Simon Roberts wrote:

Hi all,

I'm trying to put a bunch of photographs together as a collage. As I do so, I want to be able to resize and reposition each one repeatedly until I'm happy with the overall layout. So far what I'm doing is pasting each image into a new layer, however, this isn't very satisfactory because the layers are all the full size of the image, so when I resize them, I can't really see what the effect will be on the image itself. Similarly, repositioning the layer is a rather hit and miss way of repositioning the image that it contains.

What should I be doing?

TIA Simon

Image>Canvas size
Make it the size you like (or can).
Do not be afraid to make it bigger - you'll have more freedom to move pics. After you're satisfied with the result Image>Fit canvas to layers.

Simon Roberts writes:

I'm trying to put a bunch of photographs together as a collage. As I do so, I want to be able to resize and reposition each one repeatedly until I'm happy with the overall layout. So far what I'm doing is pasting each image into a new layer, however, this isn't very satisfactory because the layers are all the full size of the image, so when I resize them, I can't really see what the effect will be on the image itself. Similarly, repositioning the layer is a rather hit and miss way of repositioning the image that it contains.

In the Layer menu is an item "Autocrop Layer" (at least in The Gimp 2.2) that will resize the layer to the size of the pasted image.

On the other hand when I paste an image and then right click the Floating Selection in the Layers dialog and click New Layer the new layer has just the size of the pasted image.

Matthias

Simon Roberts schreef:

Hi all,

I'm trying to put a bunch of photographs together as a collage. As I do so, I want to be able to resize and reposition each one repeatedly until I'm happy with the overall layout. So far what I'm doing is pasting each image into a new layer, however, this isn't very satisfactory because the layers are all the full size of the image, so when I resize them, I can't really see what the effect will be on the image itself. Similarly, repositioning the layer is a rather hit and miss way of repositioning the image that it contains.

What should I be doing?

I often use Inkscape for that kind of work; it's vector based so it handles each imported bitmap as an object that can be resized and repositioned at will.

Quoting Simon Roberts :

I'm trying to put a bunch of photographs together as a collage. As I do so, I want to be able to resize and reposition each one repeatedly until I'm happy with the overall layout. So far what I'm doing is pasting each image into a new layer, however, this isn't very satisfactory because the layers are all the full size of the image, so when I resize them, I can't really see what the effect will be on the image itself.

It sounds as though you are creating a New Layer *then* pasting your photograph into it. If so, this is counter-productive. If the photographs are files on your harddrive, just create a New Image from the Toolbox File menu and from the Image's File menu do an "Open As Layer" to open the rest of the photographs 'all-at-once' (hold down the CTRL key as you click on each of the files in the Open Dialog). The photographs will be added to the image, each on a separate layer. You will most likely wish to perform an "Image->Fit canvas to layers" afterwards so that no layers extend beyond the image boundaries.

If I understand you correctly what you desire to do is not much different from what I did when I created the following iTunes spoof.

http://www.postbrickfilms.com/saulgoode/Images/ForumPosts/iGallery.jpg

Each of the images was on a separate layer (as well as the text; I had over 80 layers) and had to be resized and cropped to fitted the page in the proper location. The GIMP made this process very easy (it only took me about an hour). Since most of the images came from the Internet, I just used drag-n-drop to put them on new layers in the image.