fri, Mar 10, 2006 at 09:49:00AM -0800, Simon Roberts wrote:

Hi All,

I'm really sorry this is probably a dumb/rtfm type question but I guess I don't know enough to know what to look for.

I simply want to make a selection transparent. I can make the selection OK, but when I click the little red eraser thingy (for which the tooltip says "Erase to background or transparency" I can't make it make the selection transparent no matter what I try.

you answered your own question (see your signature) Erase to "background or transparency". if you are not erasing to transparency then you are erasing to what?

Can anyone tell me what I should be doing please?

photographs, jpegs, many (but not all) png and other file formats do not have the notion of transparency built into them. this notion is called the alpha channel and it is mathematically an additional stack of color that can also include levels of transparency. right click on the layer dialog and tell gimp to add this extra stack of color capacity to the image you are trying to erase to transparency. "Add transparency" or something like that.

gimp does not fill with transparency. it erases, clears, cuts or uses masks to make transparency.

gimp handles selections its own way. forget everything you know about them.

carol