[NTLUG:Discuss] Anybody good with GIMP?

[Leroy Tennison]

steve wrote:

> Leroy Tennison wrote:
>
>> My question involves animated GIFs in GIMP: How can I get a given 
>> layer to appear by itself in the Image Window (or Main Interface if 
>> that's what it's called) so that it can be viewed/edited?
>>
>> I have discovered the Layers/Channels/Paths dialog and have been able 
>> to successfully manipulate frame order and delete a frame but haven't 
>> found any way to view/edit one.  Can anybody help me out or point me 
>> to a tutorial specifically on this subject?
>>
>> Thanks for your help,
>
>
> I'm using GIMP 2.0 here - but I'm pretty sure it's much
> the same in all versions.
>
> Load the GIF file in the usual way.
>
> Open the Layers dialog (which was Layers/Channels/Paths in pre-2.0).
>
> The one layer that's highlighted is the layer you are editing - BUT
> what you're seeing on the screen is a combination of all the layers
> with eyeball icons next to them.
>
> So to cleanly edit one layer, click on the eyeballs on all the *other*
> layers to get rid of them, then make sure the layer you want to edit
> is both highlighted (so you can change it) *and* has an eyeball next
> to it (so you can see it).
>
> However, with many animated GIF's, some or all layers are just
> modifications of the background layer - that optimises the
> animation to make the file size smaller.  In that case, you'd need
> to toggle on the eyeball on the bottom layer (named 'Background')
> in order to be able to see what you are doing...but this is hopelessly
> confusing/difficult to do in practice.
>
> Hence, in the menu under 'Filters/Animation' you'll find a button
> marked 'Unoptimise'.  Click that and you'll get a set of layers
> where every layer carries the complete image for one moment in time.
>
> You can use the 'Filters/Animation/Playback...' dialog to view your
> animation at any time in the painting process.
>
> This is really easy to edit - but if you save it back out again,
> you'll get a much larger GIF file.
>
> So when you've finished editing, go back into the 'Filters/Animation'
> menu and hit 'Optimise (for GIF)' and it'll rip out everything that
> didn't change from one frame to the next.  The resulting file should
> be much smaller/simpler.
>
> The other ikky thing about GIF's (animated or not) is that they use
> a small color palette of (IIRC) just 256 colours.  This results in
> some GIMP operations like smoothing and blurring and airbrushing to
> not work very well.  You may need to go into the menu and pick
> 'Image/Mode/RGB' to get a full RGB image for painting - but note that
> when you save it out as a GIF again, it's going to knock you back
> to 256 colors again - and your final result may not look as nice as
> the thing you painted.
>
>
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I have learned more in two email replies than I would have ever dreamed. 
 Thank you, I now know where to go with GIMP questions (and it's not 
Google...).